Ernest Hemingway famously wrote: "Baby shoes for sale, never worn." Six words--but evokes a powerful story.There has been a trend lately with picture books that rely mostly on pictures to tell their story and have a few choice words to get the message across.
David LaRochelle and his illustrator compadre Mike Wohnoutka have a few that they've shared together. Moo! and This is Not a Cat! tell a story with just a few words but have a very clear message.
Similarly, books like Ball by Mary Sullivan and Dude! by Aaron Reynolds and Dan Santat, choose one word and play with the facial expressions, situations and punctuation to get their message across.
Finally, author Chris Raschka does a nice job with a few more words with his books Yo! Yes? and Ring! Yo? but spends more time mixing up the punctuation to deliver a few conversational books.
I use these books ALL the time with my struggling readers and my students who are working on beefing up their fluency. They practice with interchanging punctuation and by working on expression and prosody.
