Book Review of Resourceful Erica
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The Children’s Book Review
Resourceful Erica
Written by Annette Gagliardi
Illustrated by Elizabeth Glaser
Ages: 4-6 | 48 Pages
Publisher: Dorrance Publishers, Inc. (2014) | ISBN: 978-1-4809-0863-5
What to Expect: Rainy days, resourcefulness, paper-folding, imagination, storytelling.
In this picture book, readers will build new vocabulary knowledge, exercise their imaginations, and practice motor skills as they follow along and take part in the story.
Most children would be gloomy and bored on a rainy day—but not resourceful Erica! When her mother won’t let her go outside because she doesn’t have a rain hat, resourceful Erica makes a rain hat out of folded paper. When she sees her friend Joey’s house on fire, Erica whips off her paper hat, makes a few more folds, and voila – she has a fireman’s hat so she can help put out the fire. When she needs to cross the flooded street, a few new folds turn her hat into a sailing boat, and when her boat starts to sink, resourceful Erica tears a few holes to make a life jacket. It’s amazing what you can achieve when you are resourceful!
Erica is—as the title suggests—resourceful, and readers will love seeing her cleverness and creativity help her get what she wants. Even better, the story provides instructions for the different paper-folding projects that Erica undertakes, so they can be resourceful too! The text itself employs a gentle rhythm and repetition that is perfect for reading aloud, with built-in pauses for readers to take part in the action (“Can you wave to the firefighters, sweeties?”). A vocabulary list, discussion questions, and information about origami at the end of the book encourage readers to develop their understanding of the story further.
Gentle, imaginative, and interactive, Resourceful Erica is ideal for shared reading on rainy days.
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About the Author
Annette Gagliardi is an educator in a large public school in its Early Childhood and Family Education (ECFE) program. She is also a writer and a poet. She has two poetry books and one self-published children’s book, The Three Betty Goats Griff. In 2001, she co-authored a parenting curriculum titled Raising Children with Roots, Rights, and Responsibilities. She and her husband have four daughters and six grandchildren.
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