Tops & Bottoms (Caldecott Honor Book)

This book has some really pleasant and colorful illustrations to look at. In this book, the bear is very lazy and the hare is driven out of necessity to provide for his family. After having a brilliant idea, the hare approaches the bear to business partners in a gardening adventure. Through various

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crops growing and the harvesting of specific “tops”, “bottoms” and “middles”, the hare and his family always reap the crops leaving the bear nothing but compost. This is a good book to teach children the value of hard work and that laziness does not reap any benefits.

I liked that this story was able to convey the message of good work ethics in a creative way. I think it beautifully illustrated the value of hard work and the consequences of laziness in a very childlike, easy manner. I read this book to my children and they especially enjoyed looking at the observations and hearing about how the hare “tricked” the bear each time.

To implement this book in a classroom setting, I think I would set up a scenario for the children to decide what the right thing to do would be for the given scenario. For example, I could set up the situation of baking a cake. I would have the recipe laid out for the students to look at along with all the recipes needed. I would ask the children if anyone would like me to help gather all the ingredients I would need. Those students that helped gather the ingredients would then have a seat and I would ask if any students would like to help mix the ingredients together and place the mixed ingredients in a pan and into the oven. When the cake had finished baking, I would then ask the students who would like to help me eat it. At that point, I would allow all of the students who had helped with making the cake to eat a piece and those who did not help would not be allowed to eat a piece of the cake. After the students who did not participate make the connection that working reaps rewards and laziness only reaps disappointment, I would then allow them to have a smaller piece of cake. This activity of baking the cake could also be used with a word wall and a fact page of the ingredients along with recipe directions the students had created.

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a great book to promote handwork in this entertaining book of a bear and a rabbit

Rabbit needs to earn some money, so he decides to cheat his lazy neighbor, Bear.

He borrows Bear's field with an agreement to split the harvest - tops or bottoms?

Well, of course, when Bear picks tops Rabbit plants root crops; and when Bear picks bottoms Rabbit picks non-root crops; and when Bear

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insists on a season of *both* tops and bottoms Rabbit plants *corn* and takes the middle.

Fairly lighthearted fare.

There are a few notes.

First, the book opens sideways, with one page on top and one page on the bottom. This can be a little awkward to read. Second, it's very tall, which makes it a little difficult to shelve. And finally (and really, this is minor, but it niggles at me every time), Rabbit gives the "worthless" beet tops to Bear, but beet greens are actually edible and very healthful! (Think chard, but a heck of a lot cheaper, and you get beetroot as well!)

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Tops and Bottoms is a great story about the benefits of being a hard worker and not being lazy. The poor hare from the notorious race with race with a tortuous is down on his luck, and his family is struggling to get by. Hair comes up with an ingenious plan to convince lazy Bear to be his business

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partner in farming Bear’s land. Each party would receive either the tops or the bottoms of the harvested crops. Hair did all the work while Bear just slept, but whatever part of the crop Bear chose to keep, Hair would plant something that would only leave Bear with compost. Ex: Bear chose tops, so Hair planted root crops.

I thoroughly enjoyed the book because it exhibits the importance not being lazy. It demonstrated that working hard can accomplish great things, but being lazy only leads to disappointment. I love the use of the familiar character of the hair. The illustrations are excellent and give the story great life and vibrancy.

A good idea for classroom application would be to tie the story into a lesson teaching the importance of hard work. The story could be partnered with The Tortoise and the Hair to show that hair learned his lesson about being lazy. Another idea would be to use the story in a unit over crops and the different types of crops. The class could plant a little garden and grow various plants to see what kinds they are.

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this book is about a bear that is too lazy to harvest it. Until he is recieved payment. This book would be a good book to teach people that helping out even if your not getting a reward makes you a good person.

Janet Stevens (illustrator for Eric Kimmel's Anansi books) delights in this trickster tale of laziness gone bad! Bear just wants to sleep all the time and Hare needs to feed his family, so proposes the two go into business growing produce. Hare graciously offers to do all the work if Bear will only

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offer the land and half the produce--tops or bottoms. Hare offers to keep tops or bottoms of the vegetables, whichever Bear does not want. He then proceeds to plant the vegetable that will benefit himself, making Bear very angry when he realizes the trick. All ends well,in that Bear decides forego sleeping and actually work, and Hare is able to get on his feet again and start a little vegetable stand. Very clever story with pictures that take up two pages vertically rather than the standard horizontal presentation. Cute book that kids will love!

