Text Leveling System

Amber Brown Is Not a Crayon

RDQ:	1283	Max Word/Sent	53	Total Words	2436		Diff Words	739
Lex	790	Ave Word/.Sent	8	Hi Freq occurs	1676	68.8%	Hi freq	311	42.1%
AR	4.1	Long Sentences	7.7	Low Freq occurs	101	4.1%	Low freq	77	10.4%

Chapter One
In just ten minutes our entire class is getting
on a plane for our flight to China.
I Amber Brown am one very excited
third grader.
My best friend Justin Daniels is going to
sit next to me.
Right now he's sitting at the desk next to
me pretending to be an alarm clock.
All I hear now is a quiet tick tock tick
tock but I'm absolutely positively sure that
he has something else planned.
We always sit together when our class
flies to some faraway place.]]
In fact we've been sitting together since 
we first met in preschool but that's another 
story.
Finding my passport and tickets is not 
easy because I Amber Brown am one very
messy third grader.
I quickly pull things out of my desk-the 
book I'm going to use for my report half a 
roll of strawberry licorice my sticker book 
two headbands seven rubber bands eleven 
paper clips two workbooks and finally my 
passport and tickets which I have put in a 
specially decorated case. (I used a lot of my 
stickers on it.)]]
"Bzzzzzz. Squawk." Justin starts rocking 
back and forth.
I hit him on the head with my passport 
and tickets. "Okay. What are you doing this
time?"
"I'm a cuckoo bird alarm clock and my 
tail feathers are caught." Justin bobs back 
and forth.
Having Justin Daniels as my best friend 
sure makes life more fun.
So does having Mr. Cohen as my teacher.
"Get ready to board." Mr. Cohen flicks
the lights off and on to signal the end of one 
activity and the beginning of another. 
All of the chairs in the classroom are lined 
up so that it looks like a real plane with 
aisles to walk down and places for the pilot 
co-pilot and flight attendants.
Mr. Cohen is always the pilot. He says 
that's because he's the only one in the room 
with a driver's license but I know the real 
reason he's always the pilot. It's because he 
wants to make sure that we get to where 
we're supposed to go. Once he let Roger 
Hart be the pilot but when we got there 
Roger announced that he had taken us to 
Disneyland instead of Zaire.
So now Mr. Cohen is the pilot all the 
time and he picks different kids to be co-pilots 
and flight attendants. When my turn 
comes I want to be co-pilot. I don't want to 
have to pass out the little packets of peanuts 
because some of the boys act so immature 
making monkey sounds and stuff.
Not Justin though. He and I spend the 
time reading the ROOM -B IN FLIGHT]]
magazine. (Everyone writes articles for it.) 
We also do the crossword puzzle that Mr. 
Cohen makes up.
Well actually to be honest sometimes 
Justin makes monkey sounds too.
The class lines up waiting for our passports 
to be checked by Mr. Cohen.
Hannah Burton looks at the photo on her 
passport. "I hate this picture of me. I don't 
know why we couldn't just bring one from 
home."
Every time we start studying a new country 
we "fly" there and every time we do 
Hannah complains about the picture on her 
passport.
"You look perfectly good" I tell her 
looking at her school picture.
We all use our school pictures except for 
Brandi Colwin who came to school after the 
pictures were taken. Her passport has a picture 
that Mr. Cohen took with his instant 
camera.]]
Hannah shakes her head. "I am perfectly 
good. I just look really terrible in my picture."
I choose to ignore Hannah's correction.
"You know that Mr. Cohen wants our 
make-believe passports to look like the real 
thing. Remember when he showed us his 
real passport. It looked awful and he doesn't 
really look that bad."
Hannah makes a face and grins. "Amber]] 
just because you forgot which day the pictures 
were going to be taken and your 
picture looks like you jumped out of bed 
threw on any old clothes and combed your 
hair with a rake doesn't mean that the rest 
of us don't care about how we look in our 
photos."
I look at Hannah's picture. Her long 
blond hair is perfectly combed with a really 
pretty multicolored ribbon barrette.
I look at my picture.
Brown eyes freckled nose. . . . My 
brown slightly messy hair is held back 
with two bagel-shaped barrettes.
I'm wearing normal non-picture-taking
day clothes. In fact I'm wearing my favorite
 things. . . a very long T-shirt that my aunt 
Pamela brought back from a trip to London 
and a pair of black stirrup pants. (Even 
though it doesn't show I remember which 
pants I was wearing. I Amber Brown have 
a very good memory.)]] 
I don't look so bad and anyway I forgot 
that the pictures were being taken that day 
even though Mr. Cohen told us a million 
times even though he had written two million 
reminders on the blackboard.
So I'm a little forgetful.
And Hannah Burton isn't always totally 
right. I don't comb my hair with a rake. 
Maybe my fingers sometimes but never a 
rake.
"I like your picture." Justin grins at me. 
"It looks exactly like you not just the way 
you look but the way you act."
"You mean messy." Hannah laughs.
I want to pull off the stupid little bow that 
she's wearing on her head.
"Don't you dare." Justin pulls on my 
arm.
I like the way that Justin usually knows 
what I'm thinking and I usually know what 
he's thinking.
Mr. Cohen checks our passports looks at]] 
our boarding tickets and then Joey Fortunato 
leads us to our seats.
Once everyone is seated Joey shows us 
how to fasten our seatbelts and tells us what 
to do in case of an emergency.
Mr. Cohen gets on his make-believe microphone 
and tells us to get ready for the trip 
of a lifetime.
And off we go-into the wild blue yonder.
The third grade is on its way to China.]]
Chapter Two
China.
It's a nice place to visit.
Once we got off the plane Mr. Cohen 
showed us a film about China and then 
we worked on our scrapbooks about the 
trip.
Justin and I are cutting out pictures from 
the folders that the travel agency sent.
We're turning them into postcards to 
make it seem like we're really in China. 
Then we're writing important facts about 
the places in the scrapbook.
Justin holds up a picture of a giant panda]] 
and says "Let's send this to Danny the 
Bratster."
"You mean Danny the Bratster your little 
brother the four-year-old you hate sharing 
your room with." I paste the picture on 
a notecard.
"The same. The one and only." Justin
nods takes the card and writes:
Having a wonderful time.
Glad you're not here
I b e a r l y miss you.
That s B-A-R-E-L-Y I inform him. 
Justin makes a face. "With the panda 
B-E-A-R-L-Y is better. Don't worry. 
