One day, he finds a shiny coin in the street with his initials on it. He finds this to be interesting, so he picks it up, and takes it with him to a new chocolate store he sees while he is supposed to be visiting his friend Susan. At the chocolate store, he buys a piece of chocolate. The next day, everything he eats turns into chocolate. At first, this is a gift but, much like King Midas before him, he sees there are greater consequences to what he has done.
The book is a cute little cautionary tale about the consequences of being too greedy. And of eating too much chocolate. It comes across as a little old-fashioned (the characters have names like John, Mary, and Susan, and the mother encourages John to eat a healthy breakfast of eggs, bacon, toast, orange juice, and milk), but is still an enjoyable read. I also don't think kids will necessarily pick up on the fact that it was written so long ago (1952). This is another one of the books that I picked up to try and boost certain sections of my classroom library (leveled at an N), and I think it's a good addition. It is definitely enjoyable enough to read as an independent book. I think it is also a strong candidate for guided reading -there is a lesson for discussion at the end, as well as opportunities for discussing how and why John changes throughout the book. The language of the text isn't necessarily anything special, but taken on the whole it can make for a worthwhile discussion.
On a different note, now that it is August, I have begun work on setting up my new office. I'm teaching ESL this year as a push-in specialist, although students will probably be in and out of my room on a regular basis. I am therefore setting up my own classroom library and will allow my students to check books out with me.
As I prepared this library, I decided to laminate the books to make them last longer. I bought a 36 foot roll of clear laminating stuff, which showed up in just 2 days, thanks to the amazingness that is AmazonPrime. My project for tomorrow is to cover all of my books (that I have at home with me) with this material in an attempt to make them last longer. I buy almost all of my books brand-new, so the longer I can keep them in tip-top condition, the better. I already covered my copy of The Chocolate Touch just to see how it would turn out, and I'm pretty pleased with the result. The cover feels a little bit more slick, and it looks shinier, but it doesn't really affect the overall feel of the book. I'm big on reading as a multi-sensory experience (hence why I don't really have any interest in a Kindle or other e-reader), so it's important to me that it still feels the same. Low and behold, I didn't really notice a difference. Hopefully the laminate will help my books withstand the constant hurdling back and forth from backpack, to sticky hands, to bookcase, to backpack.
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