Little Rat Makes Music

Bang, Monika
Bang. Molly
1st and 2nd grade
Harcourt. Inc 2007
Fiction

This book is by Monkia Bang, Molly Bang's daughter. They worked as a team to create this book. Monkia did the writing and her mother did the illustrations which i thought was very neat. This book is a book about a litte rat named "little rat". She was very interested in music and really loved it alot, but there was one problem. She did NOT want to practice! This became a problem for little rat because her music sounded horrible. She did not care for her teacher very much because she felt like she was always critisizing her. One day Little Rat got a tutor, Kitty, Who she admired very much. With Kitty she was able to joke and play and it wasnt so serious when she was trying to learn her music. After this she really loved playing the violin and worked very hard to learn the songs and to play them well. At the end there is a music recital and Little Rat did very well and she impressed her family and her teacher, Miss Wingbutton.

I really liked this book because i liked the format of it. The book is put into chapters and I think that this is great for beginner readers because it makes them feel like they are really accomplished a big book, a CHAPTER book. This makes them very excited about learning to read. Also i really liked the moral of the story. Practice makes perfect. If you really want to learn to do something you have to work at it, it will not just happen on its own and I think that this is a very important lesson for children to learn.

I would use this book in my classroom. I want to teach younger grades, so this book would be perfect for them when learning how to read. Also the moral of the story is really great, and we could talk about how important it is to work at something if you really want it. I plan on using all of the Little Rat series books in my classroom!