Week 3: Review of Children's Book titled "The Boy Who Never Gave Up" for the theme of Books Boys Like

 Title: The Boy Who Never Gave Up; Stephen Curry

Author: Anthony Curcio

Summary

        I just want to start off by saying how much I enjoyed this weeks theme! I am a mom of three young boys, and I loved researching and discovering books that they would be interested in! My boys are really into sports, so I had them assist me in finding the perfect book for this weeks theme. We made it our mission to find a fun children's book for boys over some sort of sport. When we found "The Boy Who Never Gave Up" written through the perspective of NBA player Stephen Curry, we were sold! The book starts off through the view of a young Stephen Curry, who has the dream to one day be a professional basketball player like his father. Throughout the book Stephen practices hard every day to obtain his goal of being a basketball player, but he faces many challenges along the way. Stephen is told numerous times throughout the years that he will never be a professional basketball player because he is not big enough. However, Stephen is persistent and "never gives up". As we know Stephen Curry does achieve his goal of becoming a professional basketball player. With hard practice and determination, Stephen fulfilled his dream. This book promotes children to always try their best and never give up on yourself and your dreams. 

Classroom Activities

    This book is very engaging for students and provides ample pictures of Stephen Curry as a NBA basketball player along with some of his personal statistics as a basketball player. I found a great read aloud of this book on YouTube that I think students would enjoy. I have it linked below. This book provides the opportunity to meaninful whole group discussion in the classroom. If I were to share this book with a classroom of students, I would have the students reflect upon what their own personal dreams are and share it aloud with the class. I would then have the students share how they can achieve those goals and dreams. Another great activity that can be done to accompany this book and the discussion would be to have the students illustrate themselves having achieved their dreams and goals. This activity could simply be drawing with paper and crayons, or you could get extra creative and let the students create collages with magazines and other materials. The possibilities are endless. I think this would be a great book to read any time of the year, but even more so at the beginning of the year because it could help students get to know each other better and stress the importance of never giving up even when things get hard. 

References

YouTube. (2022, June 14). Kids book read aloud story 📚Stephen Curry 🏀 the boy who never gave up by Anthony Curcio. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQChDyRhT_8