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Tops and Bottoms is a story about a lazy bear and a sneaky hare. The lazy bear has alot of property and the hare has a nothing but a hungry family. The bear agrees to let the hare plant crops on his land but he must give the bear either the tops or bottolms of the crops. The sneaky hare always

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finds a way to take all the vegetables and leave only the trash for the bear.

I read this book to my toddler class over and over. It is a great book for children of all ages. The hare in this book reminds me of my sneaky brother who used to always play tricks on me and my sister.

When I used this book in my toddler class we talked about vegetables and how each plant grows. We planted a garden and watched them grow over time. At the end of the week, we made vegetable soup.

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This folktale is hilarious as it tell the story of a lazy bear and a trickster/smart rabbit. The Rabbit ends up getting all the good crops as the bear sleeps through the planting. Every time he awakes to get his share if the crops, they aren't what he likes, so he ask the rabbit to plant more crops

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in different spaces. Well the bears gets fed up and decides to do his own work and get the benefit of doing it himself.

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This is a story out of our reading basal. I enjoyed the humor in this tale, however I am not sure how much my students got some of the humor. I don't know if they caught (were able to predict) what the Hare was doing each harvest to trick the brear.

A hungry rabbit tricks the sleepy bear to sharing the harvest of the garden with him, and bear chooses his half as "tops"which ends up being the parts of the plants that are thrown away. They decide to trade halves, and the Hare's again trick by planting things where the only good parts are the

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tops and the bottoms the bear gets are the roots of the broccoli and others. When bear complains, Hare offers to give tops and bottoms from next planting. Bear sleeps and Hare works, then after harvest he wakes Bear up to show him that Hare has gotten the middles, which in a corn harvest are the best part. Bear, furious, decides that the only way to get a fair deal is to do him own work, and never sleeps through harvest again.

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This book was definitely enjoyable to read. All the trickery really keeps you on your toes. it also keeps the excitement going to keep you reading and wanting more.

Tops and Bottoms is about a lazy bear who wants to sleep all day and a hare who needs to earn money to feed his family. The Hare does all the work and gets the crops while the bear sleeps all day and gets nothing.

I loved this book. It has beautiful illustrations that show whats all happening in the

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story. I really enjoyed the story becuase it made a good point that you have to work hard in life to get what you need.

You could use this book to teach kids not to be lazy that hard workers reap the benifits. You could also talk about the different types of crops and what kinds of climate and soil you need to grow the crops.

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Tops and Bottoms is a book that teaches a lesson using fantasy. Bear sleeps while Hare plants his fields and harvests the crops and keeps all the profits. Hare does trick Bear with promises but Bear soon realizes that the promises are of empty profits. The lesson here is do not let one partner do

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all the work and expect to receive any of the profits.

I enjoyed this book and the lesson it teaches. No one is too old to be reminded how one needs to work hard to achieve things. The way the book is read and illustrated really catches the readers’ attention and I believe the little ones will love this book.

This book definitely can be used to teach a lesson on laziness. The kids need to be taught that they have to work hard to get what they want. The book can also be used in a lesson on food and how and when to plant each crop. The kids could form partners with each other and let them decide how to split the duties and profits of the crops.

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This comical folktale is based in both Europe and the American South, and is the story of a bear that has lots of money and land, but is very lazy. It is also the story of Mr. and Mrs. Hare who have nothing but create a plan to trick the Sleepy Bear into letting them use his land to raise crops.

The story is about a lazy bear that sleeps through every harvest season and a hare that is poor and can not provide for his family because he lost everything in a beat that he made with a tortoise. Seeing and opportunity to feed his family, the hare makes a deal with the bear to become business

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partners. The hare said that he and his family will do all the work and even split the crops with the bear. All they need see to use the field in the front of bear’s house. They will even give him the option of choosing with half of the crops he wants, Tops or Bottoms. The bear chose the Tops so the hare planted root crops and gave the bear the useless part. The bear gets upset and insist that the hare replants the corps, this time the bear chose the bottoms. So when hare planted the crops, he planted corn and left the bear with the empty stocks. The bear told the hare they could not be business parts anymore and he never slept through another harvest season.

