Officer Buckle and Gloria

By: Peggy Rathmann (1995)

This book is about a police officer in the town of Napville that is very concerned about safety. To help inform the town of his safety tips he gives presentations to the school where he reads off different tips that he deems important. While the message may be good, the students are bored during these presentations and do not listen to Officer Buckle, causing accidents to occur. Officer Buckle then hires a police dog named Gloria to accompany him to his presentations. Unbeknownst to Officer Buckle, Gloria performs tricks during each tip that he reads and the crowd loves it, listening and heeding each tip that he gives, making the town a safer place. When Officer Buckle finally sees what Gloria is doing he gets upset because he doesn't think anyone is listening to him so he decides to let Gloria do the safety presentations on her own. Gloria does not do very well during her solo presentations, where she and the children both end up falling asleep. The children all end up writing Officer Buckle letters telling him that they miss him and that they want him back. He then decides to once again team up with Gloria, realizing that they work best as a team.

I really liked this book and I thought the story was really cute. There were not many words in the book which makes it very accessible to younger children. Even with the limited words, the pictures do a great job helping to tell the story. They are very descriptive and funny in the way that they show Gloria performing her tricks.
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I think that this story would be very useful to use in a classroom because of all the important messages that it conveys. This might be a good book to read at the beginning of the school year for a kindergarten or first grade class where you were trying to establish rules. To go along with the book you could have students think about rules, just like Officer Buckle, that would make their classroom safer. I think that the overall message of the book would be a good one for student to understand and reflect on because they may have their own experiences with working with others where they all had their own unique gifts to offer.