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Sumo Joe


Title: Sumo Joe
Genre: Multicultural
Author: Mia Wenjen
Major Awards: None
Age Group: Pre-K-1st grade

 This is the story of Sumo wrestler, Joe and his little sister. Sumo Joe spends Saturday afternoons Sumo wrestling with his friends. They build a "ring" out of pillows and wrestle in the living room. As they put their wrestling gear on, they state in Japanese what each object they are putting on is called. First they stretch, shiko, and then do a drill called teppo. As they are getting into their wrestling, Joe's little sister comes in the room and wants to join. Well, this is a "boys only zone", so Joe isn't keen on her joining. She keeps on asking, so he agrees to at least let her try. In the end, his little sister rises to the occasion and takes Joe down!

 I am not sure that I would want this in my classroom. It didn't have much of a plot to me; it was mostly just about a bunch of boys wrestling and shouting Japanese words. It just didn't exactly keep my attention, so I can imagine it being the same for young students. 

 This would be the best for grades Pre-K through first grade, in my opinion. There are few words on each page, making it easy for young readers to read on their own. It also is incredibly short in length. The pictures alone really help tell the story, and I can see these young students enjoying them. Some of the Japanese words are hard to pronounce, so I can see that as maybe being an issue, but I think they would understand the storyline still.

 In my classroom, I could have the students create their own Sumo wrestling belts using paper materials. We of course would not wrestle, but I think it would be fun for them to relate to Sumo Joe and have their own! We could also write down all of the Japanese words used in the story, and see if we could use context clues to figure out their meaning. 
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