Booktalk: Don't Forget Your Etiquette! [Manners; 3]

You know how dangerous bad advice can be? Well, this is a book of manners – also called etiquette – written in poems. No, the poems are not dangerous in and of themselves. It’s what’s in the poems: advice about how to misbehave, written by this really wild girl with glasses, Miss Information. Get it? Misinformation, also known as bad information. If you follow Miss Information’s etiquette, this is how you behave in the family bathroom when people are waiting to use it [show pages titled, “Bathroom Etiquette]:

1). Lock the bathroom door and ignore the pleading of your brothers and sisters.

2). Take a couple of hours to practice your trombone in the bathroom.

3). Bring a lot of reading material for when you sit on the throne.

4). Order in a pizza.

5). Pedicure your dog.

6). Let your siblings in in a few weeks.

7). Take your time, really.

Yep, there’s some really good bathroom etiquette there for ya. I don’t even want to show the etiquette about behaving around the babysitter, dressing yourself, or eating. So, if you want a great guide on how not to behave, check out Don’t Forget Your Etiquette! by David Greenberg.

Don’t Forget Your Etiquette! The Essential Guide to Misbehavior by David Greenberg. Unpaged. Farrar, Straus and Giroux: 2006. Booktalk to K-6^th grades.

Booktalk: Manners Can Be Fun [Manners; 2]

If I lived on a desert island with no other people, I would not need to have manners. I could do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. However, I do not live on a desert island, and neither do you. We need manners to function. A lot of our manners are automatic. For example, when your friend says hi to you, you say hi back. Other manners are not so automatic: you have to work on them. For example, if your friend is talking, you shouldn’t interrupt him or her, even if you just thought of the coolest thing ever. Wait until your friend is done talking! This one can take work and patience. [Show pp. 40-41]. Another one: when you visit someone else’s house, you don’t want to be like the Noiseys, the Pigs, Me First, the Whineys, Smash-Rip-Ruin, or the Snoopers. That’s a fast way of never being asked back to that person’s house. Remember to thank them and say goodbye when you leave. Manners Can Be Fun by Munro Leaf.

Manners Can Be Fun by Munro Leaf. 50 p. Universe: Copyright 1936, rep. 2004. Booktalk to younger elementary [pre-K through 2^nd].

Booktalk: Dude, That's Rude! [Manners; 1]

[Hold up prop, like a holiday-themed sweater you don’t like or an ugly vase.] I love my grandmother, but every year for the holidays I get a sweater that is way too big. What’s worse, I have to unwrap it right in front of her. Now, I’m going to tell you a secret. I don’t like this sweater at all. What should I say to her when I open it? [Wait for responses.] Okay, who said, “Grandma, you have awful taste?” Dude, that’s rude! [Hold up book cover.] You guessed the title of my book: Dude, That’s Rude. It’s a manners guide, but it’s hilarious. Guess what it told me. It told me that some sincere “thank you” is the only acceptable response. Your family deserves your best manners, no matter what. I don’t have to love the sweater or even keep it. I do have to show grandma that I appreciate her kindness.

Now, that was the tame part of the book. Part of this I can’t read you: it deals with passing gas, cellphone manners, IM manners, use of bad words, and …. toilet etiquette. It’s stuff you need to know but other people might be too afraid to tell you. It’s all funny but true, and it teaches you how to get out of some tricky situations. Dude, That’s Rude! Get Some Manners by Pamela Espeland and Elizabeth Verdick.

Dude, That’s Rude! Get Some Manners by Pamela Espeland and Elizabeth Verdick. 117 p. Free Spirit Publishing, 2007. Booktalk to 3^rd through middle school.