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137th out of 347 books
—
345 voters
Today I Will Fly! (Elephant and Piggie #1)
by
Mo Willems
Gerald is careful. Piggie is not.
Piggie cannot help smiling. Gerald can.
Gerald worries so that Piggie does not have to.
Gerald and Piggie are best friends.
Today, I Will Fly! is the funny introduction to the characters. Piggie is determined to fly. But Gerald the elephant knows that's impossible--isn't it?
Piggie cannot help smiling. Gerald can.
Gerald worries so that Piggie does not have to.
Gerald and Piggie are best friends.
Today, I Will Fly! is the funny introduction to the characters. Piggie is determined to fly. But Gerald the elephant knows that's impossible--isn't it?
Hardcover, 58 pages
Published
April 1st 2007
by Disney-Hyperion
(first published March 13th 2007)
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Today I Will Fly! is a wonderful book for early readers. Mo Willems does a magnificent job of creating a fun and interesting story while still following the rules and patterns which make a book easy to read. The limited vocabulary and predictable layout are wonderful for guiding early readers along through the book.
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Early readers can be such a pain. They have to be easy to read, so they include a lot of very short, repetitititive sentences. I bet you can quote Dick and Jane here: See Spot. See Spot run. Run, Spot, run! Run, run, run! Short, easy to read, lots of practice with those three words... and boring as HECK. Who wants to read that more than once?
Or they do the same thing, but with rhyming: See the cat. The cat is fat. The fat cat sat. Sat on the mat. The fat cat sat on the mat. See the rat!
Ye gods....more
Or they do the same thing, but with rhyming: See the cat. The cat is fat. The fat cat sat. Sat on the mat. The fat cat sat on the mat. See the rat!
Ye gods....more
Today I Will Fly!
4 out of 5 stars
Willems uses simplistic pencil drawings of the two main characters, which are repeated throughout the entire book. The arrangement of the text is predictable as well; on each page, the text appears as spoken words from one of the illustrations. Each page has only one of the illustrations speaking, which helps to support very young readers. Willems uses negative space, which helps support the reader too. Large font size, short sentence length, and repetition of...more
4 out of 5 stars
Willems uses simplistic pencil drawings of the two main characters, which are repeated throughout the entire book. The arrangement of the text is predictable as well; on each page, the text appears as spoken words from one of the illustrations. Each page has only one of the illustrations speaking, which helps to support very young readers. Willems uses negative space, which helps support the reader too. Large font size, short sentence length, and repetition of...more
Genre: Picture Book - Controlled Vocabulary
Summary: In this first Elephant & Piggie beginning reader book, Mo Willems delights children and adults with Today I Will Fly! Piggie states emphatically her goal for the day is to fly. This is met with great doubt by Elephant. Piggie tries all kinds of stunts to fly like flapping her arms really hard, having a dog chase her, and jumping. Finally, she hitches a ride hanging from a rope attached to a pelican. At her success, Elephant declares, “Tomor...more
Summary: In this first Elephant & Piggie beginning reader book, Mo Willems delights children and adults with Today I Will Fly! Piggie states emphatically her goal for the day is to fly. This is met with great doubt by Elephant. Piggie tries all kinds of stunts to fly like flapping her arms really hard, having a dog chase her, and jumping. Finally, she hitches a ride hanging from a rope attached to a pelican. At her success, Elephant declares, “Tomor...more
Independent Reading 1st grade
Willems made great use of white space and large fonts in “Today I Will Fly”. The pictures of Elephant and Piggie are simple drawings using pink and gray, but they portray the expressions of humans. Willems used repetition of sight words and maintained simple two to word sentences when dialoguing the conversation between these two characters. I especially liked the way he made the font extremely loud to emphasize the excitement of the phrase. Children will be drawn to...more
Willems made great use of white space and large fonts in “Today I Will Fly”. The pictures of Elephant and Piggie are simple drawings using pink and gray, but they portray the expressions of humans. Willems used repetition of sight words and maintained simple two to word sentences when dialoguing the conversation between these two characters. I especially liked the way he made the font extremely loud to emphasize the excitement of the phrase. Children will be drawn to...more
Mo Willems books always make good read-alouds as long as you get listeners engaged in the story and get them to participate in the story. In this Elephant and Piggie book, Piggie is determined that she will fly, while Gerald insists flying is one skill she will never posses. We all agreed that that is not a proper way for a friend to act...and then we applaud Piggie as she makes several attempts at flying (running and jumping- as Gerald is quick to point out). Finally, Piggie enlists the help of...more
This book is FANTASTIC. Seriously, a must-read. Check out the facial expressions - exceptional. I aspire to own the whole collection one day. (I'm totally serious.)
