Scieszka is funny, as always, and I was a little worried about the learning value of this book when I started. The boys are assigned haiku homework, in the 5-7-5 format!They warp to 17th Century Japan just before Basho's birth, and have a grand adventure learning about renga and hokku. They eventually write some great haiku to turn into their teacher!This would be recommended to kids about 8-9 years old learning about haiku and how NOT TO WRITE it in the 5-7-5 format. However, the students could do a lesson to perhaps improve upon the boys' haiku by using more cutting words and less punctuation- or do their own book report written in a renga in teams.
This is the tenth book in the Time Warp Trio series by Jon Scieszka. We've been slowly working our way through the series and we really enjoy these stories. This tale takes us to ancient Japan, where the boys meet samurais, poets, and a few relatives, too. We are introduced to Edo, the precursor to modern-day Tokyo and we also learn a lot about Haiku. Overall, it's a fairly typical book for the series, filled with silliness and a little dangerous drama. We really enjoyed reading it together and look forward to the next book in the series.
Do You like book Sam Samurai (2004)?
Have you ever met a samurai? How about a samurai named Owattabutt? That’s right, Oh-what-a-butt. Fred, Sam, and Joe go back in time four hundred years to medieval Japan, where they have to use their cleverness and knowledge to survive samurai swords and Japanese poetry. Luckily, they find a few friends to help them out. What would it be like to live in a country ruled by warriors? Can you write a haiku about something you learned in this book? Remember, seven syllables, five syllables, seven syllables.
—Children's Literature
