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IS 590: Picture Books Across the Curriculum
Picture Book Review
Author, Title Review #
Ackerman, Karen; Song and Dance Man 77
Adler, David A.; The Babe & I 165
Alexander, Lloyd; The King’s Fountain 164
Allard, Harry; The Stupids Die 174
Andreasen, Dan; With a Little Help From Daddy 140
Anholt, Laurence; Picasso and the Girl with a Ponytail 191
Averbeck, Jim; In a Blue Room 13
Avi; Silent Movie 173
Aylesworth, Jim; Old Black Fly 119
Bang, Molly; Ten, Nine, Eight 51
Bang, Molly; When Sophie Gets Angry—Really, Really Angry… 163
Bannerman, Helen; Little Black Sambo 110
Bannon, Kay Thorpe; Yonder Mountain 134
Barton, Byron; Machines at Work 109
Base, Graeme; The Sign of the Seahorse 101
Bemelmans, Ludwig; Madeline’s Rescue 46
Bernard, Robin; Juma and the Honey Guide 147
Birdseye, Tom; She’ll Be Comin’ Round the Mountain 117
Blake, Quentin; Snuff 183
Bornstein, Harry; Little Red Riding Hood 135
Brisson, Pat; Melissa Parkington’s Beautiful, Beautiful Hair 146
Browne, Anthony; Gorilla 182
Budney, Blossom; A Cat Can’t Count 197
Burleigh, Robert; Pandora 136
Burns, Khepra; Mansa Musa 137
Burton, Virginia Lee; Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel 49
Burton, Virginia Lee; The Little House 50
Byrd, Robert; The Hero and the Minotaur 20
Carle, Eric; The Grouchy Ladybug 198
Carle, Eric; Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me 121
Carle, Eric; The Very Quiet Cricket 103
Carlstrom, Nancy White; Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? 85
Carney, Margaret; At Grandpa’s Sugar Bush 89
Carson, Jo; You Hold Me and I’ll Hold You 108
Casanova, Mary; One-Dog Canoe 90
Choi, Yangsook; Behind the Mask 169
Climo, Shirley; Korean Cinderella 26
Cole, Stephen; Shrek, The Essential Guide 192
Coville, Bruce; Hamlet 139
Cousins, Lucy; Hooray for Fish! 111
Craft, Mahlon F.; Sleeping Beauty 22
Creech, Sharon; A Fine, Fine School 138
Crews, Donald; Freight Train 69
Cronin, Doreen; Click, Clack, Moo: Cows that Type 37
Cullen, Lynn; Moi & Marie Antoinette 12
Cunnane, Kelly; For You are a Kenyan Child 114
Dahl, Roald; The Enormous Crocodile 31
Daly, Niki; Jamela’s Dress 99
Danneburg, Julie; First Year Letters 168
Daugherty, James; Andy and the Lion 32
Davis, Donald; The Pig Who Went Home on Sunday 96
Defoe, Daniel; Robinson Crusoe 92
De Paola, Tomie; Mice Squeak, We Speak 189
De Paola, Tomie; Strega Nona 39
Edwards, Michelle; Eve and Smithy 166
Egielski, Richard; Buz 62
Ehlert, Lois; Mole’s Hill 27
Ehrlich, Bettina; Pantaloni 175
Ehrlich, H.M.; Louie’s Goose 94
Engel, Diana; Josephina the Great Collector 162
Ets, Marie Hall; In the Forest 188
Falconer, Ian; Olivia 33
Falconer, Ian; Olivia Forms a Band 10
Feiffer, Jules; Bark, George 36
Fleming, Denise; Lunch 112
Freeman, Lydia and Don; Pet of the Met 190
Fox, Mem; Tough Boris 120
Frame, Jeron Ashford; Yesterday I had the Blues 161
Galdone, Paul; Puss in Boots 56
Geisert, Arthur; The Giant Ball of String 160
George, Jean Craighead; Frightful’s Daughter Meets the Baron Weasel 9
Gerstein, Mordicai; Carolinda Clatter! 116
Gollub, Matthew; The Jazz Fly 167
Graham, Bob; Max 177
Graham, John; A Crowd of Cows 176
Gregory, Nan; Pink 11
Griek, Susan Vande; The Art Room 23
Grimm, Brothers; The Bremen Town Musicians 6
Hall, Donald; Ox-Cart Man 80
Handforth, Thomas; Mei Li 47
Harshman, Marc; A Little Excitement 181
Henkes, Kevin; Kitten’s First Full Moon 18
Henkes, Kevin; Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse 107
Henkes, Kevin; Owen 125
Hest, Amy; Off to School, Baby Duck! 113
Hill, Eric; Where’s Spot? 60
Hoban, Tana; Round & Round & Round 158
Hoberman, Mary Ann; The Marvelous Mouse Man 170
Hoberman, Mary Ann; The Seven Silly Eaters 84
Hoff, Syd; Duncan the Dancing Duck 157
Hogrogian, Nonny; One Fine Day 159
Isadora, Rachel; Lili at Ballet 95
James, Simon; Little One Step 152
Jobling, Curtis; Frankenstein’s Cat 83
Johnson, Angela; Julius 75
Johnson, Crockett; Harold’s Fairy Tale 199
Jonas, Ann; Aardvarks, Disembark! 122
Kasza, Keiko; The Wolf’s Chicken Stew 59
Keats, Ezra Jack; Maggie and the Pirate 55
Keats, Ezra Jack; Whistle for Willie 54
Keller, Holly; Farfallina & Marcel 151
Kimmel, Eric A; Anansi and the Magic Stick 196
Krause, Ruth; The Carrot Seed 40
Langton, Jane; The Queen’s Necklace 97
Lasker, Joe; Lentil Soup 186
Lester, Julius; Black Cowboy Wild Horses 102
Lester, Mike; A is for Salad 105
Lewis, J. Patrick; The House of Boo 3
Lieshout, Elle van, and Erik van Os; The Nothing King 4
Lobel, Arnold; Fables 79
Macaulay, David; Why the Chicken Crossed the Road 76
Marion, Jeff Daniel; Hello, Crow 104
Marshall, James; George and Martha 70
Martin, Bill, Jr.; Chicka Chicka Boom Boom 38
Martin, Jacqueline Briggs; The Water Gift and the Pig of the Pig 2
McClosky, Robert; Make Way for Ducklings 44
McClosky, Robert; Time of Wonder 45
McCully, Emily Arnold; Mirette on the High Wire 43
McDermott, Beverly Brodsky; Sedna 126
McGhee, Alison; Mrs. Watson Wants Your Teeth 52
McKissack, Patricia C.; Goin’ Someplace Special 66
Meddaugh, Susan; Martha Blah Blah 118
Michelson, Richard; Happy Feet 115
Moses, Brian; Trouble at the Dinosaur Café 1
Moss, Miriam; Bare Bear 5
Munari, Bruno; Bruno Munari’s ABC 63
Murphy, Mary; I Kissed the Baby! 74
Myers, Tim; Tanuki’s Gift 88
Nakatani, Chiyoko; The Zoo in my Garden 156
Naylor, Phyllis Reynolds; Keeping a Christmas Secret 187
Nolen, Jerdine; In My Momma’s Kitchen 98
O’Brien, Thomas M.; To Know a Tree 171
Ogburn, Jacqueline K.; The Magic Nesting Doll 93
Osborne, Mary Pope; New York’s Bravest 155
Oughton, Jerrie; How the Stars Fell Into the Sky 87
Pedersen, Judy; When Night Time Comes Near 185
Peppe, Rodney; The Mice Who Lived in a Shoe 184
Provensen, Alice; Shaker Lane 172
Quackenbush, Robert; Danger in Tibet 81
Radunsky, Vladimir; Manneken Pis 148
Raschka, Chris; Yo! Yes? 154
Rathmann, Peggy; Good Night, Gorilla 41
Rathmann, Peggy; Officer Buckle and Gloria 42
Rees, Lesley; How to be a Pirate in 7 Days or Less 15
Reynolds, Peter H.; The Dot 200
Rohmann, Eric; A Kitten Tale 14
Rohmann, Eric; My Friend Rabbit 19
Rosenthal, Amy Krouse; Little Pea 7
Runcie, Jill; Cock-A-Doodle-Doo! 149
Saltzberg, Barney; Cornelius P. Mud, Are You Ready For School? 8
Say, Allen; Grandfather’s Journey 72
Say, Allen; Kamishibai Man 73
Schertle, Alice; The Skeleton in the Closet 150
Scieszka, Jon; Squids will be Squids 153
Shannon, David; Duck on a Bike 123
Shannon, David; No, David! 65
Shepard, Aaron; Master Man 91
Shulevitz, Uri; What is a Wise Bird Like You Doing in a Silly Tale Like This? 124
Simont, Marc; The Stray Dog 58
Sis, Peter; Fire Truck 67
Slobodkina, Esphyr; Caps for Sale; 61
Spinelli, Eileen; Hero Cat 24
Stanley, Diane; Rumpelstiltskin’s Daughter 25
Steel, Danielle; Max and the Baby-Sitter 132
Steig, William; Amos & Boris 145
Talley, Carol; Papa Piccolo 144
Tan, Shaun; The Lost Thing 127
Taylor, Mark; The Frog House 133
Thomas, Patricia; “Stand Back,” Said the Elephant, “I’m Going to Sneeze!” 179
Thurber, James; Many Moons 71
Tobias, Tobi; The Quitting Deal 195
Turner, Sandy; Otto’s Trunk 82
Ueno, Noriko; Elephant Buttons 178
Van Allsburg, Chris; Jumanji 100
Van Allsburg, Chris; The Garden of Abdul Gasazi 29
Van Allsburg, Chris; The Wreck of the Zephyr 28
Van Allsburg, Chris; The Wretched Stone 21
Waber, Bernard; Good-bye, Funny Dumpy-Lumpy 106
Ward, Lynd; The Biggest Bear 48
Weatherford, Carole Boston; Dear Mr. Rosenwald 30
Wells, Rosemary; Yoko 57
Wells, Rosemary; Yoko’s Paper Cranes 143
Wiesner, David; Flotsam 35
Wiesner, David; The Three Pigs 34
Wiesner, David; Tuesday 194
Willems, Mo; Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! 16
Willems, Mo; Knuffle Bunny 17
Williams, Vera B.; A Chair for my Mother 64
Wood, Aubrey; When the Root Children Wake Up 131
Wright, Betty Ren; The Cat Next Door 142
Yarbrough, Camille; Cornrows 180
Yee, Wong Herbert; Big Black Bear 141
Yolen, jane; The Seeing Stick 193
Yolen, Jane; Tam Lin 86
Yorinks, Arthur; Hey, Al 78
Zemach, Harve; Duffy and the Devil 128
Zimmerman, Andrea; Trashy Town 53
Zion, Gene; Harry the Dirty Dog 68
Review #1 !
|Citation: | |
|Moses, Brian. Trouble at the Dinosaur Café. New York: Walker & Company, 2006. Ill. by | |
|Gary Parsons. | |
|Source: Hodges CCYAL | |
|Summary: Peaceful plant-eating dinosaurs are interrupted when a bullying T-Rex comes in threatening to eat them. They call in help from a |
|triceratops, who knocks the villain over; the others tickle him until he promises not to bother them anymore. |
|Story Notes: Text rhymes ABCB. Set in 1950s-style café, dramatic|Illustration Notes: Font size changes for emphasis, printed on pictures; |
|bullying with vivid vocabulary. Antagonist is beaten but not |pictures switch from full scenes to panels for drama along with text. |
|taught a lesson. Humorous ending. |Close-ups on T-Rex dramatic. Bright colors, clean lines, texture to dino|
| |skin. Endpapers show café switching from neat to trashed following fight.|
|Applications: Use in conjunction with non-fiction dinosaur books to teach fiction vs. non. |
|Age Range: younger elementary |
|Awards/Distinctions: |
|Tags: dinosaurs, bully |
Review #2
|Citation: | |
|Martin, Jacqueline Briggs. The Water Gift and the Pig of the Pig. Boston: Houghton Mifflin| |
|Company, 2003. Ill. by Linda S. Wingerter. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A retired sailor has the gift for dowsing, or finding underground water with a forked stick. He, his granddaughter, and their pig|
|enjoy sailing and fishing. After a stint of bad luck, the grandfather decides he has lost the gift, grows depressed, and stops his |
|pastimes, but when the beloved pig goes missing, his granddaughter convinces him to take up the dowsing rod again to find the pig. |
|Story Notes: Text written in lines like poetry, comes off a |Illustration Notes: Pretty acrylic paintings with soft colors and warm |
|little choppy in sentences. Nice enough little story, but seems |atmosphere depicting country life, but pictures seem a bit disjointed |
|either developed too much or not enough; awkward amount of detail|from text, as if it’s apparent that author and illustrator didn’t work |
|and complexity. I have trouble deciding what the story is mostly|together. Some elements of pictures are specified in text; pictures |
|about, so kids will have trouble too. |should be used for things left unsaid? Text is spatially separate from |
| |illustrations, on a white page with a small picture opposite a full-page |
| |picture on the other side of the spread. |
|Applications: Use to support cultural lessons on dowsing, other traditional skills |
|Age Range: middle elementary |
|Awards/Distinctions: |
|Tags: dowsing, pigs, sailors |
Review #3
|Citation: | |
|Lewis, J. Patrick. The House of Boo. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998. Ill. by Katya | |
|Krenina. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Three children approach a haunted house, believing a hermit lives there. When they see his shadow they retreat into the dark, but|
|in doing so stumble over the gravestone of the house’s supposed inhabitant. When they return to the house to look again, they can see no |
|life in it, and the mystery goes unresolved. |
|Story Notes: Text rhymes AABA, a Rubaiyat poem. Some figurative |Illustration Notes: Very dark gouaches make for a spooky night mood, draw|
|language and some unconventional phrasing and grammar to fit the |reader in and support the text very well. Text is set onto pictures, |
|stanzas. Spooky story, no relief in conclusion. |sometimes lines are incorporated into pictures themselves. Perspective |
| |changes from close to the children to farther out, to show their fear and|
| |then the cause of it. Pictures use every inch of paper meaningfully. |
|Applications: Halloween holiday, or ghost story anytime. |
|Age Range: older elementary to middle |
|Awards/Distinctions: |
|Tags: haunted house, ghosts, dare |
Review #4 (!
