Picture Books You Can Use to Teach Middle School Language Arts

As a teacher, I am constantly looking for ways to engage my students in learning. I have found that all students, regardless of age, enjoy being read to. It is a fun change of pace to pull out a picture book and read it to a middle grades class. Picture books are very helpful in teaching complicated skills such as cause & effect, predicting, and genre studies. In my experience, here are the picture books that I keep going back to.

Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst

This book is about a little boy named Alexander who is having the worst day ever. Nothing seems to go right for him. I used this book while teaching middle school students about cause and effect. For example, "if Alexander does not wake up on time, then he will not get the cereal he wants for breakfast." A culminating activity can be to have the students write their own version of this story, but making it Alexander's Best Day instead of his worst.

There is also a cartoon movie that goes along with this book.

If You Give a Moose a Muffin

and

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by Laura Numeroff

The "If You Give a..." series of books are great! They also illustrate the cause & effect relationship quite well. You can use these books to help your students work on prediction skills, too. For instance, you can ask your children what they think will happen if you give a mouse a cookie.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi and Ron Barrett

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is a charming book about a city where all the food the citizens need falls from the sky. However, as time goes by, the food choices get more and more bizarre, and there is so much food that the townspeople are overwhelmed. Children (and adults) will be on the edge of their seats waiting to see what will happen next. The illustrations are beautiful and very detailed too. I use this book to introduce the tall tale genre. You can create a Venn Diagram graphic organizer and compare and contrast Cloudy to any other tall tale, such as Pecos Bill or Johnny Appleseed.

All of the aforementioned books are staples in any classroom, from grades K to 8. Take a visit to your local library to find other picture books that you can use to introduce other themes like summarizing, main idea, and alliteration. Have fun!