The Pink Refrigerator

This book by Tim Egan, is very simple with a formal format. Each page has a picture that takes up the top part and a little bit of writing at the bottom. Dodsworth is a mouse that lives a very simple life and does not do anything new or exciting. He basically does the same things everyday. He goes to the junkyard to try and find things for his thrift store. One day he finds a pink refrigerator with a magnet and a not on it. Each day the note reads a new activity for him to try and there is something different inside the refrigerator to be used for the activity. This is really fun for a child because it keeps them interested in what the refrigerator note will say next. I like that the book follows a pattern of Dosworth reading the note, trying to pull off the magnet, looking inside the refrigerator, putting the item for sale in his store and then refusing to sell it in order to do the activity. After a while, he stops putting things up for sale in his shop and goes straight to trying out the activity. I noticed that at the beginning of the book, Dodsworth never had a smile on his face, but once he started discovering new things to do, he was always smiling. After a while, the note on the refrigerator says keep exploring and there is nothing inside the refrigerator. Dodsworth gets mad because he has nothing more to do. Then, he realizes that he needs to keep trying new things. He goes to his store and leaves a note that says, "Went to find an Ocean". This is a great way to see if the child was paying attention when reading because they would have to remember that Dodsworth painted an ocean earlier in the book and said that he had never been to the ocean. This explains his curiosity for finding an ocean. This book is a great way to teach children that sometimes making life easy by doing the same things every day is not that great. Children can learn to try new things even if they fear that they will fail or not be good at something.