|Citation: | |
|Lieshout, Elle van, and Erik vas Os. The Nothing King. Belgium: Lemniscat b.v. Rotterdam, | |
|2004. Ill. by Paula Gerritsen. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: King Bear moves out of the palace, leaving all his servants and nice things behind, to live in a shabby apartment with his pet |
|rabbit. He is teased by his astonished colleagues and subjects, who ridicule and call him a nothing king, but he finds that life is much |
|better without those materialistic things. He has all that he needs, which eventually embarrasses and quiets his tormentors. |
|Story Notes: Few words, carefully chosen to show more than |Illustration Notes: Light values in mixed techniques show a great deal |
|elaborate description would. Climax and wit in understatement. |beyond the text, supporting it well. Uses empty space for “simple life” |
|Imagery in rich but simple language. Theme of enjoying simple |idea. End papers start with overworked, hassled King (expressing the |
|life—not a usual American topic. |premise of the book) and end with relaxed King. |
|Applications: Enjoyment, general, use to contrast fiction with non-fiction bears |
|Age Range: any |
|Awards/Distinctions: |
|Tags: bears, kings, independence, happiness |
Review #5 #
|Citation: | |
|Moss, Miriam. Bare Bear. New York: Holiday House, 2005. Ill. by Mary McQuillan. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A bear’s clothes are blown away in the wind. He walks out to find them, and they appear with three fairytale characters who |
|become his friends. |
|Story Notes: Text rhymes ABCB, has common refrain, references |Illustration Notes: Font size changes for emphasis, text in shapes to |
|fairytales, may be criticized for portraying the bear walking |support meaning and pictures. Space in pictures changes, sometimes to |
|around naked. Cute and relatable story. |fill full page, sometimes to microcosms. Dark values for lost clothes, |
| |bright, happy colors for new friends, lost clothes appear early so kids |
| |can try to find them. End papers show full then empty clothesline. |
|Applications: Good story to learn for storytelling. |
|Age Range: younger elementary |
|Awards/Distinctions: |
|Tags: bears, clothes |
Review #6 #&
|Citation: | |
|Grimm, Brothers. The Bremen Town Musicians. Trans. By Anthea Bell. New York: Penguin | |
|Young Readers Group, 2007. Ill. by Lisbeth Zwerger. | |
|Source: Hodges CCYAL | |
|Summary: Four aging farm animals run away from their homes under threat of death from their owners. They intend to make their living by |
|joining a town band, but then they come upon some robbers’ house. They stand on each other’s shoulders to look like a monster, make lots |
|of noise, and scare the robbers away handily, after which they live there from then on. |
|Story Notes: Translation with simple but beautiful language, need to check original tale to see if this one lacks dark elements of Grimm |
|(for instance there’s no violent end, not sure if that’s original or not). This is a folk tale with numerous versions around. |
|Illustration Notes: Simple watercolors with lots of space. Some, with just the character at the bottom of a single-color wash with some |
|small pictures above, seem to be character snapshots with room for the character’s thoughts. Others are full-scene illustrations, but |
|usually still with more space for the landscape than the animals. Small character-only pictures without background or border appear at the|
|bottom of some text pages, showing the misery of each of the characters along with the text about why they ran away from their homes. |
|Endpapers show their efforts to scare away the robbers. |
|Applications: Read multiple versions to discuss the roots of folk tales, compare and contrast for reading skills. This could be acted out |
|fairly easily by kids, would be a good one for storytelling. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: animals, folk tales, aging |
Review #7
|Citation: | |
|Rosenthal, Amy Krouse. Little Pea. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2005. Ill. by Jen | |
|Corace. | |
|Source: Hodges CCYAL | |
|Summary: Little Pea is very happy and loves a lot of life, but he hates eating candy for supper. His parents make him eat the candy and |
|reward him afterwards with a dessert of spinach. |
|Story Notes: Twist on the eternal problem of children not wanting to eat healthy food but rushing towards dessert. Portrays a happy, |
|well-adjusted child with a good family life, which may lean toward the cliché in some ways but is not overdone. Dialog about how much |
|candy to eat is straight out of a typical family dinner table conversation. Eaten candy is accompanied by kid’s exclamations like “yuck” |
|and “blech”. This would be great to read aloud, and would be good for a beginning reader as long as they are solid enough on their letters|
|to read the font, which is not quite standard. |
|Illustration Notes: Very simple ink and watercolor pictures on otherwise completely white pages. Simple shapes, lines show motion, text |
|often printed around pictures, text size changes for emotion. |
|Applications: Give to early readers, combine with other books addressing the dinnertime issue. |
|Age Range: younger elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: dessert, eating, parents |
Review #8
|Citation: | |
|Saltzberg, Barney. Cornelius P. Mud, Are You Ready For School? Cambridge, Massachusetts: | |
|Candlewick Press, 2007. Ill. by author | |
|Source: Hodges CCYAL | |
|Summary: Cornelius’s mom asks him a series of “Did you…” questions, to all of which he answers “Yes!” However, as can be seen in the |
|pictures, what he has done is literally correct but not what we expect to be the proper way to do things. After he declares that he is |
|ready for school, he boards a bus that gives a surprise ending: it’s taking him to clown school. |
|Story Notes: Very easy text, would be good for young readers. Responses allow group participation. Text cannot stand alone as a story, as|
|the twist to each “Yes!” and the surprise ending are shown only in the pictures. Depicts caring, stable mother who makes sure to kiss him |
|before he leaves. |
|Illustration Notes: Integral to the story, as pictures give the punch line to each of Cornelius’s responses. Acrylic and pencil |
|illustrations have bright, fun colors that lend to the comical nature of the story. Simple objects and shapes make it very clear what |
|message each picture is intended to convey to the reader. Text for Cornelius’s responses is in all caps, indicating that he yells or |
|exclaims each time. Front end paper, frontispiece, and title page set mood for the story, but back end paper is particularly important by |
|giving the surprise ending. |
|Applications: Critical thinking skills: discuss why Cornelius keeps saying yes when he has not done what we think he should have. |
|Age Range: very young |Awards: |
|Tags: Pigs, school, getting ready |
Review #9 &
|Citation: | |
|George, Jean Craighead. Frightful’s Daughter Meets the Baron Weasel. New York: Penguin | |
|Group, 2007. Ill. by Daniel San Souci | |
|Source: Hodges CCYAL | |
|Summary: A mother peregrine falcon and a father weasel each struggle for their families’ interests by feeding and protecting their young. |
|The weasel sees the falcon’s offspring as food and tries incessantly to find a way to get them, while the mother falcon tries desperately |
|to get her babies to fly so that they can move away to safety. They eventually fly only when the weasel finally successfully arrives in |
|their nest. Sam, a human boy character who lives in the same woods, helps the reader to understand that the struggle to survive is just |
|everyone playing their special role in nature. |
|Story Notes: Longer text, mostly realistic but personifies animals occasionally, gives the weasel the roundest and in some ways most |
|sympathetic character, which is un-stereotypical. Satisfying resolution to conflict, but opens discussion on who-eats-who ethical issues. |
|Illustration Notes: Beautiful rich watercolors of mountain nature scenes. They don’t convey enough information to be essential to the |
|story, but they increase its pleasure in telling. Text is set apart from pictures by white boxes, no artistic intent in font. |
|Applications: Could be used for food chain lesson or ethical discussion |
|Age Range: older elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: falcons, weasels, mountains, woods, food chain |
Review #10 (@
|Citation: | |
|Falconer, Ian. Olivia Forms a Band. New York: Athenum Books for Young Readers, 2006. Ill.| |
|by author. | |
|Source: Hodges CCYAL | |
|Summary: Olivia’s family is going to see a fireworks show. Olivia decides there ought to be a band for fireworks, and spends the day |
|making herself into a one-pig band. When it’s time to go, she changes her mind and leaves the band behind, but they have a good time |
|anyway. |
|Story Notes: Full of charming just-like-a-kid moments, perhaps funnier adult even than for kids. Full of dialog and humorous |
|understatement. As in real life, doesn’t focus on a single stated conflict, but jumps around as Olivia’s mood changes. Captures parents’ |
|loving frustration with children. |
|Illustration Notes: Charcoal and gouache, black and white with red and blue accents adds to the humorous understatement of the text. Uses |
|the occasional photograph to fill in a scene, which increases humor by being unexpected and contrasting with the rest of the pictures. |
|Title page illustrated with the first scene of the book, end papers give polka dots to represent Olivia’s personality. Back ground to |
|pictures is left blank space, for the reader to fill in by imagining a home. Onomatopoeia for band sounds are printed in large text sizes.|
|Includes a portion of the piano score to Washington Post March. |
|Applications: Humorous light read, should appeal to everyone for general reading |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: band |
Review #11 (
|Citation: | |
|Gregory, Nan. Pink. Toronto: Groundwood Books, 2007. Ill. by Luc Melanson. | |
|Source: Hodges CCYAL | |
|Summary: Vivi, the daughter of a trucker and a maid, is jealous of all the “perfect pink” things the wealthy, snooty girls at school have. |
|When she sees an amazing pink doll for sale, she takes odd jobs to save enough to buy it, thinking that will help her fit in. When she |
|almost has enough, one of the snooty girls buys it first. Her parents understand wanting things, but they help her understand that you |
|can’t have everything, and that getting it won’t necessarily make you happier. |
|Story Notes: Delightful story about a low SES girl finding non-material happiness, not cliché and NOT what I expected from the pink cover. |
|Touching story with real-life issues of playground teasing by the more fortunate, working hard towards a goal and having it fall out from |
|under you, imperfect parents who care but can only do so much with their means, people passing judgment on your situation based on your |
|appearance, feeling too old to be comforted by hugs. Language good for lots of reading levels. |
|Illustration Notes: Nice enough illustrations, done digitally in bright colors with values that vary according to mood (bright with family,|
|darker with snooty store owner), but not my favorite. The cartoonish characters are really too simple for all the complex themes |
|addressed. |
|Applications: Use to open discussion about different family situations, maybe by guidance counselor. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: pink, bullies, poverty, contentment |
Review #12
|Citation: | |
|Cullen, Lynn. Moi & Marie Antoinette. New York: Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2006. Ill. | |
|by Amy Young. | |
|Source: Hodges CCYAL | |
|Summary: The story of Marie Antoinette’s marriage to a prince of France, accession to the throne, and search for happiness through |
|materialism, told from the point of view of her pug dog. |
|Story Notes: Very cute rendition of the thoughts of an “already perfect” dog, presents Antoinette in a much more human way than the “let |
|them eat cake” monster in most stories. Addresses a historical subject, though not in a terribly historical way, with the apparent theme |
|being that true happiness is found in love, as the dog finds it at the end, rather than an informative description of the French court. |
|Illustration Notes: Light, slightly whimsical gouaches that keep the focus on the story of the dog better than rich oils for the grandeur |
|of the court would have. Often leave backgrounds blank space, for the reader to imagine that grandeur. Pictorial as well as textual |
|similarity between Antoinette’s inspection by her mother and the beginning and her inspection of her daughter at the end. Several nice |
|shifts in point of view provide variety, from far-away garden views to looking through characters’ eyes. |
|Applications: Use with older readers in combination with another portrayal of Marie Antoinette to talk about bias in different sources. |
|Theme of finding happiness for younger readers. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: Marie Antoinette, France, royalty, happiness, dogs, bias |
Review #13
|Citation: | |
|Averbeck, Jim. In a Blue Room. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc., 2008. Ill. by Tricia Tusa. | |
|Source: Hodges CCYAL | |
|Summary: Alice is up too late, protesting that she can only sleep in a blue room as her worthy mother keeps tempting her to sleep with |
|non-blue things. She nods of gradually, and when her mother turns the light off, the moonlight makes it so that she does indeed sleep in a|
|blue room. |
|Story Notes: Alice’s lack of awareness of her own sleepiness seems sweet to adults, but it may not resonate for children, who almost |
|certainly experience the same thing but will deny it just as Alice does when it happens to them. Easy words but rich vocabulary, a good |
|one for young readers to practice on if they like it. Ending with everything bathed in blue is a surprise, but wholly satisfying. |
|Illustration Notes: Very simplistic, almost child-like outlines of Alice and her mother in ink, watercolor, and gouache. Text is mostly on|
|blank pages, but each time her mother gives her something, it extends from the main scene to wrap around the words. Point of view is |
|important, ranging from underneath Alice jumping on the bed to backing out gradually as she falls asleep, leaving the room, house, town, |
|and then planet, seeing only the tiny outline of Earth in the distance as the story confirms in the end that Alice sleeps in a blue room. |
|After the light goes off, all scenes are done entirely in different values of blue, and they become full spreads onto the text pages so |
|that white space doesn’t interrupt the blue in which Alice sleeps. Convincing contrast with the light of the room while awake. Hard cover|
|is blue, while jacket is the light colors of the lit scenes. |
|Applications: Pleasure reading, bedtime story |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: blue, falling asleep |
Review #14 (
|Citation: | |
|Rohmann, Eric. A Kitten Tale. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges CCYAL | |
|Summary: Four kittens wonder what snow will be like when they see it for the first time. Three are terrified of it, but the fourth is |
|excited. When it arrives, the fourth dives right in and has a great time. When they see how much fun he’s having, the other three change |
|their minds and join him. |
|Story Notes: Adorable hyperbole from the worrywart cats. Simple language, parallel structure that can be learned easily. Simple way of |
|addressing the often needless fear of the unknown. |
|Illustration Notes: Color monotype prints, simple outlines but lots of texture and action. Does a great job of showing the energetic |
|activities of kittens and adds a lot to the story about how the fourth kitten goes a separate way from the crowd. Pictures (and thus |
|story) start even before the title page, include the full-spread title page as well as the frontispiece, but not the endpapers. |
|Applications: Good for early readers, talk about fear and courage in the face of the unknown |
|Age Range: younger elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: kittens, courage, worry, seasons, snow |
Review #15 @&
|Citation: | |
|Rees, Lesley. How to be a Pirate in 7 Days or Less. Boston: Kingfisher, 2006. Ill. by Jan| |
|Lewis. | |
|Source: Hodges CCYAL | |
|Summary: “Instructions” for making oneself into a pirate, divided into seven sections. Full of games, art activities, and recipes for |
|hands-on activities. |
|Story Notes: The hands-on activities are really more important than the reading material in this book (as there is little in the way of |
|continuous narrative at all), though the introductions to each page do give some non-fiction information about pirates, such as what scurvy|
|is. Words are vernacular and very readable, introduces pirate vocabulary words. |
|Illustration Notes: Simple cartoon-style pictures appear here and there to punctuate the text and fill the page with color rather than add |
|much information to the story. They do help to clarify some of the activities, though they are not meant to be instructional. The end |
|papers include templates to trace for skulls-and-crossbones, a cutlass, letters in calligraphy script, as well as a ruler to use for making|
|maps. |
|Applications: This book has a lot of activities that could be used in a library or classroom to support other parts of a unit (such as |
|making a map) or would be very suitable to send home with a student to do with friends and family just for fun. It includes some removable|
|parts, which are probably not suitable for library use, but the book can definitely be enjoyed without them. |
|Age Range: elementary to middle |Awards: |
|Tags: pirates, games, maps, recipes |
Review #16 ($@
|Citation: | |
|Willems, Mo. Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!. New York: Hyperion Books for Children, | |
|2003. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Family collection | |
|Summary: A bus driver leaves his bus for a break and asks the reader to keep an eye on it and not let the pigeon drive it. The pigeon, who|
|has been daydreaming about doing just that, begs, pleads, whines, and tries every trick he can think of to convince the reader to let him |
|drive, but to no avail. After the driver returns and drives the bus away, the pigeon is distracted by a new driving goal: a monster truck.|
|Story Notes: Simple text recalls scores of wheedling attempts almost every reader has made in trying to get permission for something |
|denied. Easy to read, great read-aloud if done with expression. Very funny in its true-to-life familiarity. |
|Illustration Notes: Very simple cartoon-style shapes done in solid colors and crayon outlines against neutral backgrounds. Angles and |
|lines make body language and facial expressions of pigeon perfectly clear and add a great deal to the pigeon’s pleas for permission. |
|Pictures creep around the edges of pages for motions and hesitations of pigeon. Story begins and concludes with illustrations on end |
|papers, also making full use of title page, frontispiece, dedication page. |
|Applications: Pleasure reading |
|Age Range: elementary |Awards: Caldecott Honor |
|Tags: pigeons, permission |
Review #17 ($
|Citation: | |
|Willems, Mo. Knuffle Bunny. New York: Hyperion Books for Children, 2004. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Family collection | |
|Summary: Trixie helps her daddy on a trip to the Laundromat. Upon leaving, she suddenly realizes her knuffle bunny has been left behind. |
|Daddy doesn’t realize this and does not understand her pleas to go back, but as soon as they reach her mom, the problem is identified and |
|they go back to find it. Daddy has to look hard but eventually finds it, and Trixie speaks her first words in exclaiming relief. |
|Story Notes: True-to-life experience of the panic of forgetting a comfort object, with Daddy both oblivious and heroic. Will resonate as |
|much for parents as children. Very simple text, humorous in its understatement (revealed in pictures), good for an early reader. |
|Illustration Notes: Simple cartoon-style ink sketches, colored and edited digitally onto sepia photographs of Brooklyn, NY. Sketches |
