Virtual Book Tour: Dazzling Travis

I love using picture books in my classroom to discuss important topics and I have been a long time fan of the author Maria Dismondy and the picture books she has written to demonstrate kindness, standing up for others, and friendship. I was thrilled when I was asked to be apart of her latest Virtual Book Tour introducing the author Hannah Carmona Dias and her newest book Dazzling Travis.

Dazzling Travis by Hannah Carmona Dias is a must have for any classroom or home library because it talks about how important it is to be confident with yourself and proud of who you are and what you like to do. The book emphasizes how there is no such thing as boy activities or girl activities. The main character Travis knows what he likes and when kids start to question him, he doesn’t back down and confidently stands up for himself and what he likes to wear and the activities he likes to do.

This book has such an important message because it encourages children to challenge social norms and to not be afraid of being who you are!

I started off by showing the cover to my students and reading the title. I asked them if they knew what the word Dazzling meant. We talked about how that word is used to describe Travis’s personality. We read the story aloud, which is one of my favorite things to do because I love discussing books with my students.

After we read the story we talked about the word brave and why Travis was brave in the story. We also talked about the activities he liked to do and whether or not it mattered if he was a boy and liked to do girl activities. We then made an anchor chart of Activities we like to do.

The next day we summarized the story together and we brainstormed a list of words to describe ourselves to put in front of our name. Afterwards I passed out the writing page and each student wrote their word in front of their name and traced it in marker. We then wrote a list of activities we like to do.

Finally, we finished our lesson by filling out the star page. We talked about what makes us dazzle and then students used the page to write and draw ways that they dazzle.

You can click HERE to access the classroom activity pages.

I cannot say enough great things about this book. The text was easy for my little learners to understand and we had such great honest and open conversations. It has such a positive message about being confident and believing in who you are.

You can click the title Dazzling Travis to grab your own copy.