Every Living Thing

This book is best for 4th graders and up. The stories are good to use for inferencing and questioning strategies. The length of the stories are perfect for those brief times when I need a meaningful filler activity in my classroom. Good stories to enjoy before bedtime or as class read alouds.

This book is filled with short stories about animals. As a teacher, I am always looking for interesting stories for my students. These stories will capture the interest of my students while I use them as a fabulous teaching tool.

Every Living Thing, by Cynthia Rylant, is a wonderful read for any middle school student. This book is full of many short stories, each story taught me a great deal of respect and responsibility, which added to my maturity. This book includes 12 stories. The 1st story is called "Slower Than The Rest." In this story a boy wins an award for the first time ever! The 2nd story is called "Retired." Retired is about a retired 4th grade teacher who becomes very mean and cruel and does not like kids after a couple years of retirement. Well, that is until one of her friends end up having to move to France and they can not take their dog with them, so they give the dog to the teacher and then she becomes very kind, friendly, and loving to children again. "Papa's Parrot" is the 3rd story. This story is about a father and a son who become closer than ever when papa ends up in the hospital. This event brought father and son closer together. "Boar out There" is the 4th story. This story is about a young little girl named Jenny, who gets injured badly by a wild boar. But after getting injured the boar tour his nose really bad and he is still running free today. "A Pet" is the 5th story. This story is about a little girl named Emma. One day Emma asked her mom and dad if she can have a pet but they said no. Well one day Emma came home from school and she found a surprise in her room, it was a fish. Emma was so happy she jumped for joy and was happy her parents listened to her about giving her a pet. These are just a few of the tales in this wonderful collection of short stories. Cynthia Rylant is also the author of Henry and Mudge books. Be sure to pick up any book by this fine author.

"Every Living Thing," by Cynthia Rylant, is a collection of 12 short stories. Although different characters appear in each tale, the collection as a whole is unified by style and by theme. Each story deals with an encounter or ongoing relationship between a human being and one or more non-human animals. Since the book is only 81 pages long, each tale is quite brief.This is a gentle, moving book. Rylant has a gift for capturing resonant details. She also writes with great compassion for both her human and non-human characters. Her non-human characters come in many different species: a turtle, dogs, a parrot, squirrels, and more. Her human characters are also diverse: both adults and children, both male and female. I found one of the most memorable characters to be an alcoholic wartime veteran (from "Drying Out"). My overall favorite story in the collection, "A Pet," is about a girl who becomes the owner of a blind old goldfish. I would recommend this book especially to those interested in the short story as a literary form and to those interested in literature about animals. If you like this book, I would also recommend Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's novel "Shiloh."

Wonderful stories!! Life as it is!! Having read these stories aloud to adults in nursing homes on numerous occassion and found them to satisfy our need to hear good resolves, we can all recommend this good read. "A Bad Road for Cats", one of the favorites, that hits the hard realities of human relationships and good resolves in our dealing with others when things aren't right. Stories of people finding there way through realationships with others and the place that animals play in our lives to make bridges. Read them! You will love them if you love people and animals. Write more of these Cynthia!