|extend outside boundaries of photos and cross page limits, giving the impression that the Brooklyn landscape goes much farther than the |
|frames given. Pictures flesh out story with emotions and actions, and add humor to the simple text. Text is printed in different sizes |
|for emphasis. Frontispiece and title page give exposition to the family’s story, end papers foreshadow the fate of the knuffle bunny in |
|the washing machine. |
|Applications: Pleasure reading, talk about responsibility with young audience |
|Age Range: younger elementary |Awards: Caldecott Honor |
|Tags: errand, Dad, Mom, toddler, comfort object, Brooklyn, laundry |
Review #18 $
|Citation: | |
|Henkes, Kevin. Kitten’s First Full Moon. Greenwillow Books, 2004. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: When Kitten sees her first full moon, she mistakes it for a bowl of milk. She wants it, and she tries all kinds of things to get |
|to it, all of which end unfortunately for her. When she returns home, exhausted and dejected, a big bowl of milk is waiting for her on the|
|porch. |
|Story Notes: Simple sentences, easily read. More text than many picture books with excellent illustrations, but not too much. Repeated |
|refrain recalls the kitten’s attention and efforts to the moon, which could be a good audience participation opportunity. Frustrated |
|efforts to reach the moon will be familiar to many readers. |
|Illustration Notes: Black and white pictures, gouache and colored pencil. Not elaborate scenes, but rich in shadows and texture of the |
|night. Different types of pictures vary the book, from a full scene opposite text on a white page, to close-ups, to large framed pictures |
|with text underneath, to multiple panels of pictures on a single page, to small pictures of kitten and moon in opposite corners on a blank |
|background with text crossing the page seam between them. |
|Applications: Use to discuss perspective, how far away the moon and sky are. |
|Age Range: Younger elementary |Awards: Caldecott Medal |
|Tags: kittens, full moon, frustration |
Review #19 ($
|Citation: | |
|Rohmann, Eric. My Friend Rabbit. New York: Scholastic, Inc., 2002. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Family collection | |
|Summary: Mouse’s friend Rabbit means well but is always getting into trouble. For instance, when Mouse gets a model plane, Rabbit promptly|
|flies it into a tree. His idea to get it down involves stacking and climbing upon huge animals to reach it, which results in disaster and |
|everyone is unhappy. However, Mouse likes him anyway and always gives him another chance. |
|Story Notes: The story is almost wordless. The premise (that they are friends but that it often brings trouble) is given in text, but the |
|whole plot is described by the pictures. Very humorous, life-like experience of having a hazardous friend, but exaggerated. Repeated |
|motto of “Don’t worry, I’ve got an idea” will make this very memorable. |
|Illustration Notes: Pictures tell most of the story. Ink and watercolors, with some woodblock or linoleum printing. Pictures extend |
|beyond boundaries of pages to show motion, size, and perspective. Small lines and body language depict Rabbit’s eagerness to please and |
|hard work, as well as the other animals’ reluctance to participate in a hare-brained scheme and irritation when it ends poorly. |
|Illustrations use full-page spreads, with text printed onto the pictures. In the center, the book turns lengthwise to show the entire |
|stack of animals. |
|Applications: Discuss plans gone awry, maybe combine with other books on that theme, use as base for an art project to illustrate students’|
|exploits with their friends |
|Age Range: any |Awards: Caldecott Medal |
|Tags: animals, rabbits, friends |
Review #20
|Citation: | |
|Byrd, Robert. The Hero and the Minotaur. New York: Dutton Children’s Books, 2005. Ill. by| |
|author. | |
|Source: Hodges CCYAL | |
|Summary: Presents the mythological tales of Theseus beating the minotaur, Ariadne escaping from her father Minos, and Daedalus and Icarus |
|and their waxen wings. |
|Story Notes: Fairly detailed portrayal of the mythological stories, with a good bit of text, tries to make feelings and thoughts of |
|characters come across. Blends several different myths together, unfortunately losing essential characteristics of a story (3 discernable |
|parts, conclusion, climax, etc.). Good to draw connections, but the loss of focus in stories makes it difficult to discern between the |
|stories if reader is not familiar with the different tales already. |
|Illustration Notes: Watercolor and ink illustrations try to capture style of Greek vases, but come out dead and lifeless. Only illustrated|
|text, rather than adding to it, and sometimes don’t even illustrate. Nice maps in the endpapers, though. |
|Applications: Introduce different mythological characters |
|Age Range: older elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: Greek mythology, Greece, Theseus, Icarus, Minos, Minotaur |
Review #21
|Citation: | |
|Van Allsburg, Chris. The Wretched Stone. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1991. Ill. by | |
|author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: The captain of a cargo ship starts a journey with a brand-new crew. Everything goes well, until they see a mysterious island, |
|where they stop to look for fresh water and fruit. They find neither, but they bring on board a strange glowing stone. The soldiers are |
|captivated by it to the point of ignoring the captain during a storm so that they can look at it, and they soon turn into horrifying |
|ape-creatures. Without their work, the ship is injured during the storm. The captain reads to them while they await rescue, and by the |
|time it comes the men are returned to normal. |
|Story Notes: Not a cheerful story, not for the youngest readers. Written as series of journal entries, which provide short verbal |
|snapshots, with rich vocabulary, that together make a much more complex story. Believable voice as the captain, writing a journal instead |
|of a narrative. |
|Illustration Notes: Gorgeous paintings—gouache? Lots of unusual perspectives from small, underneath point looking upward at large things, |
|with sails and trees and waves made into dramatic lines. Not bright colors but rich and dark in some scenes, giving the impression that |
|this happened some years ago. Fleshes out the story’s verbal snapshots, especially when adding information about the ape creatures, which |
|I saw and was shocked by before I got it in the text (and better). |
|Applications: Connect with ship life, sea legends, Bermuda Triangle perhaps. Students could write their own journals of fantastic |
|happenings. Put with Anansi and the moss-covered rock? |
|Age Range: Mid to upper elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: sailing, sailors, sea myths |
Review #22
|Citation: | |
|Craft, Mahlon F. Sleeping Beauty. New York: SeaStar Books, 2002. Ill. by Kinuko Y. Craft.| |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Traditional fairytale of Sleeping Beauty. Newborn princess is cursed by a wicked fairy to prick her finger on a spindle and die, |
|but a good fairy is able to amend death to a hundred years’ sleep. The king tries to avoid this fate, but it happens and the whole castle |
|falls asleep and is covered by a thick hedge of brambles. A prince penetrates the brambles and kisses the princess, who wakes up and falls|
|in love with him. The two are married and the kingdom rejoices. |
|Story Notes: It’s a traditional fairytale, but the emphasis on the princess’s beauty and the prince’s fearless heroism is a bit outdated. |
|Beautiful language, but enforces feminine stereotypes. |
|Illustration Notes: Rich, gorgeous oil paintings with fabulous details, gives medieval setting and ethereal, magical, fairytale quality. |
|Includes illuminated letters to start each page. |
|Applications: Would be read well together with a more modern take, or “fractured” fairytale, like The Paper Bag Princess. Use to compare |
|and contrast different versions and de-Disney-fy. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: sleeping beauty |
Review #23 (
|Citation: | |
|Griek, Susan Vande. The Art Room. Toronto: Groundwood Books, 2002. Ill. by Pascal | |
|Milelli. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Children respond to an advertisement for art lessons, where they learn not just to draw and paint but also to see beauty in nature|
|and the world. |
|Story Notes: Not a natural childlike narration style, almost more like freestyle poetry. Written in lines of verse. Sentences are long |
|and split between pages, vocabulary is beautiful, lots of alliteration and rhythmic pulse to word and syntax choices. Lovely, could be |
|used with other poetry, but not accessible enough to use individually for the reluctant reader. |
|Illustration Notes: Impressionistic oil paintings, with tons of different colors to make apparently simple images, perhaps as the |
|characters are learning to do. Goes beautifully with the less concrete poetic style of the words. |
|Applications: Could be used to show an art style, to talk about the beautiful ways in which studying art can change the way you experience |
|the world. Older students could look at books with different distinct illustration styles and talk about why each one is most appropriate |
|for each book. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: art, impressionism |
Review #24
|Citation: | |
|Spinelli, Eileen. Hero Cat. Tarryton, NY: Marshall Cavendish Corporation, 2006. Ill. by | |
|Jo Ellen McAllister Stammen. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A homeless mother cat has kittens in an abandoned shed. When she leaves to find food one day, she returns to find the shed on |
|fire. She enters the fire five times, rescuing a kitten each time. |
|Story Notes: This was based on a true story from Long Island, NY. The language is easy and suitable for young readers, but the topic is |
|dramatic and poignant enough to use with older students. The poor situation of the cat and its love for its kittens are striking. The |
|happy ending is satisfying. Includes an author’s note at the end explaining the true story of Scarlett and her kittens. |
|Illustration Notes: Pastels illustrate the text and add motion. Mostly darker colors, for the life of a homeless cat and the frightening |
|fire. The first scenes, in particular, really capture the expressions and postures of a cat getting shoo-ed away from everywhere it tries |
|to take shelter. Pictures are lovely full-page spreads with text (mostly in white) on top of them. |
|Applications: Talk about true stories of brave deeds, leadership skills unit? |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: cats, fire, hero |
Review #25 (#&
|Citation: | |
|Stanley, Diane. Rumpelstiltskin’s Daughter. New York: Morrow Junior Books, 1997. Ill. by | |
|author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Fractured fairytale. Girl from Rumpelstiltskin marries him instead of king, and they have a daughter who gets captured by the |
|king again to spin gold. Instead of finding a way to literally make gold, she tricks the king into giving away gold to poor villagers to |
|make their life better. As the king’s life also gets better when his subjects no longer hate him, he rewards her by making her Prime |
|Minister. |
|Story Notes: Very funny in places, and will please readers in that it pays attention to the needs of poor people instead of focusing on |
|royalty (a somewhat different theme from traditional western lore). Continues rather than alluding to and altering the original tale. |
|Fairly long and detailed text. Lends itself well to storytelling with voices, does not take itself too seriously. |
|Illustration Notes: Exaggerated, almost cartoonish characters in gouache, colored pencil, and collage save it from being the typical rich |
|fairytale pictures you’d expect from the level of detail present. Panels with smaller pictures are inserted into full-page scenes to |
|illustrate more of the text, but with framers and borders this is not choppy or confusing. A few striking perspectives, like viewing the |
|castle from above or the king’s great hall from its far end. |
|Applications: Use with original Rumpelstiltskin to talk about fractured fairytales, different versions of traditional stories, imagining |
|what comes next. Students can write their own extended fairytales. Lends itself well to storytelling. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: Rumpelstiltskin, fractured fairytale, gold |
Review #26 &
|Citation: | |
|Climo, Shirley. The Korean Cinderella. HarperCollins Publishers, 1993. Ill. by Ruth | |
|Heller. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A beautiful Korean girl is assigned ridiculous tasks by her jealous stepmother, who is looking for an excuse to get rid of her. |
|When she asks for help, magical creatures appear to finish the tasks. After one such task, a local official notices how beautiful she is |
|and rescues her from her regrettable home life by marrying her. |
|Story Notes: It’s a nice alternate version, and seems to be part of a series of unusual alternate versions of this tale. I’d use it as a |
|story for elementary schoolers, but not as a true cultural artifact. “Omoni”, for instance, is a poor transliteration. Fairly complex |
|text. |
|Illustration Notes: Like text, I’m not sure about using this as a cultural artifact. The colors and style are beautiful and authentic, but|
|the eyes are all drawn slanted…Bright colors, exaggerated magical creatures, modern style in facial expressions, beautiful panels in |
|illustrations. |
|Applications: alternate versions of familiar tales, compare and contrast skills, could be acted out. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: Cinderella, Korea |
Review #27 &
|Citation: | |
|Ehlert, Lois. Mole’s Hill. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1994. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Fox, Skunk, and Raccoon think Mole’s hill is an eyesore in their neighborhood, so they summon her to a meeting and tell her she |
|has to get rid of it and move by the end of the summer. She makes her hill bigger and plants flowers all over it so that it is beautiful, |
|and when the end of the summer comes, they don’t want to lose the beautiful hill and she is back in their good graces. |
|Story Notes: The Neighborhood Homeowners’ Association made me laugh, especially the fact that it included Skunk, because it’s so realistic.|
|Very simple text, not much to it, good for young readers. Mole is such a sweet, earnest character that you can’t help feeling very |
|sympathetic as she is bullied. |
|Illustration Notes: Pictures are constructed out of simple shapes in bright-colored collage materials. Almost too simple; shapes are |
|fixed, with no motion apparent in pictures. The style is somewhat abstract in its simplicity, but supports the text to show emotion even |
|without facial expressions or different shapes, lines, values, etc. Not sure why that works. Colors are appealing for young readers. |
|Applications: Use with lesson on problem-solving and getting along with others. Can also go with lesson on shapes, and young children make|
|their own illustrations. |
|Age Range: younger elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: animals, moles, neighborhood, bullies |
Review #28 #&
|Citation: | |
|Van Allsburg, Chris. The Wreck of the Zephyr. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983. | |
|Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: An arrogant boy, determined to prove he is the best sailor, heads into a storm and is beached on an island. There he sees boats |
|that can fly and determines to learn to sail through the air. He doesn’t heed a warning about sailing over land and in his arrogance |
|wrecks his boat atop high cliffs. |
|Story Notes: Story within a story, where the first narrator listens to an old man’s tale. The boy is rather transparently arrogant, |
|setting him up to fail, but not cliché. The fact that the old man appears to be the boy is not altogether unexpected as an adult, but is a|
|nice twist and may surprise young readers. |
|Illustration Notes: Lovely Van Allsburg illustrations; my best guess is gouache on the medium. He picks less-than-obvious points of the |
|text to illustrate, which seems to leave more of the story to the imagination. He shows very few faces and not much explicit information |
|in the pictures, which makes it extra astonishing when he does something very concrete (as above in The Wretched Stone). Quality of |
|illustrations is dreamy and ethereal, leaving it to the reader to determine truth. |
|Applications: Talk about tall tales, whether the arrogant boy deserved to crash. Critical thinking about whether we can be sure the old |
|man was the boy. Older students can compare to Icarus story. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: sailors, wreck, story within a story, arrogance |
Review #29 ($#
|Citation: | |
|Van Allsburg, Chris. The Garden of Abdul Gasazi. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1979. | |
|Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Alan accidentally lets a neighbor’s obnoxious dog into a garden whose owner forbids them. He loses the dog, and the owner tells |
|Alan he has turned the dog into a duck. The duck escapes, but when Alan returns to the dog’s owner to say he’s lost the creature, there |
|the dog sits, good as new. It looks like Alan’s been tricked about turning the dog into a duck, but the end suspects otherwise. |
|Story Notes: This is a really neat problem of who knows the truth, whether adults really know more than kids, and what can be believed. |
|Interesting characters in here; the obnoxious dog, the witty and earnest Alan, the imposingly mysterious magician, and so forth. |
|Illustration Notes: Detailed, beautifully shadowed pencil drawings. This is an early book, obviously a different style than the two Van |
|Allsburg books I read earlier today. The pain and frustration of the boy as he tries to do his job is apparent in his facial expressions |
|and postures, as is the adults’ attitude towards him. This dog appears briefly in the author’s other books, I’ve noticed. Beautiful |
|perspectives in looking down a tunnel, up at the mansion, and the small boy standing next to the tall magician. Text is set on white |
|bordered pages opposite each illustration. |
|Applications: Talk about Alan’s motives and feelings, discuss whether the dog was really turned into a duck or not and why, write a |
|different ending to the story |
|Age Range: any |Awards: Caldecott Honor |
|Tags: dogs, garden, magician |
Review #30 &
|Citation: | |
|Weatherford, Carole Boston. Dear Mr. Rosenwald. New York: Scholastic Press, 2006. Ill. by| |
|R. Gregory Christie. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A poor black community in the 1920s rural south raises money to match funds to build a Rosenwald school. |
|Story Notes: Long text, written in verse and separated into very short (usually one-page) chapters with headings. Appropriate for younger |
|audiences, but in smaller chunks. Great opening to talk about a great number of cultural aspects of the South during that time period, |
|especially life for African-Americans between emancipation and the civil rights area. Story ventures off into unrelated points |
|occasionally, which does not add to the plot but fleshes out the lives of the characters. |
|Illustration Notes: Gouache and colored pencil expressionistic illustrations, are not realistic but seem to evoke the importance and |
|business of the difficult task of raising money from poor people. The importance of the task and the people’s excitement are apparent from|
|postures and gestures. |
|Applications: Cultural studies, write to Mr. Rosenwald or local officials of some sort |
|Age Range: older elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: school, Rosenwald school, southern U.S., African-Americans, fundraising, determination |
Review #31 &
|Citation: | |
|Dahl, Roald. The Enormous Crocodile. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978. Ill. by Quentin | |
|Blake. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: An enormous crocodile concocts “secret plans and clever tricks” to lure children in the village so that he can eat them. As he |
