Book Recommendation: Drizzle

I recently finished reading a book to my students that they absolutely loved and had them hanging on the edge of their seats every single day shouting "Don't stop!  One more chapter!"....seriously!  Sometimes for read aloud time, I stick with oldies but goodies, like Ramona books or anything by Kate DiCamillo.  But other times, I love browsing the new children's book section at the book store and finding something new.  This time, it was a book called Drizzle by Kathleen Van Cleve.

It is about a little girl who lives on a magical farm that can grow chocolate rhubarb and where it rains at exactly 1:00 every Monday.  But one day, it stops raining, and the farm is in danger of dying.  The little girl, Polly, has to figure out a way to save it.  There are so many twists and turns toward the middle and end of this book that I often found myself gasping out loud along with the kids.  

I teach 3rd grade, and it was a little hard at first for my lower readers to understand what was happening, but it was no problem taking some time to explain.  By the end of the book, they were just as in love with it as my higher readers.  After finishing this book, we were on a field trip to the public library, and my students found this book.  One of them checked it out and read the whole thing over again within a few days (quite a feat for a 3rd grader because it is a THICK book!)

If you're looking for a fun read aloud that also helps develop higher order thinking skills for your 3rd, 4th, or 5th graders, I highly recommend this one!