Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving and Vincent Van Gogh

Dav Pilkey is one of the kids' favorite writers. For Thanksgiving, I read Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving. I start off by pointing out that they might think if they went to everybody section and looked for PIL, they'd find all of Pilkey's books. They would find Dogzilla, sure. And Catkong and When Cats Dream and, our favorite, Halloweiner. The kids love Pilkey and each title elicits moans of pleasure. But, I point out, if you only went to the Everybody section, you'd miss Pilkey's Captain Underpants series, in the Fiction section. The mention of Captain Underpants never fails to bring cheers. I don't get it, but hey. And what about El Capitan Calzoncillos, in the Spanish section? And the Dragon book, Dragon's Friend, Dragon's Christmas, etc. Those are in the earlier reader area. If you want to read all of Dav Pilkey's books, you need to look in the library catalog. 

I show them the cover of the Thanksgiving book and say that even though it's obviously fiction, it's in the nonfiction section. (!) Does anyone knows why?So Dav Pilkey has become a quick review of the organization of the library. And because the kids are crazy about him, they are with me the whole time. 

I point out that Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving is taken from an old poem, Twas the Night Before Christmas. 

I read the quote in the front of the book- a quote from Van Gogh, saying that whatever you do with love, you do well. And then I read the story. The story, in case you don't know, is about a class of children who visit a turkey farm and realizing, to their horror, that the turkeys are going to be eaten, tuck the birds under their shirts and sneak them away. 

I love to use Pilkey for my classes. He lives just down the road from our school, in Eugene—something they are astonished to hear.  He wasn't a very successful student, but he loved to draw. People were afraid he wouldn't amount to much if he didn't get serious about things.  In fact, some of the figures he uses in his books now were ones he created as a child. He follows his passion. Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving was rejected 23 times before it was published- he is persistent. 

And lastly, I show the students the night time sky in his Thanksgiving book: beautiful deep blue sky, swirling stars, and show them other examples of his night time skies, all very similar. And then I show them a book about Vincent Van Gogh and turn to the painting, Starry Night. We talk about the fact that writers and artists are inspired by many different things. Sometimes they are inspired by each other.

This little lesson has not only walked the kids through the way a library is organized, provided great lessons about character, and told them a great story, it has also, I hope, given them the message that culture belongs to them. The world of culture, the world of beautiful paintings and intelligence and philosphy (remember the Van Gogh quote at the beginning)  is their world. Wow. That's quite a lot from the same guy who brought us The Attack of the Talking Toilets.