The
Monarch
Award:
Illinois'
K-3
Children's Choice Award
2009
Master List
Sponsored by
the
Illinois
School Library Media Association
2009 Nominee: The Great Fuzz FrenzyWhen a tennis ball lands in a prairie-dog town, the residents find that their newfound frenzy for fuzz creates a fiasco.
Author: Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel
- Janet Stevens' website
- Susan Stevens Crummel's website
- Authors are sisters
Illustrator: Janet Stevens
Book Activities
- Questions: What is a frenzy? What gets you in a frenzy?
- Note: The author's dog Violet really did drop a tennis ball down
a prairie dog hole!
- Language Arts: Discuss fads/what is "in" now. Do you have to have
what your friends have. Is that a good thing? Why or why not?
- Writing: Have the students write the story from the
perspective of the ball or Big Bark.Or write the sequel. What
happens when the orange ball rolls into their tunnel?
- Math: Brainstorm all kinds of sports balls. Measure diameter.Put
them in order of size.
Graph their sizes.
- Science: Have students research prairie dogs. What do they eat?
What problems do they cause? Research other animals that live
underground.
- Social Studies: Look at a map and see where prairie dogs
live.Discuss peer pressure, bullies. How should we react when someone tries to
force us to do soemthing?
- Drama: Make a readers theater of the part of the story where the
prairie dogs are all wearing fuzz. .
- Art: Draw an underground "town" of ants, gophers, prairie dogs, etc
- Movement: Play tennis or a game with tennis balls in the gym or on the playground.
- Technology: use Kidspiration to find many sports balls. Scale the balls to show their relative size.
Related Books
- By Susan Stevens Cruimmel.
- Help Me, Mr. Mutt, And the Dish Ran Away With the Spoon, All in One Hour, Jackalope, City Dog, Country Dog
- Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin
- Prairie Dogs by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent
- Lewis and Clark : a Prairie Dog for the President by ShirleypRaye Redmond
- An American Safari: Adventures on the North American Prairie by Jim Brandenburg
- One day on the Prairie by Jean Craighead George
Websites
2009 Nominee Resources