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Newest Playbook® Titles
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Time Will Tell
(Math Content - Telling Time)
An Original Playbook® Story
Content for Grades K - 2
Reading Stages 0 - 2
Written by: Sharon Brinkerhoff
Illustrated by: Liliane Grenier |
Eva, Don, Jan, and Roy are always too late to catch the Ice Cream Man. If only there was a way to know when he was coming. Ah, but there is! The children learn that if they know how to tell time, they will be able to know just when the Ice Cream Man is on his way. It is always easier to learn about something if you have a rhyme to help you remember, and the children are taught rhymes to help them learn about hours and minutes. Diagrams in the story show a clock face with various times displayed and show the hour hand, minute hand, and second hand. Finally, it is time for the Ice Cream Man to arrive, and this time the children don’t miss him!
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Coins for Me and You
(Math Content - Money)
An Original Playbook® Story
Content for Grades K - 3
Reading Stages 1 - 3
Written by: Ayla Namisniak
Illustrated by: Liliane Grenier |
In this story, readers learn about money, what different coins are worth and how to earn it. Sophia and her siblings do jobs around the house and earn money for each completed job. Sophia learns there are various things you can do with your money: save it, spend a little bit on a little thing, or more on something nicer. She also learns a lesson about generosity. After having saved up two dollars to buy her first purchase, a stuffed animal, she sees a box where toys can be donated to an orphanage, and decides those kids need her stuffed animal more than she does.
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Play a Song for Us!
(Music Content)
An Original Playbook® Story
Content for Grades K - 3
Reading Stages 1 - 3
Written by: Dianna Cleveland
Illustrated by: Liliane Grenier |
An enchanted group of musical instruments have arrived at a new unfamiliar place. As they look out from a stage into the dark, they hear a small voice asking them to play a song. Eager to please this little voice, each instrument tries to comply all it once, but only to become a group of separate and single off-key noises. As the little voice coaches them to each play more than one musical note, the instruments begin to learn their capacity for rhythm, melody, and even harmony. As they begin to work together, more voices and faces start to appear in the audience to encourage them. By the end, a full audience has appeared to listen to their magnificent concert!
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The Glub Club
(Science Content - Tide Pool Ecology)
An Original Playbook® Story
Content for Grades K - 3
Reading Stages 1 - 3
Written by: Krista Lawson
Illustrated by: Sally Leonard |
Cousins, James and Joy arrive at the sea shore to find that something looks different than they remember! Strangely, there are more rocks and the beach looks larger. The kids soon learn that the reason for this is the changing tide—and that this area where the ocean comes and goes is filled with fascinating and unique animals! As the kids see various examples of tide pool life, they learn about special adaptations each one has to help it live in the difficult environment that is sometimes above and sometimes below water.
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Follow Your Feet
(Social Studies Content - Transportation)
An Original Playbook® Story
Content for Grades 1 - 4
Reading Stages 2 - 4
Written by: Mindee Krymer
Illustrated by: Liliane Grenier |
Trent travels to New York and gets to ride on all sorts of vehicles: a plane, a taxi, a subway, a boat, and a bike. He learns how the plane, boat, and bike work with children friendly explanations. After using all of these forms of transportation, Trent is very happy, and his parents ask him if he can remember all the ways he has traveled. He thinks he has named them all, but his parents assure him there is one other way he got around that day. What is it? Walking! Trent realizes that maybe he likes walking best of all!
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Send Me a Sign:
Making Friends with the Deaf
(Social Studies Content - Sign Language)
An Original Playbook® Story
Content for Grades 3 - 6
Reading Stages 2 - 5
Written by: Jennifer Magee
Illustrated by: Liliane Grenier
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When Faith approaches a new student on the first day of school and gets no response, she thinks she is being ignored. As she soon finds out, Shanti is actually deaf, and is in the same class as Faith! Daily lessons in sign language and Miss Sybil’s inspiring art projects launch a powerful friendship, as well as class-wide awareness on student diversity and how to make friends with the deaf. Readers will learn several words in sign language with instructional pictures throughout the story, and will also learn a poem at the end of the story teaching complete phrases in sign language they would wish to say to a deaf person they meet.
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Planet Parade
An Original Playbook® Story
Content for Grades 4-7
Reading Stages 2-5
Written by: Sharon Brinkerhoff
Illustrated by: Liliane Grenier
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The planets in our solar system have been moving around the sun along the same paths, for billions of years! That's a lot of time to keep do the same thing in the same place. Some planets have started to get bored, and even lonely! They are grumbling about their places in the solar system. After all, it can get a little too toasty if you are near the sun, but downright freezing if you’re too far away from it. When the planets contemplate trading their spots in the planet parade, will the solar system continue to operate like normal or will our planetary friends spin into chaos?
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Who Gives a Hoot?
(Science Content - Owl Pellets)
An Original Playbook® Story
Content for Grades 3 - 6
Reading Stages 3 - 5
Written by: Dianna Cleveland
Illustrated by: Liliane Grenier
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It’s time for Outdoor Education camp and Sarah is anxious about being away from home for an entire week. So, her mother gives her a diary to write down her thoughts each day and she locks it with a tiny key each night. To make matters worse, a couple of icky boys from school end up in her hiking group. Luckily, Emily, a girl who’d much rather be in the mall, is also in the group and she and Sarah become friends over the mutual disgust for the troublesome boys. During one of the nature hikes, the students inadvertently discover some owl pellets, and Mr. Acorn, their guide, gives them a complete lesson on what they are and how they can determine what an owl ate by studying the skeletal remains inside the pellet. When the key to Sarah’s diary goes missing, the students solve the mystery by determining that a mouse ate it, and then an owl ate the mouse. As they learn about the food chain, they become friends and Sarah discovers that going away to camp can be fun and isn’t so scary after all.