|crawls through the jungle toward the village, he annoys four creatures along the way. When he reaches the village, every time he tries to |
|put one of his plans in motion (and very nearly succeeds), one of those jungle animals warns the children and thwarts him. The last of |
|these, Elephant, solves the problem by flinging the crocodile into space. |
|Story Notes: Long text, not for very young audience. Lots of alliteration, rhythmic words, and made-up words for effect. Sets up the croc|
|as a shamelessly evil character, will delight some but will scare others. Lots of onomatopoeia, good for reading aloud. |
|Illustration Notes: Exaggerated cartoonish characters typical of Dahl books, colored with watercolors in full-page spreads for easier |
|showing to a group than many Dahl novels. Uses lines, space, and printing for effects to show flying motion when Elephant flings the |
|crocodile into space. |
|Applications: Write about or draw everyday situations where something unusual might be lurking. Collect unusual vocabulary words and write|
|a Dahl dictionary. Write an alternate ending. |
|Age Range: older elementary + |Awards: |
|Tags: animals, jungle, crocodiles, trickster |
Review #32
|Citation: | |
|Daugherty, James. Andy and the Lion. New York: The Viking Press, 1938. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Andy is a boy who loves lions, reading and hearing and imagining stories about them whenever he gets the chance. When he suddenly|
|runs into a real lion, he is terrified, until he discovers that the lion needs a painful thrown removed from a paw, which Andy does. When |
|Andy visits the circus and the townspeople threaten to kill an aggressive lion there, Andy recognizes it as his lion and defends him. The |
|lion calms down, and both he and Andy turn into local celebrities at a parade. |
|Story Notes: Imagery in easy vocabulary. Sentences spread across page boundaries so that nothing is revealed in the pictures too soon; |
|there are more pictures than sentences to fit in. Three parts of the book show a boy’s childlike obsession with lions. Ending throws up |
|the question of whether the plot was imaginary or not. |
|Illustration Notes: Ink drawings, monochromatic tinting with watercolor. Landscape and setting of a country boy in the first half of the |
|20th century. Lots of movement is shown in lines and characters’ posture. Some of the pairings of pictures with text are quite humorous. |
|Lion’s roars of pain upon pulling the thorn are palpable. Vary from rich to no backgrounds. |
|Applications: Talk about exaggeration, hyperbole. Discuss fables, compare to Aesop. |
|Age Range: younger elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: lions, good deeds, kindness |
Review #33 (
|Citation: | |
|Falconer, Ian. Olivia. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2000. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Depicts the everyday life of Olivia, a thoroughly typical child (pig) with tons of energy, a great and ambitious imagination, and |
|worthy parents who bear with her. |
|Story Notes: Olivia is hilarious because she is exactly like a real child in her activities, her treatment of her brother, and her |
|distractions. The text is very simple, with easy words and short sentences; the humor is revealed in the illustrations. |
|Illustration Notes: Charcoal and gouache illustrations. Often appear without a background, but characters always have a shadow underneath |
|them to show which way the ground is, which is helpful in figuring out what crazy trick Olivia is up to. Pictures vary from full spread |
|scenes to lots of tiny sketches of many different scenes on one page; the variation contributes to the speed and character of the |
|information the pictures convey. Mostly black and white, punctuated with small spots of color. |
|Applications: Write and illustrate stories of students’ own lives, talk about whether they feel similar to Olivia and why. |
|Age Range: younger elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: pigs |
Review #34 ($
|Citation: | |
|Wiesner, David. The Three Pigs. New York: Clarion Books, 2001. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: In what begins as the traditional Three Pigs story, the wolf inadvertently blows the first pig right out of the pages and into a |
|different world. The other two pigs follow, and they explore the new world and several other stories, physically manipulating the flat |
|pages.. After rescuing a condemned dragon from another story and meeting the cat and the fiddle, the pigs decide it is time to go home, |
|and all five of them climb back into their story. The dragon scares the wolf away, and they are all safe. |
|Story Notes: The actual narrative to the story is very typical, but after they climb out, they simply speak in dialog. The text is very |
|simple, with the burden of the story resting on the pictures. |
|Illustration Notes: Wolf is shown in foreground in very first picture, before mentioning him in the text, indicating that everyone knows |
|what will happen next, but then it doesn’t. Mixed media illustrations create 3-d illusion that pigs are being blown out of their simple |
|drawings and into another world where many other stories are lined up. Blank space is left in the background, to show how big their new |
|world is. Dialog is placed in speech bubbles to contrast with appearance of flat scenes. |
|Applications: Write a story where characters end up in the wrong tale. |
|Age Range: elementary, probably grade 2+ |Awards: Caldecott Medal winner |
|Tags: fairytales, nursery rhymes, pigs, fractured fairytales |
Review #35 ($
|Citation: | |
|Wiesner, David. Flotsam. New York: Clarion Books, 2006. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A boy is playing on the beach, looking at objects under magnification, when a wave brings up an old-fashioned underwater camera. |
|He develops the film and finds fantastic images of underwater creatures engaging in unbelievable activities. The most intriguing picture |
|is of another kid on the beach, holding up a picture of a third child. When the boy gets out his magnification tools, he finds that quite |
|a few children have found this camera and taken pictures of themselves holding the picture of the last child. He takes a picture of |
|himself doing the same, then casts the camera back into the ocean, where animals carry it around the world until another child finds it |
|washed up on a beach. |
|Story Notes: The book is wordless, but the story is perfectly clear from the illustrations. The images of the different decades of kids |
|who have taken their own pictures portray a poignant message of reaching out and being friendly, even to those you will never meet. |
|Illustration Notes: Watercolors in differing sizes from full spreads (which show setting and other important information) to clusters of |
|small panels (which show action). Close-ups on eyes emphasize the unbelievable yet true aspect of the plot, even on the everyday natural |
|objects the boy examines. |
|Applications: Make messages in bottles, write to pen pals, paint fantastical ocean scenes |
|Age Range: any |Awards: Caldecott Medal winner |
|Tags: ocean, beach, camera, magnification, communication, friendliness |
Review #36 &!
|Citation: | |
|Feiffer, Jules. Bark, George. HarperCollins Publishers, 1999. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A worried mother dog tries to get her son to bark, but he doesn’t seem to understand that dogs go “arf”. After he meows, quacks, |
|oinks, and moos, she takes him to the vet, who proceeds to reach into his throat and pull out a cat, duck, pig, and cow, after which George|
|barks properly. |
|Story Notes: I expected this to be a story about trying on different roles to find yourself, but it was much more simple fun than that. The|
|twist at the end, where George speaks English, makes you wonder what else he has hidden! |
|Illustration Notes: Simple, cartoonish characters with exaggerated facial expressions and body language. Plain solid colors serve as |
|backgrounds to each page. |
|Applications: Compare fiction and non-fiction, talk about tall tales, discuss critical thinking skills and how to know when to believe |
|everything you read, use in conjunction with “I know an Old Lady who swallowed a fly” |
|Age Range: younger elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: dogs, animals |
Review #37
|Citation: | |
|Cronin, Doreen. Click, Clack, Moo: Cows that Type. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for | |
|Young Readers, 2000. Ill. by Betsy Lewin. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A farmer’s cows find his old typewriter in their barn and learn to use it. They write a note asking for electric blankets, and |
|when he refuses they go on strike from giving milk. The next day the chickens do the same. They work out a settlement in which the farmer|
|will leave them blankets and they will send the typewriter via duck, a neutral messenger, but then the ducks decide their pond is boring |
|and start typing their own complaint. |
|Story Notes: Prominent onomatopoeia motif that kids can participate in. Imperfect grammar, but colloquial. Simple text. Silly premise, |
|but easy to suspend disbelief for. |
|Illustration Notes: Watercolors, simple and surrealistic drawings for a simple and surrealistic text. Dramatic scenes like the |
|announcement of the strike are portrayed at night, with darker values, and lighter action is during daylight, with bright colors. |
|Viewpoint changes to show the cow looking bigger than the farmer, the farmer as only a shadow, et cetera. |
|Applications: Work on cooperation and friendly problem-solving. For older kids, read as an introduction to strike and labor unions. |
|Age Range: any/ younger elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: cows, farm animals, strike |
Review #38
|Citation: | |
|Martin, Bill, Jr., and John Archambault. Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. New York: Simon and | |
|Schuster Books for Young Readers, 1989. Ill. by Lois Ehlert. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: All of the letters of the alphabet decide to climb to the top of a coconut tree. They soon become too much for it, however, and |
|the trunk bends under their weight and drops them to the ground. They pick themselves up with minor injuries and go home, but after |
|nightfall, A is awake and up the tree again, daring the others to join him. |
|Story Notes: Rhyming story, introduces the alphabet. Lilting rhythm to story, imagery in simple words. Similar to the way kids all want |
|to do what their classmates are doing once someone has started it, often overwhelming the facility or materials for the chosen pursuit. |
|Text could be used to repeat and practice the alphabet, rather than just giving “A is for apple” examples. |
|Illustration Notes: Simple pictures constructed of shapes put together, bright colors, borders around each page. Curve of tree trunk lines|
|show the problem before the text starts to point it out. Background change to dark blue makes it very apparent that the scene has shifted,|
|just right for an epilogue. |
|Applications: Do a half-storytelling, where you show the pictures but concentrate to telling the story rhythmically, have them clap along |
|and use instruments. |
|Age Range: younger elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: alphabet |
Review #39 #
|Citation: | |
|De Paola, Tomie. Strega Nona. London: Prentice-Hall International, Inc., 1975. Ill. by | |
|author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Strega Nona, the town’s witch/ wise woman, hires Big Anthony to help around her house but warns him never to touch her pasta pot. |
|He is tempted by the mystery, and one night he overhears the song she sings to make her magic pot work. Unfortunately, he misses the key |
|to make the pot stop. While promising not to touch the pot, Big Anthony seizes the first chance he can get to try the pot for himself, and|
|he invites the whole town over to eat pasta. They are delighted with him until he attempts to make the pot stop, which of course he can’t |
|do without the essential kisses. The pasta overflows with disastrous consequences until Strega Nona returns to stop the pot. |
|Story Notes: Rhyming refrain kids can participate in. Big Anthony gets the perfect punishment for his wrong doing, though I secretly hope |
|he also gets fired. |
|Illustration Notes: Pictures are sometimes full scenes and sometimes clusters of small panels showing action. The scene of panicked people|
|building a siege barricade against pasta is quite funny; they look so panicked! |
|Applications: Find alternate versions, talk about just punishments and breaking rules |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: good witch, pasta, Italy |
Review #40
|Citation: | |
|Krauss, Ruth. The Carrot Seed. Harper & Row, 1945. Ill. by Crockett Johnson. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A boy plants a carrot seed. Everyone around him insists it won’t grow and there is no point in persisting, but he continues to |
|water and care for it. Not only does it eventually grow, but the resulting carrot is so big it has to be wheeled away in a wagon. |
|Story Notes: There is really not much to this story, not even to fill the 32 pages you expect. Simple words can be easily read by young |
|readers. The fact that the carrot turns out to be so big is a fun twist, but it still makes for little plot. I wonder if it was daring |
|for literature at the time. Today I would not read it as a great story, probably, but might use it for an easily imitable activity within |
|a class period. |
|Illustration Notes: Simple illustrations, just people and a carrot seed, no backgrounds. Pictures are white patches and shades of brown on|
|a yellow backdrop. They don’t include a great deal of detail, but they do a good job of showing how the boy is discouraged from all sides,|
|with everyone looking down on him, and they of course reveal the final twist. |
|Applications: Kids can write simple stories in a similar style or act out as a readers’ theater. |
|Age Range: younger elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: carrots, optimism, persistence, seeds |
Review #41
|Citation: | |
|Rathmann, Peggy. Good Night, Gorilla. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1994. Ill. by author.| |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A clueless night guard walks around the zoo, saying good night to each of its animals as he prepares to leave for home. |
|Unfortunately, he does not see the Gorilla steal his keys, and he is unaware that each of the animals is being let out of its cage and |
|following him home. He climbs into his bed t home and goes to sleep—as do the animals—when the guard’s wife discovers their guests. While|
|her husband sleeps, still clueless, she leads them all back to the zoo for the night. |
|Story Notes: The action all happens in the pictures, with only “good night” statements in the text, all written in speech bubbles. Cute |
|story about what can happen when we don’t pay attention, hints with the dedication that this is like children following adults and getting |
|in their parents’ beds. Quick read for early readers. |
|Illustration Notes: Endpapers set mood with a sneaky gorilla. Colors are exaggeratedly bright for night scenes, in pastel, watercolor, and|
|ink. Cartoonish characters contribute to the humor of the story, which is conveyed entirely through its pictures. Switches to word |
|bubbles and a single pair of eyes on entirely black spreads when the light goes out in the bedroom, increases shock value. |
|Applications: Critical thinking, talk about the reasons the guard should have noticed there were animals following him, visit a zoo. |
|Age Range: younger elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: gorillas, zoo animals, saying goodnight |
Review #42 $
|Citation: | |
|Rathmann, Peggy. Officer Buckle and Gloria. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1995. Ill. by | |
|author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A police officer gives very boring safety speeches to schools, enumerating the safety tips he has thought of. When he gets a |
|police dog, he takes her with him. The dog acts out each tips with crazy actions, which gets the kids’ attention quickly, but she sits |
|still whenever the officer looks at her, so he thinks the kids are paying attention and enjoying his speeches. He learns the truth after |
|seeing a video broadcast of one of his speeches and is upset. When he refuses to give another speech because he’s upset, though, an |
|accident happens, and he realizes the importance of his team with the dog. |
|Story Notes: Interesting focus on an adult character and self esteem issues in a book that involves children, rather than having a child |
|protagonist deal with the same. |
|Illustration Notes: Bright colored illustrations, with the text set in white spaces around them. Expressive backgrounds tell what the |
|officer doesn’t know. |
|Applications: Think of safety tips from everyday life, write them on notes with Gloria pictures and make a bulletin board. |
|Age Range: elementary |Awards: Caldecott Medal winner |
|Tags: police, dogs, safety |
Review #43 $#
|Citation: | |
|McCully, Emily Arnold. Mirette on the High Wire. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1992. Ill.| |
|by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A retired tight-rope walker checks into a motel frequented by circus performers, and the owner’s daughter discovers his art and |
|demands to learn it. She has some talent and enjoys nothing more than learning from him. When an agent checks in and recognizes him, he |
|reveals that the man is famous for daring, impossible feats. Mirette asks him about these feats, and he reveals that he has retired |
|because he is now scared, to Mirette’s great dismay and disappointment. He decides to face his fear in public, but is only able to |
|complete the feat when Mirette walks with him. |
|Story Notes: More complex text than many Caldecott winners. Reads like a dramatic movie, with secrets and suspense and fear and emotions. |
|Universal themes in a specific context, allows for a lot of applications in the classroom. |
|Illustration Notes: Frontispiece gives the setting before it appears in the text. Impressionistic style is highly appropriate, since that |
|was being developed in this place and time. Details like dress and the cat following Mirette give the impression that the story takes |
|place in everyday real life. Final illustration hints that Mirette may go on to a famous career as Bellini’s protégé and assistant. |
|Applications: Write about a time of facing a fear, learn about Paris and French culture, use in conjunction with materials about circus |
|performers and life, study that century around the world. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: Caldecott Medal winner |
|Tags: tight rope, circus, fear, courage, Paris, France |
Review #44 ($
|Citation: | |
|McCloskey, Robert. Make Way for Ducklings. New York: The Viking Press, 1941. Ill. by | |
|author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Mr. and Mrs. Mallard consider building their nest on an island in a park’s pond, but decide to live on a river instead. When Mrs.|
|Mallard decides to walk her ducklings back to the pond, she is nearly thwarted by the traffic on streets she has to cross. A policeman |
|stops traffic for them and then arranges to have it stopped all over town so nothing can hurt them on their progress. |
|Story Notes: Characteristic squabbling between spouses, very human. Rhyming duckling names great for reading aloud. Benevolent policeman |
|character is nice contrast to the exaggerated tough character in today’s pop culture. |
|Illustration Notes: Great charcoal drawings of late Depression-era Boston, nice expressions on both main character faces and body language |
|and in background characters. |
|Applications: Teach young children to walk in lines. Draw duck scenes in local towns and cities. Observe ducks in local habitats. Play |
|duck action games. |
|Age Range: younger elementary |Awards: Caldecott Medal winner |
|Tags: ducks, Boston, traffic |
Review #45 $&!
