Melanie & Chester

In my post yesterday I had a few comments mentioning you had not heard of Chester. I thought I would share a bit about him and his fab author.

You've probably hear of Mealanie Watt because of this little guy.

Scaredy Squirrel

Isn't he cute? I just adore his books and use them often during my Writers Workshop. It helps us with planning, making lists, and even matching our illustrations to our text. 

One day while looking up Scaredy Squirrels other books I found Chester! As I picked up the first book in the series I realized this was book was a prefect addition to not only my Reading and LA block but also my Writers workshop too.

Here is a synopsis of the book, not written by me.

"Chester is more than a picture book. It is a story told, and retold, by dueling author-illustrators.

Mélanie Watt starts out with the story of a mouse in a house. Then Mélanie's cat, Chester, sends the mouse packing and proceeds to cover the pages with rewrites from his red marker, and the gloves are off.

Mélanie and her mouse won't take Chester's antics lying down. And Chester is obviously a creative powerhouse with confidence to spare. Where will this war of the picture-book makers lead? Is it a one-way ticket to Chesterville, or will Mélanie get her mouse production off the ground? "

The book is a riot, my students love it! This book helps to teach so many different parts of writing ideas, editing, authors purpose, illustrations, voice, I can go on and on. I also love that Chester's voice is shown in a big red marker which makes it easy to distinguish from Melanie's, which is perfect for my Kinder and 1st graders.

Chester also have 2 sequels.

Can you see Chester's red marker? :)

So when you get a minute at the book store, check him out.

Have you read about Chester?