Stellaluna

Stellaluna by Janell Cannon, is a wonderful story book for children to learn the important lesson that we are all different and unique but can live together and be friends. As cheesy as this sounds I think that the whole world needs to read this book! Stellaluna gets lost from her mother bat and finds herself living in a nest with baby birds her same age. They find out the many differences between their species but all realize in the end that their differences should keep them from being friends. I plan on using this book in my future classroom in the very beginning of the year, the middle and the end. In the beginning we will discuss as a class what makes the bats and birds different, whats makes us as individuals different and how we can still work together and be friends, despite our differences. The middle of the year reading will serve as a reminder and refresher to help with any problems that may have arose in the first semester. The end reading will serve as a demonstration of hopefully, how far we have come as a class and a group of people that are working together despite differences and what lessons we have learned through this process. I think this book can make a huge difference in the classroom environment at any school and will hopefully continue to help the children who find themselves in my class throughout their schooling. I hope that they can remember the story and apply it to whatever they are facing. Not many stories I think have this much of a broad impact and potential for children today and I think teachers, parents and the community can utilize this book for a great purpose. I apologize if I seem overly excited about this story, but my mother who is a teacher uses this book every year for the same purpose and I have seen the impact it can have. It is much easier for students to learn lessons through the difficulties of a character and apply them to his situation, than to have to learn them himself, alone.