Nikolay Novikov, enlightener of Russia Book

Personal Reaction: For what this book is supposed to be (beginning readers book), it is good. I think it is a solid choice of a book to begin the school year with because the concepts are so concrete.

Read Aloud: I would read this aloud to kindergarteners or Pre-K to begin a unit on animals, specifically farm animals. This book could be paired with an activity using a felt board. The background of the felt board is of a farm and you have several animal felt cutouts (some farm animals, some not) and you can have students volunteer to place an animal that they think is a farm animal on the board. During a reading of this book, I would ask the students what sound each animal makes and have them actually make the sound themselves.

Independent Reading: I would recommend this to kindergarten, the vocabulary is basic and not as important as the illustrations. It really could work for any kindergartener because they all typically like animals at this age.

For Nonfiction: I would use this book to introduce captions. In this book the pictures are the most important part, with the caption being what the animal is. I will tell students this is to help them identify the animal and it also activates their schema about the animal.