Doreen Cronin, who gave us the incomparable Click Clack Moo, Cows That Type, here introduces an otherwise disparaged creature for whom you'll gain great respect and affection, a brown earthworm. Start with the endpapers, a scrapbook of captioned photos like "My first tunnel" and "The family vacation-on Compost Island. " Then move on to the diary entries accompanied by personable pen and ink and watercolors of our worm narrator in his signature red baseball cap. Through five months of entries in his unforgettable and hilarious illustrated diary, you'll bond with the lovable, witty, and literate Worm, and get a worm's-eye view of his home and family; best pal, Spider; and school.

One of my favorite entries is dated May 28: "Last night I went to the school dance. You put your head in. You put your head out. You do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself about. That's all we could do." The accompanying four-panel illustration of the worms smiling and wigging under a strobe light is a masterpiece of understatement. Stop and re-sing that page with your kids as they pretend to be the dancing worms. When I read the book to a class of second graders, they got the hokey pokey joke. There's no putting in of arms and legs if you're a worm. One child said, "Wait! They could put their tails in, couldn't they?"

This picture book for all ages has a wonderful implicit message about caring for even the smallest of creatures. As the worm says in his August 1 notation, "It's not always easy being a worm. We're very small, and sometimes people forget that we're even here. But, like Mom always says, the earth never forgets we're here. Companion books about Worm's friends-Diary of a Spider and Diary of a Fly-are equally convivial. I was in a third grade classroom one day, and watched with pleasure as five boys huddled around Diary of a Fly, reading aloud bits to each other and laughing uproariously. Have your children read all three books and analyze the characters of Worm, Spider, and Fly. What are the personality traits of each? How are their lives different? Why are they friends? Compare and contrast their voices with that of the carrot-craving wombat in Jackie French's The Diary of a Wombat. The next time kids think about stomping an ant or bashing a spider or cutting a worm in half, they'll think twice and think better of it.

Teacher Tip: Note that each diary incorporates, in words and pictures, facts about its narrator. There are plenty of unloved, uncuddly, and uncute creatures out there on which the earth depends. Your students can pick an insect or other misunderstood animal, do some research, and incorporate the facts they find into illustrated diary entries from the animal's point of view. This may be a tad too irreverent in the circumstances, but you could follow up with a rousing rendition of the song, "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly." For many more teaching ideas go here: http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=2945 or here: http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=778 or, for lots of lesson plan links, here: http://www.lessonplanet.com/search?grade=All&keywords=diary+of+a+worm&rating=3&search_type=related.

THEMES: ANIMALS. DIARIES. PERSONAL NARRATIVES. PICTURE BOOKS FOR ALL AGES. POINT OF VIEW. SCIENCE. SPIDERS. WORMS.

A READKIDDOREAD CLASSIC