Olof Landström

Cute, minimally-illustrated story about a little kid, a toy, and the effect of situational perspective.

Simple, entertaining plot about a rather emotional child who thinks fun, happy events are proof of good luck, and frustrating events are the result of bad luck.

Characters and conversations:
It's unclear whether the child is male or female, and it's unclear whether the toy is a 'doll' or a stuffed animal. The unclarity of each allows it to be more accessible to all children, and it also provides an important space for explaining that both girls and boys can play with either dolls or stuffed animals, as well as discussing that not all children feel a need to be called a boy or a girl.

Additional discussions:
Pom's alternating assessment of each change in the plot ("What luck!" ... "That's bad luck.") creates a great way to talk through how frustrating bad things can be, but also: how sometimes things that were once very frustrating or sad don't seem as bad as time goes on, and likewise, sometimes looking differently at situations that upset us can help us find more positive ways of thinking about them.

Teaching moments:
The minimal narration which is heavily reliant on expressive reading has allowed me to use this book with intermediate readers who need to develop more mental engagement with the text, i.e., students who need to be more aware of how rich reading expression ties into their understanding of the text. By exemplifying how much more they can 'understand' about Pom's feelings just by listening to how I read it very expressively versus not at all expressively, they can have more of a sensory learning moment about how and why thinking about using expression matters.… (more)