The more I read of this series, the more I like it. At first I thought it was a little simplistic, but that is perfect for preschoolers and it deals with complex issues (such as biological limitations in this one) in a way that they can understand (the other one I'm thinking about is emotions in My Friend is Sad). I love that each character's text bubble is the same color as the character making it easier for the pre-reader and my son wanted to read this again as soon as I was finished. At 3 1/2...more
Mo Willems is my personal contemporary children's hero. They are simple, clever and give the reader room to personalize the experience of sharing his books with kids. With the Elephant and Piggie series, I love to make Piggie have a very high childlike voice in contrast to Elephant having a very low slow voice. This emphasizes their differences and makes for such fun read alouds. The point is that even though Elephant and Piggie are so different from each other, they have a profound bond that we...more
Another excellent and wonderful book from Willems. I should just expect to adore everything from this author. In this story, Piggie decides that she will fly and Gerald is pretty convinced that it will never happen. Piggie tries several tricks and gets help from random characters throughout the story. It took me a moment to get it, and once I did I was appalled that it took me so long, but this is a clever interpretation of the "when pigs fly" issue from the perspective of a pig. Such fun all ar...more
This is an awesome book for a read aloud. It is one of a series by Mo Willems. I read this book to my 2nd grade class as a read aloud using the actual props from the book, the elephant and the pig.
I could incorporate this book into a lesson about the difference between flying and jumping, showing how they might be similar but are yet different.
This book iterates on the ability to think you can do something and the actuality that you can't.
I could incorporate this book into a lesson about the difference between flying and jumping, showing how they might be similar but are yet different.
This book iterates on the ability to think you can do something and the actuality that you can't.
I don't usually rate or add children's books on my Goodreads because I use this for my own personal reading. But I have to add these because they are truly wonderful books that my kids and I both really enjoy. The humor is funny enough that I get a big kick out of it but also easy for even my 2 year old to understand. Every time I head to the library my kids ask for more Elephant and Piggie books. Big fan!
This one of the Elephant and Piggie book series by Mo Willems. I am a huge fan of Mo Willems. This book is funny and very simple. Lots and Lots of sight words in there for students to recognize. One thing I love about the series is that it is written in a conversational tone. iot shows students how to convey emotions through different size font and punctuations. Great book for mini lessons!! Love!
i highly recommend anything written by mo willems. as an adult, it might be hard to see what all the fuss is about, but the kids LOVE them. the pictures are simple and cute, the dialogue is short, and the stories are fun. after i read it once, skyler insists on reading it with me as a screenplay. i've had to limit it to once a day otherwise we'd be reading elephant and piggie all day.
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Ages K-3rd
This excellent easy-reader is about an enthusiastic piggy who tells his friend elephant that he wants to fly. The practical elephant insists that piggy can not and will not fly. But piggy does not give up. Very, very fun to read and read again. It made me laugh out loud! Piggy's enthusiasm is evident in the illustrations as well as the story - a well integrated picture book.
This excellent easy-reader is about an enthusiastic piggy who tells his friend elephant that he wants to fly. The practical elephant insists that piggy can not and will not fly. But piggy does not give up. Very, very fun to read and read again. It made me laugh out loud! Piggy's enthusiasm is evident in the illustrations as well as the story - a well integrated picture book.
Apr 18, 2011
Karelle Royal
added it
Hilarious book about 2 friends who are always together.
In this book, piggy is determined to learn how to fly.
Silly & amusing illustrations.
Excellent use of expressive text.
Will have Pre K-1st grade students LOL.
Teaches about friendship.
Great books with funny problem solving strategies.
Young children & adults alike will get a kcik out of reading these Mo Willems books.
In this book, piggy is determined to learn how to fly.
Silly & amusing illustrations.
Excellent use of expressive text.
Will have Pre K-1st grade students LOL.
Teaches about friendship.
Great books with funny problem solving strategies.
Young children & adults alike will get a kcik out of reading these Mo Willems books.
I like the simplicity of the pictures, and they are cute, too. I thought the idea behind the whole story was great as well--wonderful lessons for children and adults.
5/2/12 Not the best E&P book for a preschool storytime. There wasn't as much humor in the story and pictures to keep them interested during the page spanning. And the group was so huge that the spanning took even longer. So I was losing some of them as the book progressed because there wasn't as much to hold them as in previous...more
5/2/12 Not the best E&P book for a preschool storytime. There wasn't as much humor in the story and pictures to keep them interested during the page spanning. And the group was so huge that the spanning took even longer. So I was losing some of them as the book progressed because there wasn't as much to hold them as in previous...more
Writer-illustrator Mo Willems presents two animals with contrasting attitudes. Piggie has self-belief; Elephant Gerald is skeptical.
