Arthur's Mystery Envelope

This book is a modern fantasy about a young aardvark named Arthur. Arthur receives a big envelope from the principle to give to his mother. Arthur spends all day worrying about the envelope and what kind of trouble he could be in. When Arthur gets home the envelope accidentally gets lost in the garbage can. Arthur sees it there, however, decides to leave it so his mother won't get him in trouble. Tortured by the thought of the envelope Arthur finally retrieves it from the garbage and presents it to his mother. The envelope is not actually about Arthur at all! Arthur learns to take responsibility for his actions and that it is best to tell the truth right away.

This book follows the adventure of Arthur as he gets a sealed envelope from his principle to give to his mother. With the wild imagination of his friends, they all decide that it is a note saying that Arthur failed his history exam and will be in summer school. Arthur is relieved when the envelope accidentally gets placed in the garbage but the guilt of not giving it to his mom eats at him until he gives in.

Critique: This is a good example of fantasy yet realistic fiction. The story line could happen in real life that a child believes that they are in trouble when they really aren't. However, normally aardvarks do not speak which makes the characters in this story a fantasy. Aurthur is a round character and in the beginning of the story he is sneaking around and hiding things from his parents and in the end he is learning a lesson that telling the truth is a lot better than hiding things from his parents.
Media: Pencil
Use: Proper manors, Telling the truth, Doing what is right

Arthur's chapter books allow for students to engage themselves in a different style of mystery every time you open the book. in this particiular chapter book we see Arthur dealing with a mystery envelope and trying to establish what he should do with it and trying to find who wrote the mystery envelop.

This is a great book because it relates to the children's tv series that most children love to watch.