Sample Solution

Snack Time Song, the two Frank bulldog brothers tell her her food is for weirdos “Yuckorama!”. Everyone laughs, and Yoko finishes her day sad and down. But Mrs. Jenkins has a plan and decides to host an International Food Day. She asks all the students to be open-minded and try everything. Yoko’s mother made sushi for everyone in the class. Everything was eaten but her sushi. But then Timothy, a raccoon, tries Yoko’s sushi and Yoko shows him how to use the chopsticks to eat it. By the end of the book they are fast best friends planning to open their own lunch restaurant serving up tomato sandwiches and dragon rolls.

Visiting Day Picture Book/Poems
Woodson, J., & Ransome, J. (2015). Visiting Day. New York: Puffin Books.
With her grandma’s love and guidance, a young girl and her grandmother prepare for a very special day of the month – the one day they go to visit the girl’s dad in prison. “Only on visiting day is there chicken frying in the kitchen at 6 a.m, and Grandma in her Sunday dress, humming soft and low.” A neighbor brings presents for Daddy, and grandma and the girl share their food with strangers on the bus on the way. While the little girl and grandmother get ready to visit her father, who adores her, he is also getting ready too. The young girl is very excited to see her father and the girl imagines what preparations her father might be making for the day she goes to see him; she imagines him crossing off days on a calendar next to artwork by her with red hearts. Told from the nonjudgmental perspective of the young girl, there is no mention of why Daddy is incarcerated or what he did, the book focuses only on how much Daddy loves her and their relationship. The young girl and Grandma share a feeling of hope and family, from frying chicken in the morning to the bus ride to sitting down to draw more pictures for Daddy when she gets home.