Be prepared to get out the newspaper and rubber boots after reading it.Each week I share at least one reading photo of the week. Worth the purchase if you have young patrons. Just an all around beautiful book for sharing with young audiences (and maybe older ones if you are looking at visual storytelling either as part of language arts or even in a something like a film class). We have had great success sharing the telling of the story with it too. We have it in our home library and it’s great for my pre-reader daughter to sit and look at.

The book is wordless which makes it a little more difficult to use with story time groups, but I think there is plenty of fodder for discussion. Pay special attention to the end papers, they have instructions for folding the boat and kite that you see the boy in the story. It also emphasizes that you can have fun even when the weather isn’t what you expected. They capture the dreariness of a rainy day, but the pop of yellow of the little boy’s rain coat and boots draw your eye to him as he moves across the page and through the story. The illustrations are so soft and beautiful. (The irony of me harping on diversity while looking for books that don’t isn’t lost on me.)įloat is such a beautiful story about adventure, creativity and resiliency. Or make the books seem like books only our black students would want. Those books have their place, but as I’ve noted recently I’m trying to be cautious that all our books that feature diversity don’t create some sort of narrative that makes all African Americans seem like they are poor, single parent homes. Basically books that don’t default white, cis, able bodied, etc. Ones where the story features a child of color (or any kind of diversity), but doesn’t draw attention to their diversity. These are the kinds of books I’m really looking for. The boy and his boat dance in the downpour and play in the puddles, but when the boy sends his boat floating down a gutter stream, it quickly gets away from him. So of course the little boy goes on the hunt for his beloved boat, and when the rain lets up, he finds himself on a new adventure altogether. From Goodreads: A little boy takes a boat made of newspaper out for a rainy-day adventure.

Float by daniel miyares