A Great Read Aloud to Start the Year

As I'm preparing to go back into the classroom in a few weeks, I'm sifting through my read aloud books to decide which I should start the year with. One book that I love reading to kids of any age is Odd Velvet by Mary Whitcomb (author) and Tara Callahan King (illustrator). The story is about a young girl whose classmates think she is odd because her clothes, lunches, interests and name are so different from their own. As the story progresses, they take the time to get to know her and find they really like her for what makes her unique.

I use this as a start to the character education I do in my classroom by teaching why your oddities and peculiarities make you interesting, setting the stage that we will spend the year celebrating our differences. My kids have requested to hear this book time and time again, and will even ask me to read it when we have visiting classes come in for read aloud. It can be difficult to find in bookstores, so click here to find it on Amazon.

Fun side note ... I first became introduced to this book because my mom's name is Velvet and the character is a lot like her (physically and behaviorally). A client of hers brought it to her as a gift several years ago, and for a while she wondered if the author had known her in her childhood because the similarities were uncanny.