I really like this book because it was humors. I also liked how the hare out smarted the bear so that he could provide food for his family. It also teaches a lesson that when you are working together with someone, you can not expect the person to do all the work, you have to contribute too.

I could use the things that I learned in this book in my classroom by getting my students to draw a picture of a garden with some of their favorite vegetables. I could also get them to draw a picture of the hare and his family or a picture of the bear asleep. I could also have them right a short story about team work.

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This book is about a bear who is rich because of his dad's hard work. The bear was not like his dad, he was lazy and just wanted to sleep all day. There was a hare that had lost all of his land, so he came up with a plan. The hare had talked the bear into using the land and splitting the rewards.

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The hare asked the bear if he wanted tops or bottoms and bear picked tops. So the hare and his family worked hard and planted carrots. When it came to pay up the hare took all the carrots and the bear got all the tops. The hare had tricked the bear and the bear was mad. So hare continued to trick him two more times. The bear finally woke up and quit being lazy. From then on the bear did his own work.

I liked this book. I think it teaches kids a good lesson. It teaches kids to work hard and they will get the rewards for their hard work.

In the classroom you could have the kids help you say some of the lines. And you can get a little discussion going on about what they do at home to help.

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This book is a story lesson about how it takes hard work from your own self to acheive goals.

This book had me laughing and was a great story about how a bear was lazy and the rabbit trickeed him and now the rabbit has all the goods because the bear did nothing. The story from this book was the

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most entertaing part. The book has to be read from top to bottom which was clever and also showed wich veggies were grown underground, and which were on top which is educational.

I would use this book in my class as a book to build up self confidance and the want for kids to do something themselves to get what they want in the end.

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This is an excellent example of a FAIRYTALE because it does not have a specific author and it is a combination of the world we know it and fantasy. As is common in many fairytales, there are three stages in the struggle between the opposing sides, with the third stage being the climax to the

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story.

Character: The rabbit and the bear are foil characters of each other because each of their character attributes are direct contrasts: while the rabbit is diligent and hardworking, the bear is lazy; while the rabbit is clever, the bear is rather dense.

Age Appropriateness: primary through intermediate

Media: watercolor, colored pencil, and gesso on paper made by hand

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Hare convinces lazy Bear to share his land for growing crops that will feed Hare's hungry family. Bear can choose his share of the harvest - tops or bottoms. Clever Hare chooses crops that make the most of his labor.

This is a good example of a folktale because it involves animals taking on human characteristics, interacting with each other and planting and harvesting. It is also a humorous tale with a lesson to it.
Characterization: Bear is a lazy character that does not do anything, but eventually learns his

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lesson because Hare has tricked him.
Level : Primary

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This book is excellent in so many ways no wonder it won the Caldecott Honor. The author and illustrator Janet Stevens carefully tied the illustrations into the text with so many details which communicate subtle points that the story can be told by the illustrations alone. First of all the layout of

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the book is from top to bottom instead of from left to right which ties in with the title. The title page illustrates a variety of vegetables with the crease of the book serving as ground level and shows which part of the vegetables grows above ground and which vegetable grows below. Secondly, the placement of the characters, Bear or Hare, on the page is dependent upon which part of the vegetable, top or bottom, Bear chooses to keep. In the first deal, Bear chooses the tops, so he is depicted on the top half of the book sleeping while Hare and his family are depicted on the bottom half of the book working. Thirdly, the story teaches a moral: Laziness brings decline while hard work pays off. Children will find the story entertaining through the vibrant illustrations and dynamic, engaging characters.

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Fun and enjoyable book to read aloud. Book opens from top to bottom instead of side to side.
Great illustrations and lessons to learn.

Little long for read aloud, odd format up and down instead of side to side, makes the book hard to handle. Rabbit fools bear, tops of foods for rabbit, bottoms/rubbish for bear, and then switching it up by planting different tops and bottoms every time. Very tricksy.

I loved reading this book. The clever hare comes up with a way to solve his family’s problems by tricking the lazy bear. Hare hops down the road to bear’s house to propose the idea that bear donate land, hare handles all the labor, and they split the crop in half. Bear doesn’t have to do

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anything except pick tops or bottoms. In the end, bear learns the meaning of hard work. The first graders I read to love the way the book opened from top to bottom. I think a good classroom idea for this book would be to do a lesson on morals. I would also like to bring vegetables in the class room to get the kids really involved with the story.

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