THE ENORMOUS CARROT

Title: The Enormous Carrot

Author: Vladimir Vagin

Grade Level: Kindergarten

Genre: Fantasy

            Imagine if one day you came across your favorite food growing in your backyard. Now imagine if that food had grown as tall as a tree and as wide as an elephant! This magical event would excite anyone who had discovered it, but also provide them with a slight dilemma.

The story The Enormous Carrot by Vladimir Vagin takes place in rolling valleys of fluorescent flowers and ever growing plants. Two rabbits named Daisy and Floyd were gardening when they stumble across an “enormous carrot” nestled in their yard. Of course the two small rabbits could not pick up the huge carrot, so they get together with six of their neighborhood friends and finally the carrot comes lose. In the end Daisy and Floyd have a huge gathering where they share the gigantic carrot with all of their friends.

This story is great for beginner readers or a kindergarten read aloud because the story is predictable and the text is boldly stated on each page. Once the challenge of retrieving the carrot presented itself, Daisy and Floyd’s neighbors walk by one by one offering assistance. Young readers would encounter repetition and gain confidence from the familiar sentences while kindergartens could focus on the moral of the tale. In this fantasy book disbelief is created through the growth of an unrealistic vegetable and the ability that 8 little animals could pry it from the ground. Children would be amused by this fictional scenario but also gain insight from the moral. The overlying theme of teamwork is definitely a great one for young students to understand because it proves working together can help you overcome difficult situations.  This moral is especially valid for young children because they like to be independent and accomplish things on their own.

 I was originally drawn to this book because I am obsessed with bunnies and anything they do. However, this book would be a great addition to my classroom library and I would encourage my students to take a look at it during silent reading time. If I were to use this story along with a lesson I would ask my students to think of a time where they were challenged with something and needed help from their friends. I would ask them to write and illustrate their story with words and pictures. This would fall under the ELA frameworks for writing MA1 Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose opinion pieces in which they tell a reader the topic or the name of the book they are writing about and state an opinion or preference about the topic or book.