|Citation: | |
|McCloskey, Robert. Time of Wonder. New York: The Viking Press, 1957. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Describes many beautiful scenes around a family’s life on an island. |
|Story Notes: Beautiful language, very poetic, about mood and setting rather than plot. Makes a God reference, “one pair of eyes is |
|watching over all”, which may not be appropriate for public school. Archaic reference to Indians and white men, and a teeny bit |
|condescending. Lovely, but not a top choice. Besides, this book is way too long to use in a class, and it’s got the Heidi problems of no |
|plot and no characters to keep me from recommending individually. |
|Illustration Notes: It’s immediately evident in the progress of the illustrations how much time passed between Make Way for Ducklings and |
|this. Ephemeral watercolors, like the text, seem more about the ideas and less rooted in reality. More vivid and darker colors as the |
|story progresses, turns to abstract jagged lines in hurricane. |
|Applications: Read along with Fancy Nancy to compare word choices; learn to use a thesaurus. Talk about figurative language and literary |
|devices. Use in selected excerpts rather than in whole. |
|Age Range: older elementary |Awards: Caldecott Medal winner |
|Tags: island life |
Review #46 $
|Citation: | |
|Bemelmans, Ludwig. Madeline’s Rescue. New York: The Viking Press, 1953. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Madeline falls off a bridge and is rescued by a dog, who is adopted by the school. The schools’ Board of trustees evicts the dog,|
|but Miss Clavel leads the students on an expedition to find her. The dog not only reappears, but has puppies, enough for all the girls. |
|Story Notes: Rhyming text, good for read aloud. Familiar theme of trying a teacher’s patience, but then it goes wrong (justifying the |
|teacher’s fear). Scary premise, assuming she’s dead. Humor involving dog. Very dramatic and sad when snooty trustees expel the dog. |
|Seems mis-titled, given the focus of the story on the dog, Genevieve. |
|Illustration Notes: Endpapers give setting. Yellow, black, and white pictures inside the school versus full-color paintings outside give |
|the impression that they’re totally different worlds. Not consistent with the colors outside, colors seem to happen more in night scenes, |
|contrary to the usual way of having more color during daylight. Really very simple, abstract, nearly ghostly character drawings, but they |
|convey the story so well that there is no problem suspending disbelief. |
|Applications: Read together with another animal rescue story, talk about losing a pet, act out. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: Caldecott Medal winner |
|Tags: Madeline, France, Paris, dogs, pets |
Review #47 $
|Citation: | |
|Handforth, Thomas. Mei Li. New York: Doubleday & Company, 1938. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A girl steals away from home to attend the fair for the Chinese New Year celebration. She has all kinds of fantastic experiences,|
|and then her uncle takes her home for the New Year’s feast. |
|Story Notes: There’s less stereotype than I was afraid of for this era, as the Chinese characters are neither backward nor menagerie |
|creatures. Unfortunately, though the girl seems to resist her female role, no one notices or cares, no limits are broken, and she ends by |
|resigning to rule her home by cooking and cleaning and looking pretty. That’s only a sign of the times, but it’s blatant enough that I |
|probably won’t use this at a school. It’s very long, also. |
|Illustration Notes: Frontispiece has map of places and things in the story. Perspective in scene of her in the toy shop makes her look |
|enormous, and the figures look alive. Text is not designed to work well with page turns and pictures. Pictures start to mix reality with |
|fantasy as Mei Li goes about enjoying the festival. Illustrations are done in copper plate prints, black and white. |
|Applications: Study Chinese culture, use with advanced students to detect bias |
|Age Range: elementary |Awards: Caldecott Medal winner |
|Tags: China, Chinese New Year |
Review #48 $
|Citation: | |
|Ward, Lynd. The Biggest Bear. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1952. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Johnny goes into the woods looking for a bear to shoot, but returns with a live bear cub to keep as a pet. The bear eats them out|
|of house and home, growing to become enormous and a nuisance to the neighbors. Johnny is given the task of getting rid of the bear, and |
|when he finds that the bear won’t just return to the woods, he decides he has to shoot him. When he takes him out to do so, however, the |
|bear gets stuck in a bear trap set by people collecting animals for a zoo, where the bear goes to live happily from then on. |
|Story Notes: Not usable in a modern classroom. Measures self-worth by killing bears, stereotypes rural America, offers no evidence that |
|feeding bears or taking a wild animal as a pet is a bad idea. I’m not sure I even want this one sitting on my shelves; it’s a relic from |
|that time period with very little pertinence to a modern class, not what I want my students to be learning. |
|Illustration Notes: Beautiful, detailed, lifelike illustrations, done in charcoal? In most cases they do not add enough information to |
|change the story, though. |
|Applications: Honestly, I just don’t plan to apply this one. |
|Age Range: |Awards: Caldecott Medal winner |
|Tags: bears |
Review #49
|Citation: | |
|Burton, Virginia Lee. Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel. Boston: Houghton Mifflin | |
|Company, 1939. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Mike and his steam shovel are excellent diggers, but they get displaced by newer gasoline shovels. Desperate for work, Mike |
|challenges the mayor of a town that’s building a new town hall, saying that he can dig the whole thing in one day or it’s free. With the |
|helpful energy of many spectators, they manage it, but then find that they have built themselves into a hole with no way out. They decide |
|to build the town hall over Mike and his machine, and the steam shovel is repurposed as the furnace for the building while Mike becomes the|
|janitor. |
|Story Notes: Slightly anti-progress feel, but nice to stick by an old friend and persevere for a cause. Well-constructed story, with |
|foreshadowing of the action building to the climax. Makes the town mayor the really mean villain, rather than the new technology in the |
|cities. It seems a shame to bury the valiant Mary Anne, but it means she’s not sold for scrap, I reckon. |
|Illustration Notes: Great diagram on the end papers shows the parts of a steam shovel and various vocabulary. Colored pencil drawings, use|
|lines to show motion of the steam shovel and people’s excitement in hurrying to watch. Text is designed in different shapes and angles on |
|each page. |
|Applications: Study railroad and canal construction and what mighty feats of engineering they were, write about what will happen when a |
|common piece of today’s technology falls out of use. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: steam shovel, technology |
Review #50 $
|Citation: | |
|Burton, Virginia Lee. The Little House. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1942. Ill. by | |
|author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: |
|Story Notes: Theme is change, but ends that happiness comes in returning to the old ways. Seems slightly anti-progress, like Mike |
|Mulligan, favors country life over the big, bad city. These were written before and during WWII, so it’s logical that they might be |
|playing on isolationist political sentiment at the time. |
|Illustration Notes: Uses colors and values to portray the change of seasons around the house. Mary Anne the steam shovel makes a cameo |
|appearance, I notice, this time as the new ways pushing in instead of as the old ways being pushed out. It’s interesting to watching the |
|pictures build up until the house is harder and harder to see. |
|Applications: Imagine students’ neighborhoods before they were built up as today, imagine what they will look like in the future, write a |
|story from their house’s point of view |
|Age Range: any |Awards: Caldecott Medal winner |
|Tags: urban development, houses |
Review #51
|Citation: | |
|Bang, Molly. Ten, Nine, Eight. New York: Greenwillow Books, 1983. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Counts down the numbers of things present in a bedroom at night, leading to one girl all ready for bed and falling asleep. |
|Story Notes: Very simple story, but poignant in that most readers will remember (or wish they remember, or may create false memories if |
|their childhood was not idyllic) being put peacefully to bed in a regular, everyday room like this one. Uses black characters without |
|making a big deal of it, no pointed multicultural reference, so this may be a good story to help young readers see non-white as equals |
|without laboring over the point. |
|Illustration Notes: Title page sets the story in a bedroom, with a loving dad beckoning a small girl to sit on his lap. The cat follows |
|through every picture, showing the different things all around the room, but the characters do not appear in the first half; presumably, we|
|are seeing through their eyes. The love on the father’s face is particularly expressive and evocative. |
|Applications: Practice counting down with very young readers, read a child to sleep. A reading-age student could read this to a younger |
|sibling. |
|Age Range: very young |Awards: |
|Tags: bedtime, count down |
Review #52
|Citation: | |
|McGhee, Alison. Mrs. Watson Wants Your Teeth. Orlando: Harcourt, Inc., 2004. Ill. by | |
|Harry Bliss. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: On the way to the narrator’s first day of first grade, a second-grader warns her that her teacher is really an alien trying to |
|steal kids’ teeth. Since the narrator has a loose tooth, on top of her other nerves about first grade, she is terrified, and resolves not |
|to open her mouth for the entire year. When she is finally so startled that she screams, her tooth pops right out, and she is well |
|convinced by her teacher’s reaction that there is nothing to worry about. |
|Story Notes: Childlike hyperbole in well-known “facts”. Very much written from a child’s point of view, with common fears and priorities, |
|like bringing stuffed animals to class. Also gives adults a different perspective on why children may not speak or participate in things |
|they usually love. |
|Illustration Notes: Silly details in the background, like the boy on the bus who’s been duct taped by the girl next to him. Speech and |
|thoughts appear in bubbles. Cartoonish characters, graphic “explosion” of thoughts at climax |
|Applications: Use in conjunction with Pulling My Leg/ Jo Carson to ease fear about losing teeth and the tall tales older people tell. Talk|
|about thinking before believing what other say. |
|Age Range: younger elementary, pref. 1st grade |Awards: |
|Tags: loose tooth, tall tales, first grade |
Review #53
|Citation: | |
|Zimmerman, Andrea, and David Clemesha. Trashy Town. HarperCollins Publishers, 1999. Ill. | |
|by Dan Yaccarino. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A garbage collector goes around town in his garbage truck, picking up trash cans and emptying them into his truck. He cleans the |
|whole town, then goes home and takes a bath. |
|Story Notes: Short words and sentences, not much variation in syntax, much like a child might write during the action. Nice rhyming |
|refrain and a few exclamations lend themselves well to participation. Almost too many times through the repetition, though, kids may get a|
|little bored. |
|Illustration Notes: Pictures made of very simple shapes, can’t tell if it looks like acrylics or construction paper collage and crayon |
|details. Bright colors, white space for background. A few simple lines and angles show Mr. Gilly’s motion and perspective on the streets |
|he’s cleaning. Text is mostly set in black and white panels on the edges of pages, sometimes on or underneath the pictures themselves. |
|Endpapers show lots of garbage. |
|Applications: Makes pictures in a similar simple style, use for young readers’ practice, talk about all the different kinds of jobs it |
|takes to keep a city clean and make it run, progress to other career activities. |
|Age Range: very young elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: garbage, sanitation workers |
Review #54
|Citation: | |
|Keats, Ezra Jack. Whistle for Willie. New York: The Viking Press, 1964. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Peter sees other people whistling for their dogs and fervently wishes he could whistle to his own. He goes about the business of |
|being a kid, trying earnestly to whistle all the time. Finally, a real whistle comes out, and his dog responds to it. He is very proud of|
|himself, and his family is pleased with it too. |
|Story Notes: Portrays the everyday activities of a young boy who’s got a very important task to be about. It’s great how his mother plays |
|along with him and gives him an errand so he can walk out and feel grown-up with his new whistling skill. |
|Illustration Notes: Mixed media, unrealistic bright colors but magical, drawing the reader out of dull reality and into the story. Tilt to|
|pictures portraying dizziness is great, with angles and shapes showing the imaginary motion associated with that feeling. |
|Applications: Learn to whistle, collaborate with music teacher to get the best whistlers involved in a program, talk about other ways to |
|communicate with dogs and people. |
|Age Range: younger elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: whistle, dogs |
Review #55
|Citation: | |
|Keats, Ezra Jack. Maggie and the Pirate. New York: Four Winds Press, 1979. Ill. by | |
|author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Maggie leaves her pet cricket near her house while she’s off on an errand. When she returns, it has gone missing, with a |
|mysterious note from “The Pirate” in its place. Maggie and her friends look all night for the cricket, and Maggie finally discovers is and|
|the culprit. She struggles with the boy, and in the fight the cricket and its cage are tossed into the water, where the cricket drowns. |
|Maggie mourns, and when she asks why the boy would do such a thing, he confesses that he wanted the cage made by Maggie’s dad, because his |
|dad never pays any attention to him. They mourn together and the friends quietly accept the newcomer’s presence. |
|Story Notes: Takes place in a kind of shanty-town on a waterfront, looks like a hippie commune if you examine without charity. Deals with |
|a more mature theme than Peter stories, with the death of the pet cricket and the culprit’s admission of jealousy over parental attention |
|and love. |
|Illustration Notes: Bright, detailed watercolors under collage pieces are very different from Peter stories, showing a big difference in |
|the years between publishing them. Pirate is foreshadowed, lurking in the background of early pictures. Silhouettes against a background |
|of red shades make an interesting and different kind of night scene. |
|Applications: Role play the different characters, send letters explaining their points of view. |
|Age Range: older elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: crickets, pirate, stealing |
Review #56
|Citation: | |
|Galdone, Paul. Puss in Boots. New York: The Seabury Press, 1976. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A miller’s son inherits only his father’s cat, and he despairs of being able to make a living with such. The cat promises to be |
|useful and undertakes a cunning scheme, fooling all the humans he meets, resulting in the boy’s marriage to the princess. |
|Story Notes: Silly premise, that a talking cat would be a messenger to a king and could frighten field workers, but still a clever ploy. |
|If cat owners are truthful, we’ll admit that our cats really own us and that they’re probably trying to undertake plots like this all the |
|time. He’s an unusually helpful cat, with no immediate gratification. |
|Illustration Notes: Watercolor and ink, slightly cartoonish style. Manages cat-like postures even when the cat is shown walking upright and|
|wearing boots. King and court men are portrayed as fat and none too bright. Great huge animals that the giant morphs into. |
|Applications: Compare and contrast with other versions, act out. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: cats, Puss in Boots, scheme |
Review #57 (
|Citation: | |
|Wells, Rosemary. Yoko. New York: Hyperion Books for Children, 1998. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A kitten from a Japanese-like cat family takes her favorite sushi to school for lunch, but the other kids have sandwiches and make|
|fun of her. In an effort to get the other kids to be empathetic, her teacher declares an international food day, in which everyone brings |
|a dish to share and everyone must try everything. Unfortunately, everything gets eaten except the sushi. Yoko is devastated, but one |
|raccoon who is still hungry approaches the sushi, and discovers he likes it. They become friends and share food and customs. |
|Story Notes: Using animals instead of people makes the characters very familiar despite their Asian culture, underlines the fact that this |
|story is about being open, understanding and accepting. Songs and elements of the school day are very familiar to young students’ routines|
|at school. I feel so sorry for little Yoko when the class ignores her sushi, but I’m glad the story ends with only one new friend that |
