This post is for the book The Case of the Portrait Vandal and it includes a free teaching supplement. This book is the in Museum Mysteries series by Stone Arch books and was written by Steve Brezenoff. I like the full color photos included as well as the glossary, nonfiction facts, information about history, discussion questions, writing prompts, and story characters that have to deal with prejudices. This is my sixth and last post for Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2016. Please also see post one, post two, post three, post four, and post five. Each one has a book review and free teaching supplement. The publisher sent me six books which are being donated to Minnesota schools. Three of the books are already at a Minneapolis Public School.
The Case of the Portrait Vandal
The book Museum Mysteries: The Case of the Portrait Vandal takes place in the American History Museum. Each of the Capitol City Sleuth characters likes a different display area, such as Clementine likes the Hall of American Artists best. One of the writing pages is therefore about which display the student reader might like to visit and why.
Many historical facts are sprinkled throughout the text making this a multi-genre book with non-fiction and fiction working together to help bring history alive. The characters work together to solve a crime with red herrings and several possible suspects. They also have to deal with prejudice and hateful statements which offer rich classroom discussion opportunities. How would the reader have handled the situations? Would he or she have been able to resolve it happily as the book characters were able to do?
Supplemental Pages
My free teaching supplemental pages to accompany this book may be downloaded at the following link, and it will open right here.
The-Case-of-the-Portrait-Vandal-student-work-pages
Students might be interested in writing about which museum would be their favorite, so one of the pages provides an opportunity for writing about such a choice. Perhaps some have visited these museums and will have an informed choice. Thank you for reading these posts for #ReadYourWorld and MCCBD.