Mercy Watson to the Rescue

DiCamillo, K., & Van, D. C. (2005). Mercy Watson to the rescue. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press.

Genre: Fiction

Age Level: 5-7

Summary: In the fictional book, Mercy Watson to the Rescue, a family of two adults, the Watsons’, owns a pig, Mercy, and treats her as their child. Every day the mother fixes Mercy hot toast with a great deal of butter on it. Each night when putting Mercy to bed her parents sing her a song since she is afraid of the dark. One night, Mercy decided to sleep with her parents in their bed and then the adventure begins. The bed falls into the ceiling. When Mercy leaves her parents stuck in the bed they believe she is going to get help but she is only after food. When she goes looking for food she runs to the pesky neighbors who end up thinking she is a burglar and call the police. When help arrive they see that Mercy is not a burglar but hear someone yelling for help. They follow the voices and realize the Watsons are in danger. The Watsons’ believe Mercy went and got help the entire time. To celebrate their rescue, mother cooks Mercy favorite food for everyone.

Reflection: This book is really cute and funny. It also has great illustrations. The illustrations are cartoons which enhance the plot, characters, and mood of the book. The illustrator changed the colors of the illustrations to represent different times such as night and day. Some illustrations are page bleeds while others are just small clusters of images. The book is paper back and the cover contains a doublespread illustration to give the effect of a pig running from an older woman. This makes the book look fun and interesting to read.

I personally can relate to this story because when I was younger, my mother took my siblings and me to a stock yard. While there we saw the workers mistreating a piglet. My mom felt really bad for the piglet and bought it. The only way to get the piglet home was in the back seat of my mom’s car. So once we got the piglet in the car we went through a McDonald’s drive thru and ordered the piglet a happy meal since we had no other food to feed it. After we got the piglet home, my siblings and I spent many days playing in the pig’s pen as if it were a dog.

The fictional book can be used to have students make predictions about the story. Students can start with the illustration on the cover to make a prediction about what the book will be about and then complete a picture walk through the book to help make their predictions about the plot of the story. The story could also be used to teach cause and effect to students using a graphic organizer. This book would also help to explain the difference between nonfiction and fiction books because many parts of the story are not realistic. Some questions that students could answer are: What caused the bed to fall into the ceiling? How would you feel if your bed fell through the ceiling? Do you think a pig would or would not be a good pet?