The book makes for a satisfying read for the four-year-old through eight-year-old crowd.
Willems has his own inimitable style, which fosters both word-recognition and visual literacy. The theme is cooperation. Parents and teachers will find the book useful in teaching values.
The book makes for a satisfying read for the four-year-old through eight-year-old crowd.
Willems has his own inimitable style, which fosters both word-recognition and visual literacy. The theme is cooperation. Parents and teachers will find the book useful in teaching values.
Both my daughters LOVED Willems' Elephant & Piggie series. Willems is a genius. The reading level is PERFECT for the beginning reader who has mastered beginning sight words, the characters are appealing but not perfect (they are occasionally self-centered, stubborn, scared, etc - just like kids!), and the plots are interesting AND funny!! Brilliant!!!
Reread for the Children's Books group. Still love it - and now I can appreciate what the experience of starting with the first book first may have been like. I can't articulate it though. I just have this sense that I would have been blown away. Five stars because everyone I know loves Willems, including my mom, my husband, and my sons.
Sep 17, 2010
Dolly
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
beginning readers and parents reading with them
This is the first book in the Elephant and Piggie series, but we've read several of the other books in this series since it's not important to read them in order.
As always, our oldest reads Gerald's dialogue and I read Piggie's dialogue (plus any extras). We love the repetition, the expressions, and the emotional roller coaster that each story depicts. Fun!
This story was selected as one of the books for the March 2013 - 21st Century Picture Book Characters discussion at the Picture-Book Club in...more
As always, our oldest reads Gerald's dialogue and I read Piggie's dialogue (plus any extras). We love the repetition, the expressions, and the emotional roller coaster that each story depicts. Fun!
This story was selected as one of the books for the March 2013 - 21st Century Picture Book Characters discussion at the Picture-Book Club in...more
Room 108 LOVED this book. We chose it as our Literacy Week Book! We decorated our door to look just like the front cover of this book and are working on a readers Theatre production to perform for other students.
Do yourself a favor and read this book! In fact, read all the Piggie and Elephant books.
Do yourself a favor and read this book! In fact, read all the Piggie and Elephant books.
I read this to the kindergarteners this week. Most of the kiddos gave the book two thumbs up. Personally, I love how the adults and kids can laugh for different reasons. Mo Willems has a terrific sense of humor. If you haven't read any of his books, find some young children and start reading!
My five-year old didn't like this book that much (she didn't like that they were fighting), but my husband laughed hysterically when he read it. It's designed for early readers (it might have fewer words than "The Cat in the Hat")
After Maya read the party book, she has returned to this one and decided that she likes it.
After Maya read the party book, she has returned to this one and decided that she likes it.
So this is only the second Mo Willems book I've read, and I really should read more. These books are hilarious, and fun for adults too! Each page is so simple, making it easy to read and straight forward, but the ideas are just ingenious. Kids will love the characters and the humor.
The Elephant and Piggie books - what can I say? These books are loved by both my 5 and 2 year old (and me as well). My 5 year old who is just learning to sound out words will pick up these books to practice. Their fun and witty with simply text and loads of personality.
The Elephant and Piggie books - what can I say? These books are loved by both my 5 and 2 year old (and me as well). My 5 year old who is just learning to sound out words will pick up these books to practice. Their fun and witty with simply text and loads of personality.
When my children were a few years younger than they are right now, I read this book to them multiple times. The pig flying is wonderful, but the elephant's desire to fly makes the book more than humorous. Kids get the humor and that, in itself, is worthy of reading.
Very cute. Piggie announces with confidence that she will fly. Elephant is just as definite that Piggie cannot fly.
Charming illustrations and humor that can be enjoyed by both children and adults. A winner!
Read in Austin from Drew/Logan/Sabrina's library.
Charming illustrations and humor that can be enjoyed by both children and adults. A winner!
Read in Austin from Drew/Logan/Sabrina's library.
I love this book. Anytime someone says "You need help," in whatever context, it makes me think of this happy little pig and her grouchy elephant friend. I will read this book out loud to anyone whenever asked. Or even if not asked. I love this book.
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#1 New York Times Bestselling author and illustrator Mo Willems is best known for his Caldecott Honor winning picture books Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and Knuffle Bunny: a cautionary tale.
In addition to such picture books as Leonardo the Terrible Monster, Edwina the Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She Was Extinct, and Time to Pee, Mo has created the Elephant and Piggie books, a series of early r...more
More about Mo Willems...
In addition to such picture books as Leonardo the Terrible Monster, Edwina the Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She Was Extinct, and Time to Pee, Mo has created the Elephant and Piggie books, a series of early r...more
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