|converts; it’s much more realistic, avoids cliché. |
|Illustration Notes: Watercolor and colored pencil. All of the faces are very expressive even in these simple drawings. Bull dogs are well |
|chosen to be the lead bullies. Simple pictures create a young, uncomplicated mood, better suited to the story than dramatic colors and |
|scenes. |
|Applications: Do an international festival, everyone try sushi, learn about different cultures. Multicultural unit would be good |
|opportunity to celebrate Hispanic heritage of some students. |
|Age Range: younger elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: Japanese culture, sushi, diversity |
Review #58
|Citation: | |
|Simont, Marc. The Stray Dog. HarperCollins Publishers, 2001. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A picnicking family gets to know a stray dog. They don’t take him home, but they continue to think about him, and when they see |
|him again he is caught for the pound. The children give a belt and hair ribbon as his collar and leash to prove he is owned, and they take|
|him for their own. |
|Story Notes: Simple story, not a complex text, good depiction of friendship between people and animals. Love the creativity of the |
|children’s sacrifice to rescue the dog. I appreciate that the adults are thinking of the dog too, not just the children. |
|Illustration Notes: Uses both big, full-color scenes, and small items on lots of white space. Cute depictions of people distracted from |
|activities while thinking of the dog, especially the wordless implication that they return to the park to look for him. |
|Applications: Journal about pets, write about adventures of a stray dog |
|Age Range: elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: dogs, stray |
Review #59
|Citation: | |
|Kasza, Keiko. The Wolf’s Chicken Stew. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1987. Ill. by | |
|author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A greedy wolf who loves to eat starts to catch a chicken to make stew. Right before he grabs her, he decides to wait and fatten |
|her up, so that there will be more stew. He bakes lots of fattening foods and leaves them for her on her porch. When he goes to catch her|
|for the stew, she opens the door and thanks him for all the gifts, inviting him in and revealing the hundreds of baby chicks that have |
|enjoyed those snacks and who now swarm around him thanking him. In spite of himself, he likes the little ones and bakes them cookies |
|instead of eating them. |
|Story Notes: A lot of story packed into not many words, helped by picturesque expressions like “Aw, shucks.” Surprising ending, not the |
|usual fairytale, very cute story of learning to think of someone besides yourself. |
|Illustration Notes: Simple watercolor and colored pencil pictures, usually with white space left around the edges and in the background, to|
|allow the reader’s imagination to fill in the rest. The wolf’s fluster at being covered by grateful, friendly chicks is palpable and very |
|funny. |
|Applications: Plan menus, write stories on topic like “Wolf’s Restaurant” |
|Age Range: elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: wolf, chickens, overeating |
Review #60
|Citation: | |
|Hill, Eric. Where’s Spot? New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1980. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A mother dog looks everywhere for her puppy, who hasn’t eaten his dinner yet. |
|Story Notes: Story, pictures, and title page start on endpapers, not wasting an inch of room. Very easy text, good for beginning readers. |
|Mostly consists of a question-and-answer format, in which the reader can ask the questions, show under the flaps, and let the audience |
|respond along. |
|Illustration Notes: Paper architecture: flaps on pages promote high interactive level for children to answer. Simple cartoon-style |
|drawings use lines to show movement. Sally dogs a great hunting dog pointer position in a lot of the places she is looking. Font is big |
|and bold for young readers, set in the blank space around the pictures (which have no backgrounds). |
|Applications: Journal about where Spot might be and why he’s hiding, create art project with flaps and things hidden underneath, make a |
|“Where’s [Sarah]?” poster with children’s photos under flaps |
|Age Range: very young |Awards: |
|Tags: dogs, pop-ups |
Review #61 (
|Citation: | |
|Slobodkina, Esphyr. Caps for Sale. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, | |
|Inc., 1940. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A hat peddler wears all of his hats in a stack atop his head. He goes out and takes a nap under a tree one day when business is |
|down, and wakes up to find his caps gone. They have been stolen by a bunch of monkeys, who are wearing them and sitting up in the tree. |
|He gets angry and demands they give the caps back, but they only imitate him. In frustration he throws his own cap on the ground and |
|begins to stalk away, but then the monkeys imitate him again and throw theirs to the ground, where he can gather them up and go back to his|
|business. |
|Story Notes: Stops for a page turn on “What do you think he saw?”, leaving good opportunity to let kids think, write, imagine what happened|
|to the caps. Multiple opportunities for group audience participation. Surprise solution, reminder that anger really does no good. |
|Illustration Notes: Not the best illustrations I’ve ever seen, but somehow I don’t mind. The story is simple and they are too; they do |
|the job. Ink drawings tinted with color, a little stiff in shapes but mostly just old-fashioned. Good depiction of monkeys imitating the |
|peddler. |
|Applications: Sponsor a hat day, make hats. Have kids write endings to the story before reading the end, stopping as noted above. Act out|
|as readers’ theater. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: salesman, peddler, hats, monkeys |
Review #62 @
|Citation: | |
|Egielski, Richard. Buz. HarperCollins Publishers, 1995. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A mosquito accidentally gets eaten by a boy. He manages to escape being chewed and swallowed but ends up behind the boy’s eye. |
|The boy gets two pills from the doctor which try to kill him, but he escapes by floating out the ear when the boy takes a bath. He emerges|
|unharmed, but the bug doctor informs him that he’s got something in his own eye: a germ. |
|Story Notes: Great opening line! Plays on colloquialisms like “went to work”. Easy enough text for young readers, but good enough story |
|for older ones. Very imaginative and different from run-of-the-mill picture books, would be a good one for reluctant readers, especially |
|boys. |
|Illustration Notes: Dramatic opening picture, looking into a gaping mouth, as well as interesting perspectives to follow. Pictures add a |
|great deal of information to the storyline. Funny but slightly icky backdrop in the middle of the boy’s head; better know the audience for|
|this one. Slightly surrealistic in style. |
|Applications: Write a continuation, of the adventure of the germ in Buz’s eye. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: mosquitoes |
Review #63
|Citation: | |
|Munari, Bruno. Bruno Munari’s ABC. Cleveland: The World Publishing Company, 1960. Ill. by| |
|author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Standard alphabet book, with different objects given for each letter. |
|Story Notes: Assorted alliterative objects, but no real storyline running through them. The flies do cross into the next pages, which is |
|cute and invites some textual commentary other than just naming the objects. |
|Illustration Notes: Simple shapes and lines, looks like watercolor and ink. Text is set in small chunks next to the pictures each word |
|goes with. At least in this old copy, the book is not well put-together with regard to its illustrations; several of them cross the spine,|
|and parts of them get lost in the middle. Just blank space in the background, not to create a backdrop that the reader imagines, but more |
|nearly just to focus on the individual objects, which are usually not related or in scale to each other. Nic texture on several things. |
|Applications: Have a contest to see who can gather the most words for each letter, do an alphabetical scrapbook project to gather things |
|for each letter. Read a series of alphabet books, maybe one each day. |
|Age Range: younger elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: alphabet |
Review #64 (
|Citation: | |
|Williams, Vera B. A Chair for my Mother. New York: Greenwillow Books, 1982. Ill. by | |
|author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A single mother, her daughter, and grandmother are carefully saving their spare change in a jar. This is because they’d lost |
|everything they owned in a fire. Neighbors had given them many things, but they had nothing like an armchair. When the jar fills with |
|loose change, they use the money to buy the chair they’ve all been dreaming of. |
|Story Notes: Goes through several pages of cheerful-looking saving before the text reveals that this family has lost everything in a fire. |
|Goes into flashback, shows the panic of that terrible day. Easy text, but a more sophisticated theme, not for the very young readers. |
|Illustration Notes: Bright watercolors, maybe gouache. A different border around each page to reflect what’s happening in the picture. |
|Style in some pictures reminds me a little of Faith Ringgold. Not complex or particularly realistic humans, but lots of details in the |
|background, and very expressive postures and faces on the people. Uses dark values to show charred scene of old home. |
|Applications: Use to help grieving children in the same situation. Institute a savings jar in the school to contribute to a good cause in |
|the community or to work towards something for the school. |
|Age Range: older elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: fire, chair, saving money |
Review #65 (
|Citation: | |
|Shannon, David. No, David! New York: The Blue Sky Press, 1998. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: David gets into everything—tracking mud into the house, playing baseball in the living room and knocking over a vase, playing with|
|his food, running naked in the street—and he is constantly hearing “No!” from his mother. At the end, though, he hears “Yes” when she |
|gives him a big hug and says she loves him. |
|Story Notes: Entire text consists of admonitions from mother for all the things David is doing (and isn’t supposed to). Based on a book |
|the author wrote at age five, showing all the things he was doing wrong then and with the only words being “No, David”, as he says were the|
|only words he could spell. |
|Illustration Notes: Illustrations begin on title page and frontispiece. Character faces are silly and cartoonish, perhaps because the |
|author is making fun of himself, but the detail and realism in the rest of the pictures is great. Looks like gouache or acrylic, perhaps? |
|Great depictions of an alert, aggressive little boy joyfully doing things he may or may not know are wrong. A bit exaggerated in style. |
|Text is made to look like ill-formed letters printed by a five-year-old. |
|Applications: Students role play right and wrong ways to act, make a charades game out of it. Make their own “No, [Sarah]!” books to send |
|to the author. |
|Age Range: younger elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: trouble, young boys |
Review #66 (
|Citation: | |
|McKissack, Patricia C. Goin’ Someplace Special. New York: Atheneum Books for Young | |
|Readers, 2001. Ill. by Jerry Pinkney. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Tricia Ann makes the journey to Someplace Special, a place where everyone is equal, by herself for the first time. Along the way,|
|she is disheartened by the signs of segregation and Jim Crow laws everywhere she goes. The friends she sees on the way and the words of |
|her grandmother fill her with confidence in herself, and she pushes on to her destination: the public library, where all are welcome. |
|Story Notes: Appears to be autobiographical, or at least partly based on memories. Strong portrayal of the girl’s feelings about |
|segregation as she goes from euphoric to down-hearted upon seeing signs and encountering limitations. Too tense a theme for the youngest |
|readers. |
|Illustration Notes: Beautiful, rich watercolor and pencil pictures, with full-color characters against lighter, transparent backgrounds. |
|Impressionistic style. Capture styles of dress and living in the south during that time period. |
|Applications: Learn about segregation as part of a civil rights unit, write “thank you notes” to leaders of that era for all the things we |
|are allowed to do equally today. |
|Age Range: older elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: library, segregation, Jim Crow, confidence, pride |
Review #67
|Citation: | |
|Sis, Peter. Fire Truck. New York: Greenwillow Books, 1998. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A boy loves fire trucks more than anything else, and he thinks about them constantly. One day he wakes up and finds that he has |
|become one. The boy-truck zooms around the house rescuing victims and putting out fires, when he suddenly smells something: pancakes. The|
|truck parks and the boy, a human again, eats his breakfast. |
|Story Notes: Lots of things to count, sounds to make, actions to imitate. This is a very imaginative little boy, but not consciously so, |
|much like very young children tend to be in real life. The way he gets distracted by food and immediately becomes himself again is also |
|very lifelike. |
|Illustration Notes: Very simple lines and shapes, with spare but bright colors. Would be easy for young students to imitate. Fold-out |
|page with fire truck picture. Sometimes double-page spreads, sometimes multiple scenes hooked into the same pages, to show quick action |
|between them. |
|Applications: Play a charades game in which everyone must pretend to be the things they like the most. Write a story about what if they |
|turned into something they like. Visit a fire station and see real fire trucks, learn about fire safety. |
|Age Range: very young elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: fire truck |
Review #68
|Citation: | |
|Zion, Gene. Harry the Dirty Dog. HarperCollins Publishers, 1956. Renewed 1984, 2002. | |
|Ill. by Margaret Bloy Graham. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Harry hates being given baths, so he buries his bath brush in the back yard, then runs away. He finds lots of places to play in |
|the city, where he becomes very dirty indeed. With all the dirt, he appears to be a black dog with white spots instead of a white dog with|
|black spots. When he goes home for supper, the family does not recognize him. Dejected, he digs the brush back up and demands a bath, |
|after which he is recognized and taken back in. He steals the brush again before going to sleep. |
|Story Notes: Like a real child, the dog does not seem to regret getting dirty at the end (because it is, for sure, a lot of fun), but he |
|sure did get upset when it wasn’t working out so well for him. I like that he’s stolen the brush again at the end, which helps it avoid |
|cliché. |
|Illustration Notes: Cartoonish charcoal drawings tinted with watercolor. Actions starts on title page, with him stealing the brush. I |
|like the way all the people in the town see him and watch him go by as he’s left the house. Pathetic expression of hungry, dejected dog is|
|great. |
|Applications: Writes stories of other funny things animals do, interview parents about their pets as a child. |
|Age Range: younger elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: dogs, dirt |
Review #69 $
|Citation: | |
|Crews, Donald. Freight Train. HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 1978. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: The names for the different parts of a freight train as introduced, and the train is showed going through different scenes, until |
|it finally vanishes. |
|Story Notes: Very simple text, good for any young reader and especially those who like trains. This edition is bilingual, so the text |
|appears in Spanish alongside the English on each page, so this could be a good choice either for beginning readers or for beginning ESL |
|students of any age. Introduces lots of train vocabulary that most of us don’t normally use. |
|Illustration Notes: Train tracks appear on frontispiece. Very bright colors of cars on the train. Text set in same colors as the |
|corresponding cars. Very simple shape-pictures of the cars, but elaborate effects to show smoke from the engine, movement of the cars |
|(blurring). Neat interposition of the same picture of the moving train onto a simple (but striking) mountain scene, cities made entirely |
|of light silhouettes, a trestle made just of simple lines, and stark black and white pages to show darkness and daylight, respectively. |
|Only the smoke is left to show the train on the last page, “gone”. |
|Applications: Use to learn Spanish. Talk about how trains are similar all over the world. Give them a print of just the tracks or just |
|one part of a train on an otherwise blank sheet of paper and ask them to draw the rest of the scene. |
|Age Range: younger elementary, mostly |Awards: Caldecott Honor |
|Tags: trains, Spanish language |
Review #70
|Citation: | |
|Marshall, James. George and Martha. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1972. Ill. by | |
|author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Two hippos are friends, and they get into several slightly silly situations that end with lessons or morals about friendship. |
