A Bad Case of Stripes

For part of my 401 class I am to organize a lesson plan for the third grade class in which I teach. I talked to my Cooperating Teacher about a book she would recommend and she gave me A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon. I had never heard of this book before. Now, I love it. It follows Camilla Cream on her first day of school. Her favorite food in the whole world is lima beans, although she will never admit that. She is very excited about her first day of school, yet worried about fitting in. When she wakes up the next morning and looks in the mirror she is horrified to see she is covered in rainbow stripes. She does not attend the first day of school and is taken to the doctor's office instead. Seeing as they could not find anything wrong with her, the doctor said she could go to school the next day. So, the next day at school during the Pledge of Allegience her rainbow stripes become red and white stripes and white starts with a blue background. No one can seem to find a cure for Camilla's stripe problem; especially since everything they've tried just makes her turn into something else. When she took a pill, she turned into a pill, then she turned into her room, too. It was not until a little old lady knocked on the door and asked if she could try to help. She asked Camilla if she liked lima beans; but Camilla said 'no' to save herself from being laughed at any further. But the old lady convinced her to eat them and she did then all of a sudden all of her stripes were gone!

A Bad Case of Stripes portrays an excellent message of never being afraid of what you like and who you are. Camilla would never have had this problem if she were not so afraid to eat the lima beans she loved so much. When I do my lesson with this book I plan on asking questions like; "Who has ever really liked something but was ashamed to admit it because they wanted to fit in?" or "Who has ever done something they did not want to do, but did it anyway so they could fit in?" I could also take the discussion further by asking "What are some of the ways you could make someone feel more comfortable with who they are?" and talk about what the students could do if they see someone getting bullied or made fun of. There are lots of ways students could relate to Camilla and I plan on having a more in depth conversation with the third graders about this.

The illustrations are also by David Shannon and are amazing. They really bring out the story wonderfully and this is truly a story for anyone and has a great message behind it. I would definitely recommend it and put it in my classroom library.