My Great- Aunt Arizona

Title: My Great-Aunt Arizona 

Genre: Multicultural 

Author: Gloria Houston 

Major Awards: ALA Notable Children's Book

Age group: 3 - 7 Years old 

Summary: 

My Great-Aunt Arizona is about a girl named Arizona who grew up in a log-cabin that her grandfather built.
She grew up to be a very tall girl who loved to sing, read, and most of all dream of far away places.
Arizona became a teacher and taught for many years where she shared her dreams of traveling with her
students every year. She would express where all she wanted to go in the world and what she wanted to see.
Unfortunately, Arizona never made it to any of those places but she still lives on with all of her children and
goes on every adventure in spirit when they go visit their families all over the world.

I would like to use this book in my classroom as a fun little read aloud. It has such a sweet message and I
feel that my students would really enjoy the story. It also has great pictures which I feel my students would
really love. In addition, I love how it has the part at the end that even though aunt-Arizona isn't with us
physically, she will always be with s in spirit. 

I feel as if this book would be perfect for students in pre-k through 1st grade. It has very easy to read
sentences and simple vocabulary. It also has beautiful pictures that i know my students would really enjoy
exploring. 

If I were to use this book in my classroom I would start by reading it aloud to my class. Then I would ask
them who Aunt-Arizona was and what she did. I would then ask them to create a beginning,middle, and
end chart of the book and tell me their favorite part of the book and why.