Module 6: Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin

Picture taken from
http://www.amazon.com/Diary-of-a-Worm/dp/B001DO312Q/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1317523107&sr=8-6

Summary:

Diary of a Worm looks at life from the point of view of worm-child. The main character retells his days with journal entries that explain what its like to be a worm. The little worm explains things like worms help care for the earth by tunneling and that spiders and worms have very different purposes. 

Citation:

Cornin, D. (2003). Diary of a worm. United States: HarperCollins.

Impression:

I found this book endearing. I like the humor that the author took when explaining the day to day life of an earthworm. The author managed to make the relatively common earthworm an exciting and cute creature. I enjoyed how the author brought the main character to the level of the children who read the book by incorporating issues and concerns they would have and putting them into the eyes of a little earthworm.  

Reviews:

He wears a red baseball cap, likes to tease his sister, and sometimes gets in trouble at school. Oh, and he's also a worm. Pithy diary entries ("April 4. Fishing season started today. We all dug deeper") record the ups and downs of this worm's life at home, in the classroom, and hanging out with his pal Spider. Cronin (Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type, rev. 3/00) places her protagonist in situations that every kid can relate to ("I forgot my lunch today"), then adds a humorous twist specific to worms ("I got so hungry that 1 ate my homework"). So when the students do the hokey pokey at a school dance, they quickly discover that, after putting your head in and taking your head out, there isn't much else a worm can do. And how does a worm insult his older sister? "I told her that no matter how much time she spends looking in the mirror, her face will always look just like her rear end." Bliss's whimsical cartoonish illustrations depict events from a worm's-eye view; objects above the ground — including a shovel a dog, and a girl playing hopscotch — dwarf the protagonist, who uses a bottle cap for a chair and a toadstool for a desk. The endpapers, which resemble scrapbook pages containing snapshots of the worm family on vacation (at Compost Island) and a report card (our hero gets an A in tunneling and "works well with others"), add to the fun. The book also includes the gentlest of ecological messages. Noting that tunneling worms help the earth breathe, the narrator concludes that, although people may not pay much attention to worms, "the earth never forgets we're here."

Citation:

Sieruta, P. D. (2003).[Diary of a worm] [book review]. The Horn Book, 79(6), 728. http://www.hbook.com/

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PreS–Gr. 1. The verbal puns and the wry, colorful cartoons create a funny worm’s-eye view of the world in this playful picture book. There’s no sustained story here, as there was in Cronin’s wonderful Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type (2000), but the hilarious vignettes of the worm-child with his family, friends, and enemies show the absurd in humans as much as in the wriggling crea- tures in the earth. When the worm forgets his lunch, he eats his homework, and he loves telling his older sister that her face will always look like her rear end. One advantage of being a worm is that he never has to go to the dentist: no cavities. “No teeth, either,” says Dr. D. Kay. The pictures are both silly and affectionate, whether the worm holds a pencil or hugs his favorite pile of dirt. And there’s always the elemental child appeal of how it feels to be tiny in a world of giants. —Hazel Rochman

Citation:

Rochman, H. (2003). [Diary of a worm] [book review]  Booklist, 100(3), 326. http://www.booklistonline.com/

Uses:

Use the Diary of a Worm in a book display with books that tell about life from different points of view.
Use the Diary of a Worm as an example for journaling. Have a night at the library where individuals can journal or scrapbook about their lives.