Stellaluna

Title: Stellaluna

Author: Janell Cannon

Awards: ABBY Winner

Look inside the book at Amazon here.

"Stellaluna" must be one of the first few children's books that I've invested in (SGD$30 was a lot to spend on a book during the early days of of NIE). I discovered it in Borders. And when I saw the book, I knew I must have it. My friends and I were looking for a good story book to share as part of our project for a KWL strategy for a lesson demonstration.  We used it for a tuning in activity for the children to be more interested about bats (since Stellaluna was just so adorable) before an information text about bats is presented. I was in charge of reading the story.  Anyway, after the entire presentation, our tutor said, "Excellent!" and we got an A for that. And I can't remember how many times after that I've used "Stellaluna" in class for other activities. It had remained at the top on my favourite list for a long time. Well, I have the Stellaluna beanie and Stellaluna is part of the wall mural in my school's library :P

The story is about Stellaluna, a baby bat who 'lost' her mother after an owl attacked them. She eventually landed up in a bird nest where three baby birds live. Stellaluna eventually gave up her 'bat's habits' and learned to be like a bird to be accepted, which was really comical. In the end, she found her bat family again where she found it was alright for her to behave like a bat once again. 

I love the underlying message that everyone of us is unique. We do not have to change ourselves or others to suit us. We just have to accept one another as we are. 

The illustrations are really beautiful. See!