Officer Buckle and Gloria

Officer Buckle and Gloria

Author: Peggy Rathmann

Ages: K-3

Rating: 5 Stars

Summary: Officer Buckle, a policeman in Napville is the master of safety tips, but his presentations put his audience to sleep. He starts taking along Gloria, the new police dog, with him and she performs tricks behind his back. The students love this, but Officer Buckle does not know this is happening until he watches himself on the news one night. He is upset to find out that Gloria is the star of the show.

I was hesitant at first to read this book, but I selected it to read with a second grader, and I am truly happy that I did. This book is also a Caldecott Medal winner, deservingly so. I really enjoyed reading the book especially with all the vibrant pictures! I just loved how Gloria would be “acting” out the safety tip behind Officer Buckle and he had no idea. Plus, I loved that the book not only told how important safety tips can be, but how important our friendships are, no matter how big or small they are. Peggy Rathmann does a wonderful job with the text and the pictures in the book. I loved sharing this with my reading buddy.

Officer Buckle and Gloria has all kinds of meaningful “lessons” that could be shared with a classroom of children. One idea that popped into my head right away was that this would be an excellent book to use at the very start of the year to help establish classroom rules. The text tells us a story of how important safety is and without safety tips or rules, our classrooms and schools can fall apart.