Danny can't read anyway."
"Not your handwriting at least." I stare 
at the scribble.
Justin looks down at the card. "I'll do the 
pasting. You do the cursive."
Looking at the gobs of paste I think]] 
"messy." If neatness counts with me the 
count hardly gets to one.
Justin on the other hand is very neat 
about pasting things.
My handwriting is much better.
Another example of what a great team we 
are. We help each other out. We also learn 
things at about the same time and when one 
of us learns first he or she helps the other 
one out. When I learned to make the "e" go 
forward not "s" I taught Justin. He helps 
me with fractions which I only half understand. 
We both whisper words to each other 
in reading group when we need help-a 
great team.
Justin keeps pasting.
I keep writing.
We "send" one postcard to Justin's father 
who got a new job and has to live 
alone in Alabama. Justin Danny and his 
mother are staying here in New Jersey 
until their house gets sold.]] 
That's taking a long time.
Secretly I'm glad.
Sometimes Justin gets a little sad.
I'm not glad about that.
I know how Justin feels about missing his 
father. When my parents got a divorce my 
dad moved far away to another country so 
I never get to see him and he hardly ever 
calls. Justin's lucky though. His father comes
home some weekends and he gets to talk to 
him a lot on the phone.
And even though Justin misses his dad I 
keep my fingers crossed a lot of the time 
hoping that no one buys their house and 
that Mr. Daniels gets a job here and moves 
back again.
At the other end of the tableJimmy Russell 
and Bobby Clifford are fighting.
"Listen tuna head I need the brown 
crayon." Jimmy tugs at Bobby's sleeve. 
"I've asked you for it forty-seven times."
"And forty-seven times I've told you]]
that I still need it rat rear." Bobby keeps 
using the crayon. "Why don't you just use 
another color?"
"Because I need brown." Jimmy throws
down a blue crayon.
Jimmy and Bobby have been fighting
since preschool.
Mr. Cohen has told them "to grow out of
it" but they haven't.
"Brown. I need brown"Jimmy repeats.
Bobby crosses his eyes sticks out his
tongue and clutches the brown crayon to his 
chest.
"Doofus." Jimmy wiggles his ears.
"If you need a brown crayon" Bobby 
points to me "why don't you use the top of 
her head. She's amber brown."
I stare at Bobby. "Amber Brown is not a 
crayon. Amber Brown is a person."
The two boys laugh.
I Amber Brown am so sick of people 
teasing me about my name. When I was]]
younger I used to wish that my parents had 
given me a normal name like Jennifer or 
Tiffany or Chelsea.
Now though I really like my name. 
But I still have to put up with goofballs 
teasing me about it.
Mr. Cohen flicks the lights off and on. 
"Lunchtime in China. Clear the desks."
Everyone quickly cleans up.
I see Bobby put the brown crayon in his 
pocket for later.
In walk Ms. Armitage Mr. Burton and 
Mrs. Hopkins.
The classroom parents committee brings
 in Chinese takeout food and we start eating 
"in" China not "on" china because we're 
using paper plates.
I Amber Brown am not very good with 
chopsticks. I use mine to spear the food and 
then use a fork for the rice.
After we finish eating Justin and I fence 
with our chopsticks.]] 
Then Mr. Cohen passes out the fortune cookies.
Opening mine up I read:
Experience is the Best Teacher.]]
I hold the paper up and show it to Mr. 
Cohen. "I thought YOU were the best
teacher. Who is Mr. Experience?"
Mr. Cohen grins and then heads off to 
settle a fight between Jimmy and Bobby.
Justin has put his fortune down on the desk in front of him.
He stares at the blackboard.
I pick it up.
It says:
Soon you will be going on a new
journey and beginning a new life.
I put the fortune down.
Suddenly I don't feel very good.
Suddenly pieces of dry fortune cookie 
feel like they are choking me.
I Amber Brown hope that the fortune 
cookies are wrong.]]
Chapter Three
"Snack time." Justin puts the package of 
Oreos on his kitchen table.
"Yum." I rip the package open take out 
a cookie eat the cream center out of the 
middle and hand the cookie parts to Justin.
"Yum." He eats them.
I take a second cookie and eat the center 
out of it.
Justin and I have been eating cookies like 
this since preschool.
We call it teamwork.
Hannah Burton calls it "gross."
Mrs. Daniels walks into the kitchen.]]
Danny follows. "Play Legos with me."
"Leg. Legos. What's the difference?" Justin 
walks over to his brother and pulls at his 
leg.
I wish I had a little brother or sister to 
tease. Being an only child means I don't but 
it's okay I guess because I can always tease 
Danny.
Mrs. Daniels tells Danny "You can play 
with your toys later. Right now I don't 
want you to make a mess because the real 
estate broker is bringing people over to look 
at the house."
Suddenly teasing Danny doesn't seem so 
important. Suddenly it's much more important 
to cross my fingers and wish very 
hard-very very hard. I wish that the people 
hate the house that they think it's too 
big or too small that they don't have
 the money to buy it.
The doorbell rings.
"Would you two play with Danny?"]] 
Mrs. Daniels asks and then leaves to answer 
the door.
"Cookie." Danny imitates the sound of 
the Cookie Monster on Sesame Street.
"Sure Walter." I hand him a cookie.
Walter is Danny's real name but when he 
was little he had trouble saying it and kept 
calling himself "Danny Danny."
The name stuck and now everyone calls 
him Danny except for Justin and me when 
we want to torment him.
Danny starts to sing a song. "Amber 
Brown is a crayon. . . a crayon. . . a crayon... 
a broken old crayon."
Something tells me that I never should 
have let him know how I hate the way that 
some kids tease me about my name.
I guess that it's probably not such a good 
idea to tease someone about a name when 
they can tease back.
We all eat a few more cookies and then]] 
take a plastic bowl and start throwing cookies 
into it.
"Two points. Yes!" I yell as my cookie
rims the bowl and falls in.
"Good shot" a strange voice says.
Looking up I see a very pregnant lady 
who applauds my athletic ability.
"Maybe Amber should try out for the 
gold medal in the cookie Olympics." Justin 
grins.
"Maybe you kids should play in another 
room while Mrs. Bradley looks at the 
kitchen." Mrs. Daniels smiles and motions 
us out.
"It's all right. I like seeing children in the 
kitchen. I've already got a four-year-old." 
Mrs. Bradley pats her stomach. "And this 
one will be here in a few months. So I like 
the idea of a kitchen with children playing 
in it." She looks around.
I debate telling her that there are dragons.]]

