From: linnea hendrickson <lhendr>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2000 21:10:12 -0700

I read "Joseph" again today to 1 kindergarten, two first grades and one second grade class. And I also read the beginning of "Bud" to the second-graders, all of whom began feeling their teeth with their tongues when I got to the loose tooth part (try saying that fast!). Comments on
"Joseph" included how bright the colors were and how well the pictures stood up from the back of the room. The music teacher was there again for the second graders and we sang both "There Was an Old Lady" (which almost all knew) while I held up the book, and then the song in the back of
"Joseph." Here we noticed the difference that the words in Joseph don't follow the song, so you can't sing along with the book the way we did with
"Old Lady," which made me wonder why the song was changed -- to make the book fit the requisite number of pages? The "Old Lady" offered more opportunities for performance, with various singers or speakers chiming in with the animals' comments at the refrain -- I could see this developing into quite a hilarious performance, while the book "Joseph" definitely cannot be sung -- the song has to be sung before or after reading the book
-- and the bits and pieces of text relate to the main story in a different way than the comments in "Old Lady."

It is amazing how reading the same book 20 + times in one week to children
(and adults) of various ages influences one's perceptions of the work!

Linnea

Linnea Hendrickson Lhendr at unm.edu http://www.unm.edu/~lhendr
Received on Thu 27 Jan 2000 10:10:12 PM CST