October's Book-of-the-Month: Grace for President

October's Book-of-the Month is the delightful Grace for President. Books-a-million describes the book in this way:

"Where are the girls?" When Grace's teacher reveals that the United States has never had a female president, Grace decides to be the first. And she immediately starts off her political career as a candidate in the school's mock election. But soon, she realizes that she has entered a tough race. Her popular opponent claims to be the "best man for the job"--and seems to have captured all the male votes--while Grace concentrates on being the best person . In this timely story, author Kelly DiPucchio not only gives readers a fun introduction to the American electoral system, but also teaches them the value of hard work, courage, and independent thought--and offers an inspiring example of how to choose our leaders.

Principal Susan Phillips always uses each new book-of-the-month to teach the faculty a new strategy. This month it was another new vocabulary strategy, since we recognize the importance of vocabulary on comprehension. As always, she treats the teachers like her class of students so they can actually experience the strategy themselves. What a perfect time of the year for us to predict the words that we thought we might encounter in this book about elections. After brainstorming a list of words, we categorized the words by putting like words together and then choosing a title for each category, in the same way that we will ask our students to do.

After teachers took part in the strategy work with their grade level team, they were enthralled and entertained with Susan's rendition of Grace for President. Susan was a kindergarten teacher so she does a truly delightful read aloud! Now this is a book that even Obama and McCain would enjoy!