Ordinary Oscar

We love Ordinary Oscar by Laura Adkins. 

Oscar Slimeglider is an ordinary snail. 

 He eats ordinary lettuce and he is ordinary brownish greenish gray.

Just like his parents and brothers and sisters. 

But, he doesn't want to be ordinary.  He wants to stand out, be unique and be famous! He visits the Wise Old Snail to seek his advice on how he can be different.  The Wise Old Snail tells Oscar he just needs a little bit of magic and sends him off to visit the Fairy Godsnail. 

The fairy grants Oscar three wishes.  For his first wish, Oscar wishes to look different.  He turns into a colorful, bright snail that really stands out .  But this only draws the attention of a very hungry bird.  Then he wishes to be big, bigger than the bird that is trying to eat him.  Bigger than anything.  He ends up being so big that he scares people.  Oscar decides that he doesn't want to be famous for being scary, so he wishes to be his plain old ordinary self again. 

Oscar realizes that sometimes being ordinary, isn't such a bad thing after all.   And in the end, even ordinary snails (or people), can do extraordinary things. 

I thought the book had a great lesson for children.  Everyone wishes and wants to stand out and "be something".  We never realize that we already are "something" to those around us and those who love us.  And those that love us, love us for who we are...not what we are.  Great book!

I decided to use this book for craft time.  I asked Sarah to draw two huge snails on poster board.  I'm so lucky to have two girls who draw so well.

The boys painted their snails with poster paints.  I told them to make them colorful...like the "famous" Oscar.

Sarah also made stars for eyes, that we sprinkled with glitter

We added googly eyes to the centers, cut them out and glued them to the snails.

Nicholas embellished his painting and named it "Oscar Star"

We also added some extra sparkles with glitter

Great Book!

and Really Great Art!

*Disclosure: I received this book from Tiger Tales for review purposes only.  I was not compensated in anyway.  The opinions herein are my own and were not influenced by Tiger Tales or the author of this book.  The art was my own idea and done by my children.

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