The following list is not definitive. It is a list of some book titles that we have used successfully. Mostly we have not specified grade level, but the list starts with books for younger readers and finishes with books for older readers. It encompasses grades K - 6.

Some of the book titles are linked to writing samples of student's work and /or activites across the KLA's.

 

Title	Author	Notes
Rosie's walk	Pat Hutchins	Teach children how the pictures make a narrative. Easy to build common knowledge because it can be built from pictures that everyone has access to. Use the common knowledge to jointly construct new texts and teach children to read the new texts as well as the original text. One kindergarten teacher photographed her class and made a book of their walk, and also wrote a book called Fox's Trouble.
Mouse Tales	Arnold Lobel	This is a perfect text for beginning readers. Each of the seven stories is appealing and has an easily explained narrative structure. The text has enough 'literate' features to show how authors choose words to make special meaning. You can teach about action and reaction. You can teach about how speech and thoughts appear in stories.
Mouse Soup	Arnold Lobel	Similar to Mouse Tales
The Three Little Pigs	Addison-Wesley	Out of print reading series. The illustrations are good and the text contains sufficient literate language for beginning readers. Like many popular folktales, the text can be used to teach children about narrative structure. Other possible books in this series are 'The great big enormous turnip' and 'The little knight'.
Frog and Toad are Friends. Frog and Toad all Year. Days with Frog and Toad. Frog and Toad Together	Arnold Lobel	Considerably longer than Mouse Tales, and containing more literate resources. The beginnings of characterisation can be shown in the different action and speech choices of the 2 animals. You can show children how to write about friends doing things together and find the words that let us know they are friendly. Frog is nearly always more sensible than Toad and you can find reactions that show that.
The three billy goats gruff	Macmillan Connections Stobbs	Both of these versions are out of print. The language is more literate than that in the Lobel texts, with more of the words precisely chosen and with longer sentences, eg Once upon a time there were three billy goats who were to go up to the hillside to make themselves fat and the name of all three was Gruff. The Stobbs version differentiates the big billy goat by using the precise word 'tramping' instead of 'tripping' for him, and for that reason we prefer that version. Like many popular folktales, this is a wonderful example of narrative structure.
Why the bear has a stumpy tail	Connections	Another folktale with excellent narrative structure. Some precise words, for example 'slinking'. The importance of telling when and where. Varied sentence beginnings. Reactions in speech and in actions. Adding more information in one sentence, for example 'that he had stolen', 'slinking along'.
Happy families series. Several titles, including Master Money the millionaire, Mr Creep the crook Mr Cosmo the conjoror Mrs Wobble the waitress Master Salt the sailors' son Mr Biff the boxer Miss Jump the jockey Mr and Mrs Hay the horse Mr Tick the teacher Mrs Lather's laundry	Allan Ahlberg	The author tells us about the characters in these books, by expanding what is written in one sentence with what is written in the next sentence. For example 'Mrs Wobble was a waitress. She liked her work. Her customers liked her.' Or 'Master Money was a millionaire. When he was four he had a bucket and spade for his birthday.' Children can be shown how to tell about characters in their writing, by telling something about the character in one sentence and by telling more in the next sentence. They can also be shown how their characteristics influence the plot. There are many precise words. Sentence beginnings vary. Reactions are indicated in both speech and in actions. There are four main characters to keep in mind. Complications are easy to identify, for example 'The only trouble was, she wobbled', 'Then, when Master Money was six and a half, the trouble began'. Children can be shown how to introduce complications in their own stories. Note that Master Salt and Mr Cosmo are recounts rather than narratives and can be used as patterns for organising children's journal writing. For example Master Salt begins by telling us about the characters and introduces events with summary phrases, as 'The next day exciting things happened'.
Of mice, lions and elephants The two stories we use are:- The lion and the mouse Androcles and the lion	Macmillan Connections	Sentence structure is more varied than in the previous books, and there is more precise language.
