Should I Share My Ice Cream?
A teacher’s look at why this book belongs in the The Why-Askers stage.
Why it fits The Why-Askers (for preschoolers whose every page sparks a question)
Gerald the elephant agonizes over sharing until the ice cream melts. The dilemma is real, the timing is vaudeville, the lesson sneaks in. Willems trusts kids to draw the conclusion themselves.
What makes it special
Willems stages the whole moral struggle inside one elephant's head, with melting ice cream as the ticking clock. The near-empty backgrounds put every ounce of drama into Gerald's eyebrows. It respects the child enough to let generosity arrive too late — and still count.
From the publisher
Gerald is careful. Piggie is not. Piggie cannot help smiling. Gerald can. Gerald worries so that Piggie does not have to. Gerald and Piggie are best friends. In Should I Share My Ice Cream? Gerald has a big decision to…
About Mo Willems
Mo Willems began as a writer and animator on Sesame Street, where he won the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Children's Series six times between 1995 and 2001. Three of his picture books have been named Caldecott Honor Books, and his Elephant & Piggie early readers have won multiple Theodor Seuss Geisel Medals and Honors.
By his own account the Pigeon simply turned up in one of his notebooks and objected to the books he was writing. He drafted the story in sketchbook form during a sabbatical in Oxford, and his wife, a school librarian, read it to children and persuaded him to try to sell it.
Also by this author: Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! · Knuffle Bunny · We Are in a Book!
More from “Big Feelings, First Friendships”
This book is part of The Best Books for Preschoolers: 30 Teacher Picks (The Why-Askers) in our guide The Best Children’s Books by Age — 120 books chosen by the Montessori-certified teachers at Creative Minds Montessori in Frisco, TX. Come see how we build readers →
Nobody paid for this review — not the author, not the publisher — and the store link above earns us nothing. Our only interest is the reader this book fits.