Ice Cream Summer

In an epistolary picture book, Joe pens a response to his grandfather’s letter that asks, “How is your summer going?” As Grandpa wants to know what Joe has learned, the young narrator details the delights of his “delicious summer.” With clever nods to reading, writing, math, geography, and history, Sis uses both visual and verbal references to ice cream at every turn of the page. The four math-related pages create a real-life context for math and imbue the story with humor. The text “I practice my math facts” is accompanied by the visual of Joe with 10 scoops of ice cream, his dog with 3 scoops, posing the equation 10-3 only to be followed with scoops falling off the cones: 10-7=? and 3-2=? A double-page spread of Joe’s show more whole family lounging in the pool, ice cream delights in hand is festooned with four word problems. They are worth a pause to let listeners figure them out. For example. “If the ice cream truck has 5 strawberry shortcakes and 4 of us by 1, how many are left?” The nod to history also provides context for mathematical discussions and affords opportunities to apply math. Ice cream was invented by the Chinese 2000 years ago. 500-700 years ago, Marco Polo’s travels bring the treat to Europe. (Perfect place to ask inquiring minds: when exactly was that? Let’s figure it out.) Math doesn’t pound us day after day all day; it slips in throughout our day or week at given mathematical moments, and that’s just what Sis affords readers in this delicious picture book. show less

Playful pastel illustrations set the cheery and yummy tone of this fun picture book. There is a neat little note in the beginning of the book with references to historical books written about ice-cream development, and key dates with facts and inventors are sprinkled ( pun intended) throughout the text. Who knew ice-cream could be so educational AND fun!

Playful pastel illustrations set the cheery and yummy tone of this fun picture book. There is a neat little note in the beginning of the book with references to historical books written about ice-cream development, and key dates with facts and inventors are sprinkled ( pun intended) throughout the text. Who knew ice-cream could be so educational AND fun!

Playful pastel illustrations set the cheery and yummy tone of this fun picture book. There is a neat little note in the beginning of the book with references to historical books written about ice-cream development, and key dates with facts and inventors are sprinkled ( pun intended) throughout the text. Who knew ice-cream could be so educational AND fun!

A boy is responding to his grandfather's letter about how his summer vacation is going. As he describes each of his activites, he becomes very imaginative with each thought he has
7 books

This book is about a boy who is writing a letter to his grandmother, describing his summer. Everything he did in the summer involved ice cream.

I am always looking for great seasonal additions to my shelves. This will be a new end of the year classic in my classroom!