Blackberry Banquet — Terry Pierce

Mmm-mm! Forest animals squeak, tweet, slurp, yip and chomp over the sweet, plump fruit of a wild blackberry bush. But what happens when a bear arrives to take part in the feast? Young children will enjoy following the story by making the animal sounds, and the chaos that strikes upon the bear's arrival will surely bring on the laughter. The cumulative, rhyming text makes for a great read-aloud.  


This fictional story includes a 4-page For Creative Minds section in the back of the book and a 34-page cross-curricular Teaching Activity Guide online. Blackberry Banquet is vetted by experts and designed to encourage parental engagement. Its extensive back matter helps teachers with time-saving lesson ideas, provides extensions for science, math, and social studies units, and uses inquiry-based learning to help build critical thinking skills in young readers. The Spanish translation supports ELL and dual-language programs. The interactive ebook reads aloud in both English and Spanish with word highlighting and audio speed control to promote oral language skills, fluency, pronunciation, text engagement, and reading comprehension.


Educator Keywords: plant-animal interaction, rhyme, cumuluative phrases, life science, food web, invasive plants