That is the Power of Mo Willems

I think Little C's soul is tuned to the same resonance frequency as Mo Willems. The Pigeon Books, Knuffle Bunny, and most recently Elephant & Piggie.

Little C found these at the library without even knowing that Mo wrote them. He flipped the first time he saw Pigeon in one of the Elephant & Piggie books. To ease his plagiarism and copyright infringement concerns, I explained that the same author/illustrator wrote both books so it was all going to turn out ok for Mr. Willems. (The BEST kids books are always written and illustrated by the same person.)

Cut to this morning. He is the first one up and we each grab a book and sit on the couch to cuddle-up and read. I chose Kenneth Oppel's Airborn and he grabbed an Elephant & Piggie called My Friend is Sad. I peeked over his shoulder and saw all the FABULOUS! punctuation and visual cues to indicate tone and expression. On page 9 Piggie, dressed as a cowboy says, "Yee-Haw!" trying to cheer up Gerald the Elephant. My mama-must-teach mode kicked in and I pointed out the large, bold type. The exclamation point. I tried to get Little C to read it with some expression.

Mama: (in first grade teacher mode) Look at Piggie's face. How is he feeling?

Little C: (lethargicly) Like he is happy and having fun.

Mama: Look how the words are printed. What do you think the big letters want you to do?

Little C: (quietly) Be loud.

Mama: And the exclamation point?

Little C: (Eyore-ish) Be excited.

Mama: So read that page to me again!

Little C: yee. haw.

Mama: But Piggie is saying Yee-haw!

Little C: Yah, well Piggie might be all Yee-haw! but I am still very tired.