Burnt Toast by Nan Blanchard is a reflective fiction text that explores family relationships, emotional resilience, and empathy through the perspective of a young boy coping with his sister’s serious illness. Through everyday moments at school and at home, the story traces Stan’s frustration, jealousy, and guilt as he struggles to understand his changing world and the attention his sister requires. Rich sensory detail and gentle symbolism, such as the burnt toast and the making of a cake, reveal how small acts of care can help express love when words feel too difficult. Tender, realistic, and deeply moving, the text supports students to understand complex emotions through lived experience and voice.

The text is ideal for integrated learning across literacy and health, supporting inquiry into family dynamics, emotional regulation, empathy, and resilience in everyday life.

This pack contains a range of response activities complete with activity explainer videos for exploring thinking skills and developing emotional understandings and compassionate inquiry including:

• Blooms Higher Order Thinking activities
• Book Club guide for deepening text discussion
• A range of activities to explore emotional understanding, compassionate inquiry, empathy development, vocabulary and developing skills for self and co-regulation.

Curriculum Phase: Phase 3
Year Level: Year 6

English (NZC Levels 4–5): reading for meaning and critical thinking, analysing character perspective and narrative voice, understanding reflective fiction, synthesising events and themes, exploring symbolism and descriptive language, identifying author’s message

Health and Physical Education: wellbeing, emotional awareness, empathy, relationships, coping with change, resilience

Text type: Fiction, personal recount, reflective narrative

Key words include: challenge, emotions, empathy, family, grandparents, identity, illness, jealousy, resilience, resentment, siblings