The Chocolate Touch

Catling, P.S.  (1952).  The chocolate touch.  New York:  Harper Trophy.

         Patrick Skene Catling’s modern fantasy children’s chapter book, The Chocolate Touch, tells what happens to a young boy who eats too much chocolate.  It won the Massachusetts Children’s Book Award in 1989, the Utah Children’s Choice Honors Award in 1983, and the Beehive Award from the Children’s Literature Association of Utah in 1983. The book is actually patterned after the myth of King Midas, whose magic turned everything he touched to gold. 

The main character and protagonist of the story, John Midas, loves chocolate more than anything in the world.  His sweet tooth often gets him in trouble with his parents, so much so that his mom makes him take tonic to make sure he gets the proper nutrients that his diet lacks.  One day, John makes a trip to the candy store where he buys a large box of fine chocolates.  Before he goes to bed, he unwraps the large box to find only one piece of chocolate.  Although disappointed, he eats it and is surprised it is one of the best chocolates he’s ever eaten.  The next day John begins to brush his teeth before eating breakfast when he notices that his toothpaste tastes like chocolate.  As the day continues, everything John drinks or eats, even non-edible things such as a pencil, tastes like chocolate.  Of course, no one believes that the things he touches turn to chocolate.  John faces different types of conflict throughout the story, such as person-against-person when he faces the school bully, Spider and person-versus-self because he is a selfish boy.  As this progressive plot continues, John starts to realize he doesn’t always like the taste of chocolate.  In fact, at the book’s climax, John’s mother turns into a “…lifeless statue of chocolate.” (p. 112).  He has to decide whether or not he will put aside his selfish ways and choose between the chocolate touch or to restore his mother back to life.  You’ll have to read the book to find out what happens during the resolution of the story’s plot.  

         The words I marked in the book using this week’s “Mark My Words” strategy were: brigands (p. 10), tonic (p. 32), derisively (p. 88), brimful (p. 106), chocolatitis (p. 109).  Some of the words I marked were unfamiliar, such as tonic, brigands, derisively, and brimful.  I looked up the definition of these words so I could better understand it in the context of the sentence.  I thought the words chocolatitis was an interesting word.  John Midas’ doctor, Dr. Cranium, used this word to diagnosis his disease of eating too much chocolate.  I liked using the “Mark My Words” strategy because it encourages students to be active readers and ask questions about unfamiliar words.  I plan to use this strategy with my students’ in the future when they are reading chapter books.

         Although The Chocolate Touch interests students in 3^rd through 5^th grade, I used it with my class of 2^nd graders to teach numerous literary concepts.  I waited until the spring to use the book because most of my students were reading chapter books by this time.  I used the book to teach my 2^nd graders how to summarize chapters in a chapter book, build vocabulary and context clue skills, and strengthen their dictionary skills.  Each student had a packet that consisted of a title, summary, illustration, and vocabulary words page for each chapter.  Because the chapters did not have titles, I encouraged the students to create their own title for the chapter after reading it.  As a class we discussed the main events that happened in the chapter, and the students wrote a 3 to 5 sentence summary about the chapter.  The students also illustrated their favorite part in the chapter.  To build students’ vocabulary, I had them use a “Guess and Check” vocabulary graphic organizer.  The students chose 5 vocabulary words, guessed the meaning of the word by reading the sentence that contained it, and checked the word’s meaning by looking it up in the dictionary.

         Some BIG questions you could ask your students are, “What would you do if everything turned to chocolate?  What could happen if John became selfish again?”. 

Just Us Women

Caines, Jeannette.  (1982).  Just us women.  New York:  HarperCollins Publishers.

Jeannette Caines’ fiction children’s book, Just Us Women, is a Reading Rainbow Book and won the Coretta Scott King Honor Book for Illustration in 1982.  The main characters, Aunt Martha and her niece, take a road trip together to North Carolina.  On their trip they take fried chicken, bread, and cake in shoeboxes.  They stop at roadside markets and buy all of the junk they want.  They walk in the rain, talk to farmers and buy their fruits, take pictures in front of famous statues, eat at fancy restaurants, and have breakfast at night.  All of this they do as “just us women.”

I chose this book because it reminds me of the fun road trips I’ve been on with my girlfriends.  It is a realistic fiction story about an aunt and her niece enjoying themselves at roadside markets, fancy restaurants, and in the rain.  I would recommend this book to students because they can relate to it in different ways, whether they have been on a road trip themselves or have a special relationship with a family member.  The writing style is simplistic, intended for readers ages 4 to 8.  The realistic and mixed media illustrative technique Pat Cummings, the illustrator, used won the book the Coretta Scott King Honor Award.

Some BIG questions you could ask your students are, “If you could go on a road trip, who would you chose to go with you?  Why did you choose this person?  What are some things you would like to do on your road trip?”.