Extra Yarn
Author-Mac Barnett Illustrator-Jon Klassen Fountas and Pinnell level-L
Extra Yarn, a Caldecott honor book and a New York Times bestseller, is a story about a little girl named Annabelle who finds a box full of colorful yarn. Annabelle does the only sensible thing to do when one finds a box of amazingly colorful yarn: she starts knitting a few sweaters for herself and her dog Mars. But when she finishes, she still has more yarn.
The people in her dreary little town soon start to take notice of her colorful creations. Unfortunately, the townsfolk call her names and say her sweaters are distracting and too colorful. But as she continues to spread kindness and joy with the gifts she makes from the abundance of colorful yarn, the town becomes a beautiful and peaceful place. Annabelle builds community as she makes sweater after sweater, and even a hat for Mr. Crabtree who never wears things like sweaters. Everyone thinks she will run out of yarn for sure, but there is always enough to make more sweaters.
News spreads far and wide about Annabelle and her special, never-ending yarn. People come from far away to meet this wonderful girl who uses her gift with such wisdom. One day, a very fashionable archduke who had heard of Annabelle and her box of yarn comes to visit. He is blinded by his desire to have the box of yarn for himself. He offers Annabelle ten million dollars for the yarn box. She turns him down without hesitation. The archduke is so angry he steals the box of yarn from Annabelle’s house in the night. He sails off to his distant castle with the box of yarn all to himself.
Spoiler Alert: He finally opens the box only to find it empty! How could this be? Why wasn’t it working! The archduke angrily throws the box of yarn out the window. The story leaves us with a wonderful sense of magic and wonder about the box of yarn. Is it magic? Why is it full for Annabelle and empty for the archduke? Read Extra Yarn to draw your own conclusions!
