A New Book for Our Classroom Library

My mom shared this book review with me and it definitely piqued my curiousity:

A Kids’ Novel That Delights in Disorder
Philip Stead’s “A Potion, a Powder, a Little Bit of Magic” gleefully ignores all the storytelling rules.

(this is a NYT gift link, so everyone can enjoy reading it!)

Since we are doing Personal Narratives as our 4th grade Composition focus, I thought this could be a fun read aloud (we just finished Mr. Popper's Penguins) and so I checked it out from the library. YEP, it's one to buy. So I just bought it. I am really looking forward to sharing this with the children!

A Potion, a Powder, a Little Bit of Magic
Or, Like Lightning in an Umbrella Storm:
A Story Out of Order
by Philip Stead

Here is the "out of order" order of the chapters:

In Medias Res

13 - The Possibility of Danger

14 - A Potion, a Powder, a Little Bit of Magic

15 - Failing Up

In Principio

2 - Goatnapped

3 - Perseverance

Omnia Mea Culpa

4 - Lancelot Makes a Run For It

5 - Why Bernadette Was Always Having to Repair Her Roof

6 - The King Loses His Balance

7 - The Royal Bearer of Good News

16 - A Moment of Pure Beauty

8 - The Royal Bearer of Bad News

9 - A Moment of Pure Despair

Oops! Erravi!

10 - The Tollbooth

11 - The Tree Who Does Not Grant Wishes

12 - Loopholes

The End... But Not in the Usual Sense

17 - Carelessness

18 - Gravitas

Fors Hoc Doleat!

19 - The Parade

20 - The Mountain of Regret

What Was Left of Bernadette's Ending

21 - Giddyup

22 - A Potion

23 - A Powder

Acknowledgments

24 - A Little Bit of Magic (and a Plain Gray Rock)

The End

1 - A Moment of Pure Generosity

The story also begins with a Map of the Entire Kingdom and the Cast of Characters, and ends with a place for you to write in all the Morals (which are thoughtfully punctuated by goats) that they learn along the way.

This book looks like a ton of fun! I'm sure the children will absolutely love it.

e.e. cummings broke all the stuffy rules for punctuation and capitalization... and now we have Philip Stead joyfully playing around with chapter order!

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