Book Blog #4 on "A Bad Case of Stripes"

Title: A Bad Case of Stripes

Author: David Shannon

Illustrator: David Shannon

Publisher: Blue Sky Press (Scholastic Press)

Copyright: 1998

Number of Pages: 32

Genre: Modern Fantasy

Grade Level: 2^nd

Content Area: Science

David Shannon wrote and illustrated the book, A Bad Case of Stripes. This story is about a young girl named Camilla Cream who worries too much about what people think of her. She loves lima beans, but she never eats them because all of her friends hate them and she wants to fit in. She woke up covered in colorful stripes for the first day of school. All kinds of doctors and specialists visit her to see if they can figure out what is wrong, but anything they suggest is something else that pops up on her skin. Things such as bacteria and fungus grew on her skin within seconds of them mentioning their opinions on what might have caused her bad case of the stripes. At the end of the story, a little old lady comes to help with a container of lima beans. She did not want to eat them at first, but she finally did and her bad case of stripes began to disappear. The illustrations are very colorful and show Camilla with all of the different things that pop up on her skin. This book would open up a great discussion with the students about how we should all be ourselves. I would start off the discussion by telling them some of the stuff that makes me different. Then I would give others the chance to share something like that about themselves. I would connect this book to science by talking about lima beans and separating other food into different food groups. I would set out pictures of food to separate in groups like meat, vegetables, and fruits and have them guess which group they go with. Then we would go over it and talk about what kind of food is good for them.