Under the Leaf

Under the Leaf is a humorous animal fantasy.  First, Monkey is hot and finds shade under a leaf.  He invites Lion, then Tiger, to join him, but when a mosquito arrives he stings the first three.  In the end, the mosquito has the leaf to himself.  The story is told through simple dialogue and narrative with numerous repeated language patterns.

The story has a beginning, middle, end text structure.  All the sentences are short and largely predictable.  Monkey, Tiger, and Lion are characters with capitalized names.  Quotation marks are used in dialogue.  Bold face is used for emphasis in dialogue.  Humorous illustrations support the text directly and add meaning.  Inset pictures show the arrival and departure of each character as the story progresses.  The last page has an illustrated story sequence organizer that invites readers to retell the story.

The high frequency words are too, up, and looked.  Interest words include ouch, mosquito, and the onomatopoetic bzzz. 

This title is from the Sails Literacy series. Hook readers and ignite their curiosity - over 700 levelled texts with bright, colourful, sophisticated designs.