Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!

Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! Written by Candace Fleming, Illustrated by G. Brian Karas

Picture Book for children ages 2-6

5 Stars!

Mr. McGreely has always wanted to grow a wonderful vegetable garden and this year he decides that he is going to do it, but he has nothing but trouble with it due to three bunnies who munch on his leafy greens every night. Mr. McGreely puts up more and more obstacles in hopes of keeping the bunnies away, but it takes Mr. McGreely building a trench, a brick wall, wire fence and many many other things for him to finally gain success in growing his vegetables.

                The diction used within this story is enough to make Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! a well written story, but so much more than the wonderful diction and language exists. First off, the text often uses rhyming words and is full of adjectives to describe every piece of information. These adjectives that are used also demonstrate the use of precise vocabulary in the text, as this really shows the reader exactly what the author wants them to see. Also, the text only gives away half of the story; the illustrations show the other half. In the story, on the first night that bunnies appear, that is all that the text says they do, is appear. The illustrations on these two pages show them creeping into the garden and gnawing on the lettuce, which gives the reader a hint of what is going to happen in the morning when Mr. McGreely comes out to check on his garden. Within each illustration are words describing the sounds being made by the rabbits, which are fun to read out loud, especially to children. As each day in the life of the bunnies and Mr. McGreely comes to a close, the line “And the sun went down. And the moon came up.” Is stated, which brings repetition into the story. This repetition makes it fun to read as gives anticipation to what the illustrations are going to show about what the bunnies are going to do during the night. As each day goes on, Mr. McGreely gets more and more angry at the bunnies and takes more and more drastic measures to keep the bunnies out of his garden. The unrealistic ideas he comes up with to do this as well as the way that the illustrations show the bunnies conquering Mr. McGreely’s feats. All of these things make reading Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! fun to read as well as make it a well written and illustrated book.

                I would definitely use this book within my classroom. I would use it during the read-aloud portion of my day because of the awesome illustrations and the music of the text. The humor in this story also brings the book to life, as a grown man is having the darndest time keeping bunnies out of his garden. The varying sizes of font and the cartoon/child-like illustrations really show the emotion of the story to the readers or in my case, to my students who are listening to me read and looking at the pages. Besides using it as a read-aloud book, I would use this as a book for my students to read during reading time, as it is written, for the most part, at an easy level and the repetitions and rhyming words make it easy for the children to catch on to. Other than these two ideas, not many other curriculum connections can be made, other than maybe an art project.