Sunny Days Inside

Before assigning the book to students to read, discuss the cover and the title. Use some of the following prompts to facilitate your discussion:

• What do you notice about the illustration on the front cover? Look closely at the illustration? Where is the boy standing? Where do you think he is?
• What do you think the book will be about based on the title? Sunny Days Inside.
• Why do you think this illustration was chosen for the front cover?
• Explain to students that the book is made up of several short stories about children and families who lived in the same apartment building, who were ordered to shelter in place during the COVID-19 pandemic and is about how they survived and overcame the challenges of the lockdown.
• Ask students to reflect on their experiences of sheltering in place during the pandemic. How were their lives different?
• Ask students to use the Text Map at the end of this guide to take notes while reading. Use these notes for post-reading discussion

Ask students to use the Text Map at the end of this guide to take notes while reading. Use these notes for post-reading discussion.

For each story in Sunny Days Inside, complete the text map to deepen your understanding of the text and its unity.

• Where did the book take place?
• Could it have taken place anywhere else? Why?
• How accurately are you able to see the place where the story occurs in your mind? Explain.
• How does each character use the environment?
• How does the time play a major role in each story?
• Could these stories really happen?
• Explain the unity of time and place and characters across the stories.
• What events were directly related to the historical period in which the book took place and not at any other time?

• Who were the main characters? Were they believable?
• What techniques did the author use to portray each character?
• What characters do you like best and why?
• Would you and your family like to have one of the characters as a friend? Why?
• Is there a character like you in any of the stories you read? In what ways?
• Choose a character and explain how the story made them seem good or bad, likeable or unlikeable, interesting or dull.
• Are the characters driven by forces within themselves that they cannot control?
• Are the characters driven by forces around them that they cannot control?
• Are characters driven by events they cannot control?
• Does the author justify the actions of characters that you feel are wrong?
• Do the characters always act in ways that you think are appropriate for them?

• What would you change in the story?
• How well are the events tied together in the story?
• Did you feel the stories moved rapidly enough? If not, where was the action too slow?
• Name at least two conflicts in the book. What were the author’s solutions? How would you categorize them? Human vs. human, human vs. nature, human vs. society, human vs. himself/herself/themself?
• Is the book believable?

• Does the author communicate a feeling that goes with the story?
• What words characterize the story?
• How did your feeling change as you read the story?
• Was there an undercurrent or hidden mood in the story?
• Was there a tension in the story that made you want to finish it?
• How real is the mood?

• Does the title state the theme?
• What are you going to remember about this book?
• What is the purpose of the story?
• What is the subject of the book?
• What is the general truth that the author seems to be stating about human nature?
• What things does the reader have to know to understand the story?
• What attitudes does the author assume the reader has?
• What devices does the author use to deliver the message?

Respond personally to the text

• How do you feel about the text and why?
• How has the text changed your life in some way?
• What is your favorite or least favorite part of the book and why?

Respond to theme and/or author’s purpose

• What is the author trying to teach you?
• What is the author’s purpose or message of the text?
• Why do you think the author wrote this text?

Offer Opinion of Text

• Do you like or dislike the text and why?
• Who is your favorite or least favorite and why?
• Will you read this book again? Why or why not?
• Will you recommend this book to a friend?

• How does the author use language to create sensory images?
• How does the author’s language deepen your understanding?

Respond to traits and/or actions of the character.

• Which characters do you like, dislike or admire. Why?
• Choose a character. Would you act or react differently than them? Why?

• Does any part of the book remind you of the world and what is occurring now or has happened in the past?
• How have your own experiences deepened your understanding?
• How are the events in this text similar to other events?
• Do you connect in any way with a character in the text?
• Arts and crafts projects proliferated during the pandemic. What projects do some of the characters take up in the lockdown? What did you do during that time that was new? How did it affect you and did you keep up your new pastime?
• Learning a new language was also a common activity during the pandemic. What are some of the languages the characters try to learn or use? Do you speak another language?

• Did the author do a good job organizing the text? Crafting the text?
• Did the author follow the text structures for the genre? Explain.