|Story Notes: Book is split into five very short episodes. Absurd exaggeration of elements almost disguises the fact that there is a |
|clearly stated didactic moral, but not quite. It’s still cute, though. The stilted, overly formal language adds humor and makes the moral|
|look like part of the silliness, despite the fact that it is clearly a reasonable lesson. These hippos are not very smart. It’s all a |
|little bit slapstick, though understated; I’ll admit, I laughed. |
|Illustration Notes: Exaggerated, cartoonish drawings remind me a little of Quentin Blake’s illustrations for Roald Dahl books. Looks like |
|ink and watercolor. As with language and story elements, the pictures contribute to understated humor, cute but not uproarious. |
|Applications: Student can make their own books of lessons on friendship, using themselves or animals as characters. |
|Age Range: younger elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: hippopotamus, friendship, morals |
Review #71 $&
|Citation: | |
|Thurber, James. Many Moons. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1943. Ill. by Louis | |
|Slobodkin. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: The king’s daughter falls sick and asks for the moon as the only thing that will make her feel better. None of the king’s wise |
|men can get the moon, but the Jester solves the problem. The next day the daughter feels better, but the king worries that she will be |
|upset when she sees the moon in the sky that night and knows that the one she has is not that one. The wise men cannot solve that problem |
|either, but again the Jester asks the daughter for her solution, and she is satisfied. |
|Story Notes: Has some great language to it, as in the list of delicacies the high chamberlain has gotten for the king, uses tongue-in-cheek|
|humor. Fairly long and complicated text, not for youngest readers. Increasing exaggeration about the moon from the wise men, showing that|
|they don’t know either. Cute comment on the wisdom of the fool. |
|Illustration Notes: Portray everything around the princess as enormous, emphasizing how grand the palace is supposed to be, making the |
|princess look small. Simple watercolor and ink sketches, looks like maybe also with pastels?. Lists of deeds done by the king’s |
|counselors are edged with small pictures of things on the list. |
|Applications: Moon art projects, study the moon scientifically |
|Age Range: older elementary |Awards: Caldecott Medal winner |
|Tags: king, princess, jester, moon, wise men |
Review #72 ($
|Citation: | |
|Say, Allen. Grandfather’s Journey. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1993. Ill. by | |
|author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A young Japanese man travels to America, loves it, and marries and raises his daughter there. He become homesick and moves his |
|family back to Japan, where his grandson (the author) is born, but then becomes homesick for California. He never gets a chance to return |
|again, but the grandson does, and he learns about his grandfather as he too becomes homesick for Japan. |
|Story Notes: Not a difficult text, but fairly complex feelings expressed in few words. Look autobiographical. Idea of living in and being|
|homesick for two cultures, each of which is wonderful (not as foreign as we may think), touches on the war and understanding older people |
|through our own experiences. |
|Illustration Notes: Gorgeous watercolors, impressionistic style, lots of different tones and values for different settings and moods. Text |
|set underneath a different framed picture on each page. Has feel of an album of family photos. |
|Applications: Interview an international visitor, journal about competing emotions |
|Age Range: older elementary |Awards: Caldecott Medal winner |
|Tags: Japan, travel, homesick, grandfather |
Review #73 (
|Citation: | |
|Say, Allen. Kamishibai Man. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2005. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: An old man, a retired street performer, decides to take his old bike out for a tour around his old rounds. When he gets to his |
|old neighborhoods, he finds they have grown into an ugly, cold city. He calls listeners for old time’s sake, then begins to remember the |
|old days, how everyone loved his stories, and then how they turned to TV instead. He is broken out of his memories when he suddenly |
|realizes that a crowd has formed to listen, of people who listened to him as children. |
|Story Notes: I want to cry—the story is so beautiful, and yet so sad, about a lost way of life and the way it takes an old man by surprise,|
|as he remembers the old days and how things changed. Amazing emotional climax when all the people appear to listen to his reminiscence |
|(and I really do cry now). |
|Illustration Notes: Beautiful, detailed watercolors of the Japanese countryside. No less skilled, but ugly (on purpose) depictions of city|
|life, showing the harshness that the old man isn’t expecting. Pictures show the fact that he’s in a flashback, where the text does not. |
|Flashback pictures grow a little more like cartoons, with outlines and simpler color schemes and less detailed backgrounds. |
|Applications: Learn about culture and local customs that are dying out. |
|Age Range: older readers |Awards: |
|Tags: storytelling, culture, indigenous customs |
Review #74
|Citation: | |
|Murphy, Mary. I Kissed the Baby! Cambridge, Mass.: Candlewick Press, 2003. Ill. by | |
|author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: All of the critters in a backyard are excited about a new baby duckling. They exclaim the virtues of the baby to each other, and |
|ask each other if they have kissed, seen, tickled, sung to, and otherwise interacted with the baby. The mother duck kisses her baby, and |
|the baby is happy. |
|Story Notes: Cute, happy book, but not really any story to speak of. Appropriate for early readers or for students who have a new baby in |
|their household or who just like babies, but not for a classroom. |
|Illustration Notes: The verso suggests that the illustrations are done in ink and “wash”, but doesn’t say what kind of wash that might be. |
|The characters are great big on the page, filling as much space as possible with their simple silhouettes. All miles and forward posture, |
|the characters as well as the text conveys excitement about the young arrival. All characters are black and white except for the duckling,|
|who is bright yellow; the text is also black and white except for the duckling’s words. |
|Applications: Write a “gossip” book in which everyone’s talking about something. Talk about new babies and what they mean to the |
|activities and lies of everyone else. Imitate style of illustrations, could use different techniques for that. |
|Age Range: younger elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: animals, baby animals |
Review #75 !
|Citation: | |
|Johnson, Angela. Julius. New York: Orchard Books, 1993. Ill. by Dav Pilkey. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Maya’s grandfather brings her an enormous pig as a present. He is somewhat of a pain in the house for her parents, as he is |
|noisy, messy, and so forth, but Maya loves him. They do everything together, from dancing to shopping to playing in the backyard, and they|
|teach each other about being friends and how to treat others well. They are both very happy. |
|Story Notes: Pig is highly personified, even giving thoughts on what he’s learned towards the end. Fairly easy but not simplistic text, |
|with a nice theme about learning from those around you even if they’re not who you expected. |
|Illustration Notes: Mixed media, mostly fabric collage, acrylics, and India ink. Vivid colors, different values for moods and times of day.|
|Expressions of irritation on parents’ faces when the pig arrives are priceless. Pictures add quite a bit to the text, not by turning it |
|around and changing its meaning like some, but by filling in the mood and holes in details the author has left. |
|Applications: Talk about fiction versus non-fiction, make a big list of all the ways you know this book is not real. Write outrageous |
|adventures with a pet, or write about an outrageous pet. |
|Age Range: elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: pigs, friends |
Review #76 @
|Citation: | |
|Macaulay, David. Why the Chicken Crossed the Road. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1987.| |
|Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A chicken crosses the road, which startles some cows, who crash into a train, which lets a thief loose…A string of events comes |
|around to finally giving an explanation for why the chicken crossed the road: to escape being dinner. |
|Story Notes: Progressive story, in which everything that happens causing something else to happen, most of it outlandish. Understated |
|humor, fairly easy words and short lines of text but interest level not limited to the youngest readers. Circular tale, ending may confuse|
|some because it is like the beginning. Finally gives an answer to the age-old mystery! Very funny. |
|Illustration Notes: Bright colored acrylics, cartoonish characters. Elaborate pictures tell a story around the spare text. Variety of |
|scenes from full spreads to little collections of sketches on blank backgrounds. Snips of past and/or future pictures are included in |
|other scenes, enforcing the idea that this all happens in the same town. |
|Applications: Give other reasons why, write other circular stories. Compare and contrast with other books on the topic. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: chain of events |
Review #77 $
|Citation: | |
|Ackerman, Karen. Song and Dance Man. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988. Ill. by Stephen | |
|Gammell. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A long-retired Vaudeville performer invites his grandchildren into his attic, where he gets out his old tap shoes and does a show |
|for them. The kids suggest that he must miss the old days of performing, but he assures them that he wouldn’t trade the past for the days |
|he spends with them. |
|Story Notes: Cute depiction of a grandfather happily playing with grandchildren. Medium-difficulty text. Seamless integration of text and|
|pictures; I was not aware of what information I was getting from which source. Good description of what such a show would be like and how |
|it might have gone years ago on a Vaudeville stage. My only problem is that, delightful though it is, it’s hard to believe if you let |
|yourself be aware of exactly how unlikely it is that the old man’s body would still be able to move like that. I think I would have |
|suspended disbelief if the story hadn’t brought to mind so many good memories of my own grandfather, who definitely could not dance and |
|jump anymore. |
|Illustration Notes: Colored pencil drawings, uses a lot of bright colors to show shadows, light, skin tone, even white and other “solid” |
|colors. Great shading, loose edges and unfinished spots give the impression that the pictures keep going into the backgrounds, which are |
|left blank for the imagination to fill in. Great facial expressions. |
|Applications: Learn about Vaudeville, combine with other literature about that era. Interview grandparents or other old people, invite an |
|elderly guest to speak. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: Caldecott Medal winner |
|Tags: Vaudeville, tap dance, grandfather |
Review #78 $
|Citation: | |
|Yorinks, Arthur. Hey, Al. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1986. Ill. by Richard | |
|Egielski. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A poor man lives with his dog, who complains that they never have anything good in life. When a bird offers to take them to |
|paradise, the dog insists they go. It seems great at the island they reach, surrounded by beautiful birds, until they discover they are |
|turning into birds. Panicked, they escape and find real happiness together at home. |
|Story Notes: Portrays a man living in poor conditions but finds simple satisfaction in friendship. Ends with a clearly stated moral. Had a|
|close call that scared me, with the dog appearing to drown. |
|Illustration Notes: Surrealistic style watercolor and pencil pictures, with talking dogs and giant birds and other wild things. Pictures |
|are enclosed in rectangular frames, but have elements that stick outside the boxes. Shows newfound happiness at the end by adding color to|
|the walls of the dreary apartment, but doesn’t explain this, may confuse some younger readers. |
|Applications: Read around thanksgiving, make images of what paradise is. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: Caldecott Medal winner |
|Tags: friendship, paradise |
Review #79 $#&
|Citation: | |
|Lobel, Arnold. Fables. Harper & Row, 1980. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Twenty original fables featuring various animals as characters. |
|Story Notes: Each fable is concise, written somewhat in the style of Aesop, clearly meant to be an updated imitation, with more modern |
|statements of morals at the end of each one. These could be memorized and told as stories several at a time. Though each story is short, |
|there are twenty of them, so the book is very long for an early reader; indeed, spread out with lots of pictures, each one might make a |
|picture book. Because there is no overarching storyline going between the fables, this is probably not a book to read cover-to-cover in |
|one sitting with a class, but rather to be picked and chosen from. |
|Illustration Notes: Beautiful watercolor and colored pencil scenes. Because of the nature of the text, this author has the challenge of |
|portraying the entire essence of a story in a single picture. Each is set in a rectangular frame on the page opposite the page with the |
|words of the fable, and in some cases elements of the picture creep outside the boundaries of the frame, bringing them to a sort of 3-d |
|life. |
|Applications: Write and illustrate fables, discuss the literary form, compare to Aesop and others. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: Caldecott Medal winner |
|Tags: fables, morals |
Review #80
|Citation: | |
|Hall, Donald. Ox-Cart Man. New York: The Viking Press, 1979. Ill. by Barbara Cooney. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A man takes everything he can spare to market in the fall, where he sells it all—including the ox and cart he used to bring it |
|there with. With the money, he buys some things for his family and walks home. There, they go through the winter, spring, and summer |
|making again all of the products that the man will sell at the next market, including nurturing a new young ox and building a new cart. |
|Story Notes: Very “then he did this, then he did this,” not very literary but simple and leaves the emphasis of the story on the pictures. |
|Illustration Notes: Does not specify a time period, but has lovely pictures point to 19th-century lifestyle, with clothing, buildings, and |
|description of the things they’ve made. Reminds me of stories from Laure Ingalls Wilder books. Style of illustrations is reminiscent of |
|that period too, as well as just the things depicted therein. Looks like acrylic paint. Nice panoramic landscapes showing the mountains, |
|roads, and towns of the setting the farmer is walking through. |
|Applications: Use as part of a unit on 19th century life, visit a historic site if possible. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: farm life, 1800s |
Review #81
|Citation: | |
|Quackenbush, Robert. Danger in Tibet. New York: Pippin Press, 1989. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Miss Mallard, a “ducktective”, travels to Tibet in search of her nephew, who disappeared there after sending her a note asking her|
|to follow him. Her journey takes her climbing up Mount Everest, where a chain of events lands her in a paradise-like oasis city on the |
|mountain. There she finds her nephew, who reveals that this city is in danger from a Swiss criminal. The two leave the city and return to|
|the valley, where they catch the criminal. |
|Story Notes: Story begins with a note on the frontispiece. Slightly clumsy about “telling” instead of “showing”, lays out most of the |
|action in a direct but un-artistic way, as if it’s trying very hard to be a chapter book but got stripped and boiled down to be put with |
|pictures in 32 pages. Very bad clues, no human faults to the detective. Ridiculous claim that “brisk walks and aerobics” prepare you for |
|mountain climbing. Unfortunately, this is really not good enough to use; I wouldn’t buy it. |
|Illustration Notes: Cartoonish watercolor and ink sketches. Image of the snowstorm opening into the paradise-like lost city serves the |
|purpose, but is clumsy and unbelievable. Not adding any info. |
|Applications: Write mysteries, learn about Tibet and Mount Everest. |
|Age Range: elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: mystery, detective, Tibet, Mount Everest |
Review #82
|Citation: | |
|Turner, Sandy. Otto’s Trunk. HarperCollins Publishers, 2003. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A young elephant with a short trunk is teased mercifully by his peers in the herd. His mother advises him to accept it, but he |
|finds it too upsetting. Finally, when he gets fed up with the jeers at school, he snorts, which turns into an amazing snort that morphs |
|into other creatures. The other elephants suddenly think he is great and start complimenting him. |
|Story Notes: Familiar taunts from peers, recalls the cruelty of adolescence. Pointing out the exact moment (11 am on Tuesday) that he |
