Book 5- Alaska’s 12 Days of Summer by Pat Chamberlin-Calamar

This was such a cool and interesting book! The layout of this book is very similar to that

of The 12 Days of Christmas, where 12 of Alaska’s most famous wild animals are introduced.

These animals include Dall sheep, wolves, salmon, caribou, mosquitoes, cranes, grizzlies,

trumpeter swans, wood frogs, bald eagles, moose, and the black bear. Not only are these animals

being introduced to the audience, but some important facts are given about each species. One of

the main things that I really enjoyed about this book was the cool facts I learned while reading! I

want to include a few of the most interesting facts I learned from this book! For starters, until I

read this book I did not know that only females bite (I know, I felt a little betrayed also, haha!)

because they use a little drop of human blood in order to develop eggs. I learned two really cool

facts about Wild Pacific salmon: 1. They can travel more than 2,000 miles. After their long

journey, they begin to make their way home as they get ready to spawn (lay eggs.) They die

shortly after. Now that I am thinking about it, this is more than likely the fish we are eating! The

last interesting fact that I wanted to include was that only mature (4 years or older) bald eagles

have completely white heads and tails. Overall, I thought that this was a great book, and will be

super helpful to include in my future classroom library.

When analyzing this book, there was one specific topic that came to mind: the

combination of two or more story purposes. As we know, there are typically three main purposes

for writing/creating a story; to inform, to persuade, or to entertain. This book combines two of

these three purposes, to inform and to entertain. As mentioned earlier, after each animal is

introduced, a brief description of the is given. This is how the author attempts to “inform” their

audience. Next, since the book is written in the form of the famous Christmas melody, The 12

Days of Christmas, that is their way of “entertaining.” The authors know and understand that it is
a very catchy song that most people will recognize in a split second. This is the significance of

being able to reach audiences using a combination of two different story purposes. In my

classroom, I will use this book as an example of this concept. After doing a whole-group

read-aloud, I will have students pick a topic and practice writing a story either to entertain or

persuade. The one qualification students must pick is an informational text. Not only is this to

have students practice their informational writing, but also to give a different outlook on the text

by practicing either entertaining or persuading. This is the perfect book for this because it

displays both topics that I am aiming to practice.