E342 Wednesday Kelly Reeder

This past summer I worked at an early childhood development center and found myself reading books to children all day long. Depending on the activities that we were doing each day, the teachers would choose a book that somewhat fit that event. One day our soccer lessons got canceled due to a storm, so we had to stay inside. That was the day that I found my favorite children's book of all time. The book is called Thunder Cake. Not only am I in love with the book, the author, Patricia Polacco, is also a favorite of mine. She writes many creative children’s books, but this particular one I found very interesting. It is about a young girl who goes to visit her grandmother during a very large storm. The young girl has always been afraid of thunder but knows that every time a storm comes her grandmother makes her famous cake, Thunder Cake. Even though the young girl is very frightened by the storm, her grandmother insists that she helps her run around their farm to help gather different ingredients for the cake. Since the girl loves Thunder Cake she is determined to help her grandmother gather everything she needs to make the cake. In doing this she has to go out into the storm to collect eggs and milk from the noisy barn. In the end the girl completes her task and they bake her favorite cake. Her grandmother helps her realize that she was very brave for facing her fears. Never again was the girl afraid of thunderstorms, but looked forward to them so that she can have her grandmother’s famous Thunder Cake.
The reason I loved this book was because it taught a very valuable lesson to children. It showed them that facing your fears is very important and that some of the fears that they have can be eliminated by simply facing them. I also thought that reading a story like this on a rainy day could help to calm some of the students who are afraid of storms.
At the end of this book the author gives a recipe for the thunder cake. I made copies of this recipe to send home with families. One little girl in my class liked this book so much that she actually made the thunder cake and brought it in for our class to eat as a special snack. Each time we had another rainy day the children would bring this book out and ask if I would read it to them.
This books can be purchased from this website--> http://www.amazon.com/Thunder-Cake-Patricia-Polacco/dp/0698115813