Stephanie's Ponytail (Book Talk)

Stephanie’s Ponytail

Author: Robert Munsch

Illustrator: Michael Martchenko

I chose this book because Robert Munsch is one of my favorite children’s authors. He has written many successful books such as “Love You Forever” among other childhood classics. Stephanie’s Ponytail in particular is a really fun story. It is about a girl who asks her mom to give her different ponytails every day before school. The problem is, every time she tries a new ponytail, the next day everyone else in school copies her and is wearing the exact same ponytail… even the boys! By the end of the story, even faculty members start to copy her hairstyles and Stephanie becomes fed up. Finally, she comes up with a clever idea of how she can get everyone to stop copying her. The ending is both funny and surprising.

This book can be used in a first or second grade classroom. The illustrations are very detailed and these really help to develop the story. The text follows a repetitive pattern so the children can begin to follow along and join in even if they can’t see the page. For example, lines such as “It’s MY ponytail, and I like it!” can be a line contributed to by the whole class. The story even incorporates a little elementary level math into the humor. For example, when Stephanie wears a ponytail in front of her face, “On the way to school she bumped into four trees, three cars, two houses, and one Principal.” I believe this book can be used for a number of different purposes in a classroom. It can be used as lesson against bullying or being a “copy cat” and being happy with who you are. It can be used for counting strategies, counting how many different types of ponytails she tries, or how many things she runs into on the way to school, etc. It can be used to learn how to read different types of text to convey emotion. For example, when the words are in bold, the character is yelling or upset; when the text is italicized the character is feeling confident and emphasizes her words; etc. These are just some of many ways to incorporate Stephanie’s Ponytail into a lesson.