Oscar's Half Birthday

Graham, B. Oscar’s Half Birthday. (2005). Massachusetts: Candlewick Press.

Lexile Score: N/A

Summary: It’s Oscar’s 6 months birthday so the family decides to go to the “half country”- a city park, and have a picnic. There, everyone in the park adores Oscar and joins in the celebration.

Evaluation: To begin with, the story is engaging and interesting to children. The characters definitely represent people from a variety of cultural groups and backgrounds. The mom is Black and the dad is White, which makes Oscar and his sister Millie mixed. Although the story is culturally diversified, there really aren’t lessons to be learned in the book. The story doesn’t offer children a variety of things to think about, to question, or to consider besides the characters’ backgrounds and culture.

The stories does, however, reflect a variety of settings. For example, the story begins at the house then talks about going to the country, but not really the country. More like a half-country called Bellevue Hill. They then travel on foot to this half-country place and must cross a busy highway that’s in the city. The urban, suburban, and rural settings are all represented realistically.

Literary Elements: Onomatopoeia- tickety-clack, tickety-clack, tickety-clack: the sound of the train

Setting- the house, the city, the half-country park called Bellevue Hill

Characters- Mom, dad, Millie, Oscar, and the dog, Boris

Mini Lesson: I would do a mini lesson on the settings in the story. I would have the students pick a setting that’s presented in the story and  explain in detail what the happens in that setting, what the setting looks like using imagery, and where they’ve seen that setting before in real life.

Target Audience: 2nd- 4^th grade because of the lengthy amount of text on the pages