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In Times Past
an eBook on CD
by Carol Hurst and Rebecca Otis

Integrating US History with Literature in Grades 3-8.

Enliven your US History curriculum!

Teach US History using great kids books.

More Info

Who Sank the Boat

by Allen, Pamela. (Putnam, 1985 ISBN 0808563564. Order Online.) Picture Book. 32 pages. Grades PreK+.
This book was reviewed by Carol Otis Hurst in Teaching K-8 Magazine.

Review

Five friends: a donkey, a cow, a sheep, a pig, and a mouse, all decide to go for a boat ride. They enter the boat from biggest to smallest with each new entrant tipping the boat and causing it to sit lower and lower in the water. Guess who gets in last. Guess who sinks the boat. The rhyming text is rollicking and as exuberant as the passengers and its predictability makes this a good early reader.

The "straw that broke the camel's back" theme in this book is easily identified in others. The Napping House by Don and Audrey Wood is very close to this one although, in that case, it's a flea that does them in.

It's also a good stepping stone toward a lot of science and math activities. Give children some toy boats or some wooden triangular wedges and some stones or weights and let them figure out if the mouse would have sunk the boat if he had gotten on in any other position than last. Can they change the story with a new sequence of animals? Would it be as funny? Estimating the weight of each of the characters, calculating the necessary size of the boat and working with other floating and sinking activities are just a few of the possible book extensions here.

Related Areas of Carol Hurst's Children's Literature Site

• Books for Emergent Readers
• The Napping House by Audrey Wood, a related book with activities.