Module 1: Picture Book 3

Author	Ken Rush
Title	What About Emma
Illustrator	Ken Rush
Readability Score	Not found
Genre	Fiction
Subgenre	Realistic Fiction
Theme	This book encourages children to appreciate the lives of animals.
Primary and Secondary Characters	Emma the cow, narrator, Pete, Mom, Dad, Snowy the calf
Award(s) date of publication	1996
Publishing Company	Orchard Books
ISBN Number	0-531-09534-7
Brief Summary	After her family falls upon hard times economically, a young girl is informed that the family’s cows will be sold.  Desperate to keep her most beloved cow, Emma, the young girl pleads with her parents to keep Emma.  Her parents agree to keep Emma until she calves.  The young girl makes the most of her days with Emma by learning to ride her.  Then, one night during a snowstorm Emma wanders out of the barn.  The young girl is able to ride Emma back into the barn, where she soon delivers Snowy, a baby calf.  The story ends with the young girl optimistic that her parents will agree to keeping both Emma and Snowy for good.
Picture of book cover
Description of how you would use book with students	This book could be used to model text to text connections with Charlotte’s Web.  This book would also be excellent for making predictions and character trait analysis.