The Nantucket Sea Monster: A Fake News Story by Darcy Patterson

What a fun book to teach students about finding credible sources! In our culture of social media and information sources so widely available, it is often difficult to deduce which ones are credible. This story is the perfect book for young readers to practice how to determine whether or not a source can be trusted.  Some aspects of the story might offer clues that might have helped the Nantucket locals debunk this story before the actual reveal.

This book tells the story of a publicity stunt executed in 1937 to create interest in the R.H. Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  The writer details the events of a tale in a timeline format that engages the reader from the beginning with the illustrations contributing to the interest of the plot.   The illustrator uses thought bubbles to showcase the back story of what the Nantucket locals thought about the idea of a sea monster in their area.  Embedded in the illustrations, the reader also sees bits of newspaper print to connect the theme of newspaper print. Cross-curricular connections include all subjects.  Students can draw out the actual measurements of the footprints provided in the story, research things that are close to the measurements, find Nantucket on a map and research how the island has changed from 1937 until now, and write/illustrate their own fake news stories.  This story is also vocabulary-rich, including words like "slander" and "hoax", and mentioning "telegraph" as the form of communicating with news sources across the country.

The vocabulary and cross-curricular connections make this book a prime candidate for an IRA (Interactive Read Aloud).  The text, text features, and illustrations provide extra information that gives the reader just enough information to persuade him/her to further research this true story of a fake story.