Subjective Criteria

Illustrations: Little support

Dialog: Multiple speakers

Dialog: Broken dialogue

Vocabulary: More decoding/definition issues

Language: Few descriptive words

Sentences: Some Long/Complex

Text structure: Blend of written/oral

Inferences: Several Implications

Complexity: Several ideas - closely related

Concepts: Concrete/Simple Social

Chapters

Author's purpose: Obvious

Features

Character traits

Complex character relationships

Simple Plot

First Person

Present Tense

Topic

Friendship

Moving

*Family & Friends

*Feelings, Behaviors

Relationships

Low Frequency Words

ability	absolutely	agency	aisles	announced
applauds	armitage	articles	attendants	bagel
barrette	barrettes	bratster	broker	bzzzzzz
comb	combed	committee	cuckoo	cursive
daniels	disneyland	divorce	doofus	emergency
estate	faraway	fasten	fortunato	fortune
fractions	freckled	goofballs	gross	handwriting
hart	headbands	honest	hoping	ignore
imitates	immature	instant	jersey	justin's
legos	license	licorice	medal	microphone
motions	multicolored	neatness	notecard	packets
passport	passports	pasting	pilots	positively
pregnant	preschool	reminders	scrapbook	scrapbooks
sesame	specially	stirrup	takeout	teamwork
torment	tuna	whisper	workbooks	yonder
younger	zaire