CROW BOY, by Tara Yashima
AR Level: 3.9 Book Leve: .5
Vocabulary Quiz Available

This is the story of a boy nicknamed Chibi, which means "tiny boy." No one knows him until he shows up at school on the first day of village school. He is considered stupid and strange by all of the other children, who tease him all through school. He learns to tune them out by daydreaming and getting lost in things that others find mundane—the patch on a boy’s shirt, or patterns in the ceiling. Even though the children make fun of him, he never misses a day of school, having to leave before sunrise in the morning and not returning home until sunset, because he lives so far away. At the start of the year, there is a new teacher, Mr Isobe. He is friendly and kind, and pays special attention to Chibi. When the school has a talent show and Chibi enters, everyone is amazed when he displays an amazing talent for mimicking the different calls of the crow. The children realize they had been wrong to make fun of Chibi for all those years, and he is finally accepted. After the talent show, he is known as "Crow Boy."

Teachers: This is a great book for teachign acceptance.