After each page, stop and ask two important questions: Who is the story talking about at this time and what is happening?

In the beginning of the story, stop and ask if anyone has ever felt like Anna, Felix’s sister (bucket empty)? Let children share examples. Has anyone ever made someone feel bad? Toward the end, ask children to share examples of a time when they felt happy (their bucket was full). Ask children to share examples of a time when they have done something nice for someone and how it made them feel about themselves.

This is a good book to have children make a mental picture. Read the words before showing the pictures to several pages, allowing children to visualize what is happening in the story. This is good practice since the “bucket” is figurative. To apply this “filling and dipping from buckets” way of thinking, children will have to imagine their own buckets and their peers’.

Along with adjusting reading rates, the dialogue in this book is great to enhance fluency with punctuation. There are examples of many kinds of punctuation.

Exclamation marks: "Felix!” yelled his mom. “You should have used the stool to reach that!”

Question marks: “Felix, you wrote a wonderful story. Would you please share it with the class?”

Commas: “Like everyone else, Anna has an invisible bucket. When it’s empty, she feels bad. But when it’s full, she feels great.”

This book has a lot of dialogue. Felix shows a lot of emotion in his voice; excitement,frustration, wonder, disappointment. This would be great for students to change their voice according to the character and feeling of each part.