Mine

Mine is written and illustrated by Kevin Luthardt. This is a cleverly put together story about two brothers who receive one package in the mail from their grandmother. The package is labeled to Toby AND Marcus. The brothers, excited to open the package, imagine all the possibilities of what could possibly be in this big brown box. Could it be a football? Lollipop? Fire engine? Yo-yo? They open the package to see a toy dinosaur, but there is just one problem. There is only one dinosaur for two boys. So whose dinosaur is it? Toby and Marcus both think the dinosaur is just theirs. They argue pulling the dinosaur back and forth yelling, "Mine!" "Mine!" No MINE!" Yanking back and forth on the dinosaur, it rips. Their mother comes, takes the dinosaur, and sends the boys to their room for fighting. After their time out, their mother calls the boys down for lunch. The boys eat their lunch and finally agree that sharing the dinosaur is better than not having one at all.

I really enjoyed the book Mine. This book contains a total of four different words- mine, lunch, yours, and ours. Since the story only contains four words, the story is told through the illustrations. I think Luthardt did a great job of illustrating the story. I really like the characters' facial expressions as they alone told a lot of the story.

The first page of the book shows the mailman delivering the package to Marcus and Toby's house. The first time I read through the book I wondered who the package was from. I read the book again and realized that the story actually starts on the title page and the page before. I was so excited because I wouldn't have known to look at those pages before taking this course. The title page and the page before shows a picture of the boys' grandmother tying the package together getting it ready to be shipped to her grandsons. I told two of my friends to read the book. When they finished I asked them who the package was from and neither one knew. I think its interesting how we skip over these pages when in fact in some books a lot of the story can be told through the illustrations on these two pages!