Maybelle in the Soup Animal Fantasy Literature Selection

 

Summary:

I read Maybelle in the Soup, by Katie Speck.  The book is about a cockroach named Maybelle who decides she no longer wants to taste the crumbs of the food from the plates that hit the floor. Maybelle wants to eat real food from the plates before it hits the floor.

Evaluation of genre:

Maybelle in the Soup would fall under the genre animal fantasy.  In this story the author uses insects that act like humans as they are having conversations with one another and they insects have ideas and thoughts.  The genre is great because the author allows the reader to see how the cockroach and the flea interact with one another just as we may interact with each other.  The author portrays Maybelle (the cockroach) and Henry (the flea) as two close friends having a conversation concerning Maybelle wanting to be able to taste food while it is on the plate instead of eating crumbs form the floor and Henry warning her that Maybelle being seen in the light is not a good idea because the humans will try to kill her.   The illustrations in the book are by Paul Ràtz de Tagyos.  The illustrations are not very big but the reader can tell what Maybelle and Henry are doing in the book.  The illustrator only used color on the cover of the book the rest of the book’s illustrations are black and white. It looks like the illustrator used the outlining style and the colored in his illustrations using watercolors and then copied them to black and white pictures.  Mr. Ràtz’s illustrations are very simple and very cute. I believe that may be because this book is better suited for an intermediate reader who will not need as many illustrations to assist with the story.

Questions to Ask:

How did you like the story?

Have you ever seen a cockroach?

Do you think Maybelle acted like the cockroach you have seen?

How was Maybelle like a human?

Do you think it is possible for a cockroach and a flea to go on vacation together?

Do you have a friend like Henry?

What did you like the  least about the story?

What did you like the most about the story?

Do you think a cockroach would make a good pet? Why? Why Not?

Activities:

The children could create 3D present for Maybelle.  They could take a paper plate and create “food” out of play dough.   They can shape different color play dough into food and write and essay of what food they decided to leave Maybelle and why they thought she would like that food.

The children could also write an once/now essay. The essay would began by explaining how once Maybelle wanted to eat food from plates and what she did to try to get real food and what happened.  The children would continue with their essay and explaining how now Maybelle has decided to eat the crumbs from the floor because it is safer than trying to eat food from the plates.

My Thoughts:

             This book is a very good book for older readers.  I think that the author was being very creative with this book.  Mrs. Speck described how the “rules” for the cockroach in the first chapter of the book that if was light outside or if there were lights on Maybelle could not bee seen and she had to hide.  Maybelle also knew that she had to hide from humans and their feet. Mrs. Speck described, creatively, the actions of a cockroach to the reader. Mrs. Speck also foreshadowed what would be happening in this cute book.  This book is a great intermediate book.  The chapters are not too long.  I believe I read this book in less than an hour.  I feel that this book had the right amount of humor and it made a really good animal fantasy book.  I do not really consider a cockroach or a flea as an animal, but I feel that the author did a really good job with this story.
 

About the Author:

Katie Speck was raised in New Orleans and she grew up around a lot of cockroaches.  Back then it was hard to control the cockroaches so her grandmother would give the cockroaches names as they would see them and tell Katie stories about the cockroaches.  Her grandmother gave all the cockroaches they encountered the name “Maybelle”.  Mrs. Speck is married and she has a daughter and her name is Maybelle.  Mrs. Speck carried the tradition telling her daughter Maybelle stories about cockroaches and her daughter encouraged her to write the stories down.  Mrs. Speck had wanted to be a writer for a long time, but like many of us was afraid she would fail.  Through her daughter’s encouragement (Mrs. Speck would say “nagging”) she began writing her story on 3x5 index cards so that she did not have empty sheets of paper, which cultivated into books.

References

Cullinan, B. & Galda L. & Sipe L. (2010) Literature and the Child. 7^th Ed. Belmont, CA. Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Speck, K. (2007). Maybelle in the Soup. Henry Holt an Co. New York, NY.

Speck, K. (2013). Katie Speck. Retrieved from http://www.katiespeck.com/katiespeck/Katie_Speck.html