A Giraffe and A Half

Title: A Giraffe and A Half
Author/Illustrator: Shel Silverstein
Genre: Poetry
Major Awards: N/A
Age Group: K - 2nd grade
                                                 
Summary:
Another book by Shel Silverstein, A Giraffe and A Half, is about a giraffe who keeps stepping into stuff, adding stuff to his attire, and gluing stuff on until he becomes a giraffe and a half with so much on. Each page, the lines get longer and the craziness increases. The giraffe before the end of the book has glue on his shoe, a chair in his hair, and so on. Silverstein rhymes whatever the main object of the stanza is to keep it funny and easy to remember with the repetition he has. While the pictures are black and white and are to look like a sketch he brightens up the writing with the pictures.

I would use this book in lower elementary. The book has a lot of rhyming in it, animals, and objects in it that would expand the children's knowledge.

I think that would be the appropriate grade level, K through 2nd grade. Since it has so many learning opportunities.

In my classroom, I would use this for a rhyming lesson. I would have the students clap whenever they heard the rhymes at the end of each page and would go over what rhyming is.