Good News Bad News by Jeff Mack is one of my favorite picture books to elicit language. My daughter brought this book home from her school library the other week and we have reading it non-stop! With its engaging illustration and simple text, this book is fun for those who are just beginning to read and excellent for an older child in helping to improve their narrative skills. Children love this book because they can read it themselves because the only words in the book are “good news” and “bad news”. The book is about a mouse and bunny who go on a picnic. Many things occur such as a thunderstorm, a cake disaster and sworm of bees. In the end, the friends give each other a nice hug and finally have their picnic that they always wanted!
Language concepts are easy to facilitate with this book. It teaches a child what “bad news” and “good news” are and how to tell based on the picture and facial expressions of the characters. My children and I wrote an entire story based on this book by having me facilitate the story by prompting them certain ways. I asked, “What happened next?”, “Tell me what is going on in this picture”, “And then…….”, etc. I asked some questions but mostly just tried to facilitate. A child’s narrative skills will naturally improve with a book like this and some helpful strategies from you! For a child with an auditory processing disorder or decreased attention span, this book is great because it keeps them engaged. The text is not overwhelming and there is a sense of creativity and freedom that you can have with the book. You can also target sequencing, recalling information, describing and sight word recognition.
Here is the story that my 4 and 5 year old kids created the other night: “The bunny found a picnic basket. It started raining out. He got an umbrella. The mouse is flying away with the umbrella. The umbrella got stuck in the tree. The mouse bumped his head on the apple. They got an apple to eat. Then the mouse found a worm in his apple. He found the cake. A bee got to the cake. The bunny got a net to get the bee. Then the cake smashed. The bunny is licking the cake off the mouse. Then all of the bees came. The bunny found a cave. The bear is in there. The bees and the bear are chasing the good guys. Then there was a thunderstorm. They found a puddle. The mouse is crying because he didn’t like all of the stuff the bunny did to him. The bunny is crying and the mouse is sad. The sun is coming out. The mouse found the picnic basket. Then this is the part they hug. The end.
Start simple by just a writing a couple of sentences. Ask questions, give choices and encourage your child. Hope you enjoy the book!