Since “Fuzz Frenzy” only took about 14 minutes to read, and my storytimes with the students are 20 minutes, we slipped in another of this year’s Monarch Award nominees, There is a Flower at the Tip of my Nose Smelling Me by Alice Walker.

My students and I both were not particularly impressed with Walker’s verse. (If she wasn’t already Alice Walker Pulitzer Prize winner would it have been published?) But we were quite impressed with the illustrations by Stefano Vitale. His interpretations of the text are wonderful: giving a tulip a subtle face with which to smell, the singing body shaped as a guitar with a heart hole, and the pen literally “writing me”.

The vocabulary in the book is simple, but we discussed and explored the illustrations together. The word “staff” is not mentioned, but is illustrated flowing out of the hair in the singing body. I questioned each group on it – they learn about the music staff in general music. Most couldn’t come up with it, but sighed in recognition when I shared it. I chastised them for dropping what they learn at the classroom door! Our learning should follow us everywhere!

My learning is a puppy following me!