The Pirate of Kindergarten

Title: The Pirate of Kindergarten

Author: George Ella Lyon

 Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers

Publication Date: 2010

Genre/Format: Picture Book/Fiction

Summary: Ginny loves school, especially reading. Her eyes play tricks on her; in fact, everything she sees has a double. Ginny runs into chairs and tables and her classmates laugh at her clumsiness. It is only during a routine school vision check up that it was found she has double vision.  Her persona changes after the doctor prescribes an eye patch—the pirate of kindergarten.

Personal thoughts: I pulled this book from the library shelf because of the title. I have a grandson who just finished kindergarten, and he loves all things about pirates and pirate treasure. Thinking this might be a book I could read aloud, I pulled the book from the library shelf. It was not what I had expected; it was so much more! I love how the author bases this book on her own childhood experience and the colors the illustrator uses invites me to keep looking at the illustrations.(By the way, he and his younger brothers love the book; we even had to fashion an eye patch for all three boys to they could be pirates.) I think this would be a book to use in the classroom to talk about diversity.

Read Together:   grades K-3
Read without help: grades 2-4
Read With:  The Patch, Justina Chen Headley (2007); My Travelin’ Eye, Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw (2008).

Snippet of Text:

“Ginny loved Reading Circle. Getting there was hard, though, with all those chairs. She knew only half of them were real, but which ones? She always ran into some. Someone always laughed.” (Unnumbered pages)

“Then came Vision Screening Day. Ginny was a little scared when they lined up to go into the gym.  She did fine at first reading letters on the white chart. The nurse put a black spoon over one eye and asked her to name the letters. She could do that. With one eye, she only saw one. It was the same when he covered the other eye. But when the nurse said, Now use both, Ginny froze.” (Unnumbered pages)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Connections to Reading: Prediction, Author’s Purpose, Questioning, Visualizing, Connections to the Text

 Connections to Writing: Expository—Your little brother or sister has just found out they need glasses. You can remember what it was like to wear glasses for the very first time. Write an expository composition to your brother or sister about the things you like about glasses and the things you don’t like about wearing glasses (pros and cons).

Connections to Writing: Narrative— (1) Write a whole class Acrostic Poem describing Ginny.

Connections to Health: Eating nutritious foods is an important part of a healthy diet to in order to keep your eyes healthy and strong. Research ten (10) fruits, nuts, vegetables and fish that will keep your eyes strong.

Topics Covered:  Visual impairment, double vision, self-esteem, kindergarten, vision screening

Translated to Spanish:  No

Translated to other languages: No

Other formats: No