I kept putting The Underneath by Kathi Appelt at the bottom of my "to-read" stack because I prefer books about people rather than animals. I'm used to avoid any book that had animals as the main characters, but after reading The Tale of Despereaux and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane you'd think I'd not exhibit such avoidance, but I'm just not an overzealous animal lover. However, this book uses animals to convey very human emotions: love, hate, anger, revenge, compassion... The animal part of it become secondary to the story of friendship and love. It was a heartbreaking yet uplifting book. There were times when I could almost let the world fall away and be transported to the bayou with the loneliest creatures in the world.
I think this would make a great read-aloud for fifth graders.
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