Koala Lou

Koala Lou
Mem Fox (1986)


I was introduced to Koala Lou in class.  This story is about a koala, named Koala Lou,  who enters the Olympics in order to get her mother's attention again.  Her mom has many other koala babies and Koala Lou feels like her mother does not love her anymore.  This story also includes very cute and bright illustrations that follow along and help set the story; I really enjoyed the illustrations!  This story includes many topics that lessons could be stemmed around, such as learning about animals (lots of animals are listed in this book), what a person would need to do in order to compete at the Olympics, learning about how to live with new family members/siblings, and more!  I think this book would be good to use in a 1-2 grade classroom.  It introduces a little bit more challenging of vocabulary, which is good if I want to expand my students' knowledge! I think this is a good piece of literature because the vocabulary is new, but not too hard to understand, and that the pictures follow along the story!  Students can be encouraged to try to read it independently first, then reading it aloud with others, if problems arise.  One cool website I want to share with my blog readers is this site:http://www.pampetty.com/koalalou.htm.  This website has tons of lesson plans that teachers could use when reading this book in class.  Check it out!