A New Kind of Wild

How to Teach This Book

1. After you read aloud A New Kind of Wild, ask students to think about what they see when they travel through their own neighborhoods. What’s important, fun, or interesting about where they live? Have students take a walk in the neighborhood around your school and take a look at it through their imaginations. Ask them to write and sketch what they see with their eyes, as they recognize things for what they are—and to also write and sketch as they view things with their imaginations, seeing things in the neighborhood for what they could be.

2. Provide heavy paper for students to fully illustrate one of their imaginative sketches with a written caption or brief story to go with it. If possible, laminate their work, mount it on stakes, then get permission to place the staked drawings appropriately near to what inspired the work. Then invite your community to take a walk through the wilds of your students’ imaginations.

Questions for Discussion or Reflective Writing

1. How does Ava help Ren see a new kind of wild?
2. What gets your imagination going? What ways do you use your imagination?
3. If Ren moved into our community, where would you take him and what things would you show him?
4. What makes where you live special to you? How would you feel if you had to leave a place you love for somewhere new?
5. Why do people move?

Additional Resources for Teaching This Book

• A New Kind of Wild Read Aloud With Author Zara Gonzalez Hoang from Brightly Storytime Together
• A New Kind of Wild Coloring Page from the author/illustrator