The mouse-deer and the crocodile The mouse-deer and the crocodiles The tiger and the mouse-deer	Graetz	We have rewritten several folktales for specific classroom purposes. These three books have been illustrated and are available from the Schools & Community Centre. The language choices are of similar difficulty to The lion and the mouse, and also include author's comment and reactions as the thoughts of the character. How the text shows us that the mouse-deer is a tricky character will have to be taught. We studied the first book and used the other two as extension for some children. Other folktales we have rewritten are 'How the gulf of Thailand came to be' and 'Pegasus and Bellerophon'.
The beast with a thousand teeth	Terry Jones	These picture Puffins are longer than the previous stories. Terry Jones has written in folk tale format, and the story structure has the accessibility of the folktale. The illustrations help make the longer stories accessible to fairly inexperienced readers. Language choices include words indicating the staging of the text, precise words, variation in sentence structure, reactions in speech and thoughts and actions.
The sea tiger	Terry Jones
Fairy tales Fantastic stories	Terry Jones	The previous two books appear as stories in these collections. We used other stories in these collections as extension for some children. The stories vary greatly in the sophistication of their themes. Some of them are suitable for much older children.
How the elephant became	Ted Hughes, reprinted in Eureka level 3	Action sequences, description and the expression of thoughts and feelings.
The great white man eating shark	Margaret Mahy	Another Picture Puffin. Action sequences, action and reaction, expression of thoughts and feelings, precise words, character influencing action, expansion.
Fables	Arnold Lobel	Each Fable is a complete narrative on one page. Excellent for teaching narrative form. Different fables can be used to show different language features, but 'precise words' can be taught from all.
The black duck	Eleanor Nilsson	Out of print. We patterned description of animals from this book.
The magic finger	Roald Dahl	Dahl is brilliant at action sequences, action and reaction, description, expression of thoughts and feelings, expansion, variation of sentence structure.
Fantastic Mr Fox	Roald Dahl	This book is great fun. Language choices as above.
The emperor and the kite	Jane Yolen	A folktale containing much image-building language. Simile is important, as is author's comment. Note that simile is difficult for inexperienced readers to understand.
The 27th annual African hippopotamus race	Morris Lurie	See the book selection notes
Unreal etc	Paul Jennings	Fun stories, with excellent plot structure. Jennings is a good model for showing how to expand on one sentence in later sentences and for action-reaction sequences.
Storm Boy	Colin Thiele	Variation in sentence structure Precise language, and much image building language Action-reaction Expression of thoughts and feelings The use of metaphor can be brought into children's writing after the reading of this book. Children in a 3/4 class patterned a narrative on the passage where Mr Percival gets the lifeline to the sinking boat. Thiele calls the sea a beast with white teeth. If this is not explained to children, some will think there is a beast in the water.
Pannikin and Pinta	Colin Thiele	Much image-building language and good action sequences. Also action-reaction through speech, thoughts, feelings, actions. We used it with a grade 3 class and patterned description on the first page. Low level book orientation activities were many and varied as we had to teach much about inland Australia in conjunction with the reading of the book. The varied sentence structures and the image-building language make this book suitable for older classes.
Bartlett and the ice voyage	Odo Hirsch	From this book we taught the writing of description in three different ways using the passage about the palace park, the description of the melidrop, and the description of Bartlett partly through the eyes of Sir Hugh Lough. We studied how to write similes and make them appropriate to the subject. We also taught narrative containing extended metaphor from the passage where the ship hits the iceberg. There are many, many low order book orientation activities that can be done in conjunction with this book.
Hazel Green	Odo Hirsch	Action-reaction is through actions, thoughts and speech and is used to develop very different characters. We patterned description from page 32 and from the chapter where Hazel and Leon visit Mr Winkel, where we also patterned action-reaction. We patterned narrative from the collapse of the model.
Matilda	Roald Dahl	All the language features listed for Dahl earlier. As well, author's comment is important for the understanding of the plot.
Midnite	Midnite	Author's comment is important for understanding how to read the plot - that it is a parody of bushranger stories as well as a fine bushranger story. Action-reaction. Description Series of actions We used Dora's first bushranger to pattern narrative writing.
Rowan of Rin	Emily Rodda	A quest story, containing much image building language and varied sentence structures. Almost every chapter can be used to pattern a narrative.