Author: Madonna
Age Range: 4-8
Mr. Peabody's Apples is a book that shows how strong our words are and what can happen when you spread rumors. Mr. Peabody is a teacher and is also the coach of the boys baseball team during the summers. After the baseball games he walks home waving to everyone he sees, and on the way stops by a fruit stand and takes the shiniest apple and puts it in his bag before continuing home. One day one of his players sees him take and apple and assumes that he is stealing it. After another game the player follows Mr. Peabody home and watches him take another apple, now he is convinced that he is stealing the apples. Instead of confronting Mr. Peadody about it he starts telling people that the coach is a thief. Soon everyone in town is convinced that Mr. Peabody is a thief, no one waves to him anymore and at the next baseball game he finds himself alone on the field, not knowing what is wrong. Only on boy, Billy is brave enough to confront him. He tells him what the other player saw, how he told everyone else, so now they all think he is a thief. Mr. Peabody then finds the boy who spread the rumor and confronts him. As it turns out he pays for the apples in advance. The boy apogizes, but Mr. Peabody still has a lesson for him to learn. He has the boy get a pillow full of feathers and take it to the baseball field. When the boy does, Mr Peabody has him cut it open and dump all the feathers out. After the boy does this, he is told that he has to collect all the feathers. The boys works for along time but finds it impossible to collect all the feathers. Mr. Peabody tell him that is what happens when you spread rumors about someone, it is easy to tell and give information, but you can never take it back completly.
Though the suggested age range is 4 through 8, I think that this is a good book to use for elementary school students in the third throught the fifth grade. I also think that students this age will be able to relate to the book better than younger children. This is a time when students start spreading rumors about each other and I think it would be a good book to show them the damage it can cause, and once you say something you can never take it back completly. This book can be used to teach students about the power of words as well as honesty and not spreading rumors.
This is a website I found that list some discussion starters and activities you can do with the book. It also list some other books you can use in the classroom that has honesty as its theme.
These are a few of the books the website list that also have honesty are a theme.
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