RRRalph
Ralph is a button-eyed, white and black dog who can talk. He gives the perfect dog responses to questions about his name (RRRalph), what’s on a tree (bark, bark, bark) and more. These kid-pleasing riddles will get young children laughing and adults groaning. Lois Ehlert’s playful collage illustrations of Ralph use found objects (e.g., a can tab nose, buttons for eyes, and a heart-shaped tag) giving Ralph a “friendly” feel. The over-sized words and color-coded fonts make this an excellent book for shared group reading or a reader’s theatre activity.
Pennsylvania Center for the Book Awards
Book Activities & Discussion Ideas
Read this story to children, one-on-one or in a small group, encouraging them to respond with answers to the jokes/puns. Children will begin to notice the materials that make up Ehlert’s collage illustrations. Have them pick out the everyday items that they recognize. Use the illustrations to encourage the children to collect common objects and create original collages of their own pets. Invite children to write the sounds their pets make (roof, roof; meow, meow; etc.).
After reading this book a couple of times, encourage the child to participate by responding with the sounds of the dog. As the words become more familiar, point out to the child the different colors of the words and explain that the white words are the questions posed to the dog. Encourage him/her to ask the question while the adult responds with the sound of the dog. This book could also be a great introduction to a discussion on recycling and how one person’s trash becomes an artist’s treasure.