Blog Post #3: Hopper Hunts for Spring

Alessandro Ceccarelli

Summary of Hopper Hunts for Spring

The children’s book Hopper Hunts for Spring is written by Marcus Pfister and is intended for children with an intermediate reading level. The book was originally published in German and has been translated by Rosemary Lanning. This short story tells the tale of a young bunny named Hopper. The first days of spring have arrived and the gentle breeze has begun to melt the snow to reveal a colorful landscape.

Mama has just told Hopper that spring is arriving. Thinking that “Spring” is a person, he hopped off to find this newcomer. As he scurried across the field spotted with blades of grass reaching for the sun, he found a small hole in the ground. Thinking Spring may live inside, Hopped squeezed through the dark tunnel until he hit a soft ball. As the ball unfolded, a mole revealed himself and denied being Spring. He pointed Hopped into the direction of a larger cave on the other side of the forest. The bunny thanked him as he climbed out of the small tunnel and began making his way though the thick forest. As he got to the mouth of the cave, he nervously peeked inside to find a large mysterious brown silhouette. He called inside to wake the creature up. Hopper was shocked to hear his new friend was a bear who was hibernating, and not Spring. Hopper asked if he knew where Spring could be found and together they set out to look inside a honeycomb at the top of a tree. Even though Spring was nowhere to be found, the two enjoyed a delicious handful of honey and decided Hopper was too tired to continue searching. The bear took Hopper onto his back and carried him all the way across the woods, over the field, by the mole hole and back to Mama. As the bear was leaving, Mama explained to Hopped that spring is not a person, but “a time of year when the air gets warmer, the snow melts and the flower start to bloom”. Hopped now understood the meaning of spring and had made a new friend on his adventure.

Mathematical concept: Functions

This book can be used as a VISUAL introduction to the shape and visual structure of functions. This is similar to a children’s story on shapes, but allows for more advanced conceptualization. The story line of the book keeps children interested. Meanwhile, the images on multiple pages can be used to introduce concavity, reflections, increase vs. steepness, the shape of the quadratic formula and a very basic understanding of domain and range.

To give an example, pages 5-6 have a large underground image of Hopper crawling through the tunnel, which leads to the mole’s cave. Here, the tunnel is concave up and decreasing. On page 12, Hopper is about to enter the bear’s cave. This cave is concave down and, in the hypothetical setting the children understood, could being to introduce reflections across the x-axis, as this is the opposite of the quadratic formula’s graph. This image also touches on domain and range by having a maximum value and disappearing into the ground. Similarly, other images of large tree branches show variable steepness and different kinds of concavity.

Reasoning for Book Choice

Using literature as a tool for education on abstract concepts is effective because children can follow the reader with less effort. In a lecture, young children will lose concentration quickly and not absorb the message. With a book however, the plot and the imagery keeps attention high.

I have chosen this book from the library’s children’s section because it has a fun story line and will keep children’s attention on the story. At the same time, it prepares them for learning about functions by portraying different concepts on the pages. Visual learners will be able to benefit from this book the most, but other children will be able to follow along and get a first sense of the new mathematical ideas.