Ten Things I Love About You by Daniel Kirk

Over break, I found a new book by Daniel Kirk.  You may know him from the Library Mouse series or   his Elf Realm series.  I love his characters and illustrations. In his newest book, Ten Things I Love About You, I found some opinion possibilities for young writers. I introduced this text in writing workshop as we were thinking about writing reasons to support opinion.  I found my kids engaged in the back and forth between these two good friends: Pig and Rabbit.

Rabbit stops by to see Pig, sharing his idea to write a list of the 10 things he loves about him.  While he is filled with ideas just being with his friend, Pig is a bit bothered by Rabbit as he is also trying to begin his own list for his friend. When Pig says, "I'm starting to lose my patience," Rabbit adds to his list: I love Pig because he is not afraid to show his feelings. The kids caught on the the humor in the back and forth and we had some laughs with this funny-sweet book.  I also loved the map in the beginning pages of the book that shows Rabbit and Pig's homes. And, the story ends with a thorough list of what each character loved about the other...filled with opinion and reasons for each.

We had a bunch of talked about how a list might be a way to organize a piece about your opinion in a different and clever way. While the "love" part was sappy for some, we talked briefly but a bit further about how Kirk's structure could serve in a piece about something one of us cared about.