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Romeo and Juliet
An Adapted Classic
in Playbook® Format
Content for Grades 6- 12
Average Reading Stage 6
Written by: Dianna Cleveland
Illustrated by: Liliane Grenier |
Go to our feature page for Romeo and Juliet and preview the story!
This Playbook® adaptation presents authentic Shakespearean text in current spelling and punctuation, while at the same time provides a modern, engaging, and relatable reading and literary experience for students. As the famous play occurs in the late 1500's, modern-day Romano and Julia interact with the events through a little magical transportation. They then become helpful guides to understanding the story as they watch it unfold.
This becomes possible when Julia, a Shakespeare enthusiast, discovers an old abandoned theater in the park. As she pretends to be a fair maiden, spinning around inside a ray of sunshine glowing down on the stage like a spotlight, she is magically transported to the late 1500’s. There, she realizes that no one can see her and she is watching the legendary play take place before her eyes. Although it seems impossible and quite unlikely that a play would come to life, the characters and events seem very real. So, she decides to enjoy it as the best Shakespearean performance she's ever seen.
Back at school, she befriends a new student, Romano, who has never read a Shakespeare play, but has to choose a favorite for an essay he must write for class. Julia decides to take him with her into the sunshine spotlight to experience Shakespeare first hand. As Romano consistently misinterprets character dialogue (providing some comedy to this tragedy), Julia enlightens him all along the way to bring understanding to the characters, romance, and Shakespeare’s puns and metaphors. Nine readers embark on this magical journey of reading and acting out "Romeo & Juliet" while two modern characters/readers bring relevance and meaning to it. |
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Water Works
An Original Playbook® Story
Content for Grades PK- 1
Reading Stages 0-2
Written
by: Sharon Brinkerhoff
Illustrated by: Liliane Grenier
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Water is everywhere. We can see it running down the street or watering lawns. We drink it and brush our teeth with it and wash our hands with it ... but do we ever think about how important it is for our bodies? Why do we need it? What does it do? This fast moving, funny story in rhyme will answer those questions and more. It explains why water is so much better for us than soda pop, and instills in children a desire to drink more water with a funny surprise ending!
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Save Your Smile
An Original Playbook® Story
Content for
Pre-K to Kindergarten
Reading Stages 0 - 2
Written by: Sharon Brinkerhoff
Illustrated by: Liliane Grenier
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Story Synopsis: Siblings Mark, Emma, and Adam are afraid to go to the dentist. With Mark in the chair as the brave older brother, Dr. Lee shows all of them that they have nothing to fear. As she teaches the kids how to properly care for their teeth, they learn some surprising news about “good guys” (saliva) and “bad guys” (germs) living right in their mouths! With fun rhymes repeated throughout, the story teaches students how to keep the good guys strong and how to fight the bad guys to keep their smiles bright and healthy for a lifetime.
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Questionella and the
Perfect Prince:
A Fairy Tale of Multiple Choices
An Original Playbook® Story
Content for Grades 4 - 12
Reading Stages 2 - 5
Written by: Gregory Brown and
Kim Brown
Illustrated by: Liliane Grenier
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Story Synopsis: Long ago, in the enchanted kingdom of Think-a-lot, lived a young girl named Questionella. Her loving stepmother dreamed her smart stepdaughter might one day have a chance for a better life. As fate would have it, King Tassel decides to throw a ball so he can select one lucky lass to study with his son at the Royal University! Questionella is elated about attending … until she discovers she will have to pass a test to even meet the Prince! Still, with the help of her bookworm friend, Lil’ Confidence, a wacky unemployed Tooth Fairy, and a Town Crier who really cries, Questionella makes it to the palace. But … will our heroine learn how to choose the correct multiple choice answer when ALL of the four choices say “choose me?” Can Questionella really pick the perfect Prince? Readers will not only have fun answering these questions … they will also learn definitive test-taking strategies as this fairy tale unfolds. Students (and their teachers) will learn proven ways to ease test anxiety while tackling that ever present dark cloud … the multiple choice test. The whole class will get caught up in a “hip hoppity” original Multiple Choice Rap, written and recorded especially for this Playbook® script. Warning … test-taking might actually become fun!
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Stone Soup
An Original Playbook® Story
Content for Grades 3 - 5
Reading Stages 2 - 5
Written by: Kelli Casas
Illustrated by: Christoph Brown |
In this positive retelling of a classic tale, a cheerful young traveler comes upon a town facing a difficult depression. The townspeople are grumpy and worried about feeding their families, but the traveler has a secret he hopes can help them out in more ways than one! Nobody believes him when he says he can make a delicious soup using a stone as the main ingredient, but they are intrigued. As the traveler comments that adding extra ingredients such as carrots or onions would really make the best stone soup, the townspeople's generosity begins to shine though! Can the townspeople set aside their fears and learn how to help one another as members of the community through the hard times?
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