"The Wildest Brother"

Title: "The Wildest Brother"
Author: Cornelia Funke
Illustrator: Kerstin Meyer
Publisher: Scholastic Inc, 2004
Genre: Picture book, fantasy
Age Range: K-2

This book is about a boy named Ben. When he wakes up he is a wild wolf but through the day he is also a knight who has to protect his older sister from all of these different creatures. He fights the slime out of the bathroom and throws the elephant over the balcony. At the end of the day when Night comes, Ben crawls into Anna's, his older sister, bed and she protects him through the night.

I thought this was a cute book. It would be a book that would be more appropriate for younger elementary students than older ones. Meyer did a fantastic job illustrating the book. The illustrations are so detailed that a student could tell the story just from looking at the pictures. I laughed to myself while I read the book because it is so funny how a little boy can take care of his sister by protecting her throughout the day from all these different creatures, but when it comes to nighttime he is scared so his sister protects him!

I would use this book to help my students learn the difference from real life from imagination. For example, this book is full of events that are not real, but imaginary. It would also be a good book to teach students that it is okay to be scared of the dark because there is always a bigger person who can protect you at night.