Coach Books

Just like any teacher-mom would, I found myself playing school with my five-year-old on our day off.  And, as usual, I was the teacher.  On the board, I wrote "Mentor Text" (I know what you're thinking, but it is the world I am living right now.)
"What's that?" she asked me.
I explained to her that a mentor was kind of like her softball coach, and "text" was a fancy word for book, so a mentor text was really just a coach book.  And I asked her to pick one from her shelf.
She did, but not one I would have.  It was no award-winning text by any means, and far from the best in children's literature, but I cracked open the Disney anthology to the table of contents and asked her to pick a story.  The one she chose began like this:

Long ago, deep in the jungles of faraway India, there lived a wise black panther named Bagheera.

Recognize the story?
It's one of her favorites, and  now it was her turn:  "How would you finish a sentence that began, 'Long ago...'?" I asked her.
She said and then she wrote:
Once upon a time in faraway California there lived a smart and wise tiger named Tigeress.
Wow!  Even though she didn't recognize "mentor text," she sure knew what to do with one!  At that moment, clearer than any other, she told me what she'd been doing in kindergarten: learning to read like a writer.  What a gift!