|feels like everyone’s laughing at him really portrays his angst and discomfort well. Even the little bird is in on making fun of him. |
|Naturally, he won’t take his mother’s advice about accepting his trunk. Avoids the cliché of learning to like himself, but ends happily. |
|Illustration Notes: Colored pencil sketches look like they’ve been done on the side of a paper bag, very school-like. Simple sketches of |
|characters and scenes, speech bubbles, would be easy to imitate. Adds touches like lines on his nose when he asks why it’s small, which |
|look a little like trunk wrinkles but which also look much like lines on a ruler. Great morphing of the nose into different creatures when|
|he gives his climactic snort. |
|Applications: Role play teasing and bullying situations |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: elephants, bullies, teasing |
Review #83 (#
|Citation: | |
|Jobling, Curtis. Frankenstein’s Cat. New York: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, | |
|2001. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Before working on his famous monster, Frankenstein made a cat. The cat looked everywhere for some companionship, but because he |
|was funny-looking and smelly, everyone rejected him. Lonely and hurt, he asked his master for a friend. The doctor complied, but built a |
|dog instead of the expected companion. The dog chases the cat around the castle for all time, and the book ends with a moral that you |
|should be careful what you ask for, especially it it’s a puppy. |
|Story Notes: Great opening hook. Doesn’t exactly count as a fractured fairy tale, but has that feel to it. Friendly storytelling feel to |
|the language, nice alliteration for reading aloud. Humor throughout. I feel so sorry for the cat, getting rejected again and again when |
|he’s only asking to help or to play! Hilarious ending, totally out of the blue. Could be told as storytelling, but would need some |
|editing to fill in information from the pictures. |
|Illustration Notes: Mixed media, with bold colors and picture reaching out of their boundaries. Exaggerated, surrealistic details, cartoon|
|style (by a Nickelodeon animator). Expressive looks on the cat’s face, makes his good-hearted earnest trying and his disappointment |
|palpable. |
|Applications: Build Frankenstein monsters, read for Halloween. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: Frankenstein, cat, loneliness |
Review #84
|Citation: | |
|Hoberman, Mary Ann. The Seven Silly Eaters. San Diego: Harcourt, Inc., 1997. Ill. by | |
|Marla Frazee. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A mother has seven children, and each of them likes to eat only one thing, prepared only a certain (labor-intensive) way. The |
|night before her birthday, exhausted and upset at the passing of years with nothing but nit-picky work for her, she goes to bed. Her |
|children stay up and attempt to make a breakfast of all the foods they like, to serve her in bed. Since none of them can cook, they only |
|make a mess, and they hide it in the still-hot oven. A delicious cake results, pleasing everyone. |
|Story Notes: Written in rhyming verse. Humorous progression of events when children try to cook, language and rhymes good for read-aloud. |
|Cute twist in the resolution. |
|Illustration Notes: Tinted ink drawings, with lots of details filling out each scene. Pictures, even early on, portray the hideous amount |
|of work the mother is supposed to keep up with. Great depiction of the hectic chaos of childhood. I like that the mother is often shown |
|pregnant in the pictures, instead of supposing that all these children just appear or arrive by mail. I also like that Dad is always shown|
|present and working, not just leaving his wife to do everything. |
|Applications: Talk about ways to help moms, make favorite foods, read for Mother’s Day |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: Mothers, children, picky eaters, cake |
Review #85
|Citation: | |
|Carlstrom, Nancy White. Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? New York: Macmillan Publishing | |
|Company, 1986. Ill. by Bruce Degen. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A mother bear asks her son what he plans to wear at morning, noon, and night. He answers with terms of clothing, but also sun, |
|darkness, the things he plays with, the ideas he has, and other things. |
|Story Notes: Rhyming text in three-line stanzas with repeating motif of “in the morning.” Explores all the different meanings of what you |
|can wear. |
|Illustration Notes: Watercolor and ink pictures show pure joy of life, heading out to make the most of a morning. “Heartwarming” seems a |
|cliché descriptor, but that’s the effect they aim for, with idealistic scenes of the ideal carefree childhood. Sentimental, but they’re |
|happy and I’ll admit I like them. Pictures fill in full scenes for the short lines of the text. |
|Applications: Build a wardrobe, write poems in this style. |
|Age Range: younger elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: bears, clothing |
Review #86 &
|Citation: | |
|Yolen, Jane. Tam Lin. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990. Ill. by Charles | |
|Mikolaycak. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: The daughter of the head of a Scottish clan plans, when she comes of age, to retake the ancient manor that has been abandoned by |
|her clan, which had been owned by her family but was stolen by faeries. When she goes to announce her claim, she meets Tam Lin, a human |
|that was stolen by the faeries on the manor’s grounds generations ago, the year the manor was stolen. He has lived immortally in the faery|
|world, but now he is to be sacrificed. She agrees to save him, and gather the materials necessary to face down the faery queen, winning |
|him back to humn life. They marry and retake the manor, living happily ever after. |
|Story Notes: Beautiful language, retains ancient feel of the ballad from which it is taken; at least, without knowing the ballad itself, I |
|am convinced enough of that. It’s different to see a foolhardy female diving into a haunted situation against everyone’s wishes, as |
|opposed to just a young man. Note on read-aloud that it uses “Hell”. Stronger conflict, higher stakes of death, longer text, needs to go |
|to older children. Includes a nice research note at the end of the book, detailing where the story came from and even the fact that the |
|tartans portrayed in the pictures are fictional. |
|Illustration Notes: Detailed acrylic paintings, I think. Feel like stained glass windows or old tapestries, to go with the mood of ancient|
|lore in the text. Pictures start in one corner of a page and sprawl outwards. |
|Applications: Part of Scottish cultural unit, world fairy tales and customs |
|Age Range: older elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: Tam Lin, Scotlan |
Review #87 (#
|Citation: | |
|Oughton, Jerrie. How the Stars Fell Into the Sky. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992. | |
|Ill. by Lisa Desimini. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: First woman wants to write the laws in a public place so that all of the people of the world can read them and follow them. Her |
|unhelpful mate First Man sarcastic suggests writing them in the sand or the water, then recommends using her “jewels”, or stars, to write |
|the laws in the sky more permanently. She is working on this when Coyote offers to help. She accepts, but he grows impatient at hanging |
|them one by one and flings the rest haphazardly into the sky, obscuring the laws and allowing people to be confused forever. |
|Story Notes: Explains not just how the stars came to be into the sky, but comments on the damage done by impatience, and explains the |
|confusion of all people, everywhere, in following the natural laws of the world. |
|Illustration Notes: Dark night scenes but rich colors, expressionistic faces. |
|Applications: Write pourqui tales. Study Navajo culture. Compare with other tales of how the stars arrived in the sky. Learn for |
|storytelling. |
|Age Range: older elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: Navajo, stars, coyote |
Review #88 (#
|Citation: | |
|Myers, Tim. Tanuki’s Gift. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 2003. Ill. by R.G. Roth. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A tanuki, a trickster, appears at a priest’s door asking to come into the warm hut on a winter’s night. He consents, and the |
|tanuki comes back every winter night and soon becomes his friend. When the tanuki asks how he can repay the priest’s kindness, the priest |
|wants nothing except some gold for prayers to get into heaven. The tanuki disappears and secures te gold, but the priest realizes that all|
|he really wants is for the tanuki to stay close by and be his friend. |
|Story Notes: Offers a lot of bits of Japanese culture that are not explained, giving a chance to do research on cultural topics. Trickster |
|takes the hard way to get the gold instead of easily stealing it, because he is so thankful to the priest and wants to respect his not |
|liking stealing. Author admits that the story is not exactly authentic in its ending, but his point that folktales have to become the |
|teller’s own is well taken. |
|Illustration Notes: Great mixed media illustrations give tons of different colors, values, and textures. Fairly abstract style, but |
|expressive, and refreshing in being different from many illustrations out there. Interesting choices, like the scene where the priest |
|admits that he’d like to be able to pay for prayers, which shows him floating up to heaven, tossing his gold in the air, holding onto a |
|parasol. |
|Applications: Combine with other Japanese stories, like Allen Say, in a cultural unit. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: Japan |
Review #89
|Citation: | |
|Carney, Margaret. At Grandpa’s Sugar Bush. Toronto: Kids Can Press, 1997. Ill. by Janet | |
|Wilson. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A boy spends his spring break at his grandparents’ maple farm, helping his grandfather gather sap to make syrup. |
|Story Notes: Regional story from Canada; includes a lot of details about getting sap from trees, which is very foreign to southern American|
|locals, especially those living in or around cities. Doesn’t explain those details, which means this story needs to be supplemented with |
|activities for use down here. |
|Illustration Notes: Nice texture in oil paintings. Shows outdoor winter scenes on spring break, different from Knoxville weather. Warm |
|faces. Pictures show the unfamiliar actions the text describes. |
|Applications: Learn about how children in other parts of the country or world spend their free time. Combine with Laura Ingalls’ Wilder’s |
|Farmer Boy for comparison of tapping story. Eat maple syrup! |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: maple syrup, sap, grandfather, farm, maple trees |
Review #90
|Citation: | |
|Casanova, Mary. One-Dog Canoe. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003. Ill. by Ard | |
|Hoyt. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A girl and her dog go on a canoe trip, paddling down a river together. Other animals of increasing size keep asking to join, and |
|though she politely tries to tell them there is not room, they keep jumping aboard anyway. The canoe survives such guests as a bear and a |
|moose, but when one more frog jumps in, the vessel tips them all into the river. The animals admit that they should have listened, help |
|the girl get her canoe upright and afloat again, and the girl and her dog row home happily. |
|Story Notes: Repetitive motif with the animals asking to join in, invites the question of what student think will happen next. Cumulative |
|response in naming off all the animals that fit in the canoe. Onomatopoeia for fun read-aloud. |
|Illustration Notes: Watercolors and pencil, fairly transparent colors for light, airy pictures. Lots of joy on animals’ faces and |
|consternation on the girl’s and dog’s faces. Perspective in pictures shows each of the animals getting bigger and bigger. Great close-up |
|of terror in the girl’s face when the moose tries to join. |
|Applications: Take a field trip canoeing. See all of the animals in person to understand how big thery are and why they wouldn’t fit in a |
|canoe. |
|Age Range: younger elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: canoe, animals |
Review #91 (
|Citation: | |
|Shepard, Aaron. Master Man. HarperCollins Publishers, 2001. Ill. by David Wisniewski. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Shadusa thinks so much of his strength that he decides to call himself Master Man. When his wife recalls to Shadusa a child she |
|saw pulling a heavy bucket of water from a well—the child’s mother says he’s strong because his father is Master Man—Shadusa is boastful |
|and jealous and decides to seek out this man to teach him who is really Master Man. The Master Man he finds turns out to be a giant, |
|though, and he runs but the giant chases him. He is saved only after running into yet another giant who claims to be Master Man; the two |
|fight, finally jumping into the sky and never returning. |
|Story Notes: Laid out as a graphic novel, with pictures in panels and narration in boxes within pictures, speech given in bubbles. Woman |
|hiding man in pot while her giant husband smells him and thinks of eating him, reminiscent of a Jack tale. Nice historical note in the |
|end. |
|Illustration Notes: Terrific cut-paper illustrations Wisniewski is famous for, gives a lot of dimension to the flat pictures. Bright |
|colors, seems like an “African” theme, though I don’t know how authentic that might be. Exaggeration of facial expressions seems very |
|appropriate for cartoon-like layout. Colors are bright, text sizes are big and bold, for an altogether sensationalistic look. Pictures |
|sometimes reach outside their cartoon panel frames. Perspective makes Shadusa look smaller and smaller compared to Master Man and the |
|stranger. |
|Applications: Write comics, compare to Jack tales, Nigerian culture unit |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: boasting, ego, giants, Nigeria |
Review #92
|Citation: | |
|Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2003. Ill. by| |
|N.C. Wyeth. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A young man itches to see the world and leaves England, despite his father’s wishes that he not do so. He spends some time |
|traveling and learning to sail going from one scheme to another, and eventually is the sole survivor of a shipwreck which leaves him |
|stranded alone on an island. He is able to salvage enough supplies from his ship to build a fairly nice life for himself there, and he |
|remains for over twenty eight years. Several other men arrive during that time, and he is eventually rescued by another English ship. |
|Story Notes: Abridgement of the original tale, but not as abridged as I’d expected. Too long to be classified as a picture book. |
|Illustration Notes: Oil paintings published as plates, but only a few scenes from the text; this is really more of a chapter book than I’d |
|expected. Beautiful colors for island landscape. |
|Applications: Pirate activities of any kind, pop culture derivatives of this work |
|Age Range: older elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: shipwreck, island, survival |
Review #93
|Citation: | |
|Ogburn, Jacqueline K. The Magic Nesting Doll. New York: Dial Books, 2000. Ill. by Laurel | |
|Long. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Katya’s grandmother gives her a magic matryoshka nesting doll right before she dies, which can be opened only three times in case |
|of dire need. Katya sets off into the world with it and learns of a tsarevitch, or prince, who has fallen under a spell which turned him |
|into ice and made the kingdom dark and gloomy. Katya opens the doll three times for help in breaking this spell, and each time an animal |
|leaps from one of the inner dolls and does magic to weaken the spell. She breaks the final step of the spell by kissing the prince to wake|
|him, and they are married. |
|Story Notes: According to the author’s note, the motifs are Russian but the story is original, so this is not a Russian cultural item. |
|Nice imagery in descriptions, with rich vocabulary. Does not make the Vizier’s evil nature and motives secret, revealing them almost |
|immediately, but does not seem stilted in the revelation. Nice story until the predictable ending; I’d hoped for something different. |
|Illustration Notes: Beautiful oil paintings in dark values throughout the story, has the feel of ancient church iconography, stained glass,|
|or tapestry. Looks like the dark values reflect the story’s motif of being under a magic spell which, among other things, means there is |
|no daylight. Colors get warmer as the climate in the story warms. Mostly single-page illustrations next to long pages of text, but |
|includes full spreads for each of the animals carrying Katya to the tsarevitch. |
|Applications: Compare to versions of Sleeping Beauty |
|Age Range: older elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: Sleeping Beauty, matryoshka doll |
Review #94
|Citation: | |
|Ehrlich, H.M. Louie’s Goose. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000. Ill. by Emily Bolam. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Louie has a toy goose that he takes everywhere with him as he spends his summer on the beach with his parents. She experiences |
|some wear and tear, but his parents are always able to fix her. When he accidentally lets her get swept out to sea, his mom says she has |
|no simple fix and Louie might have to help. Louie lets Rosie dry in the sun, and she is good as new. |
|Story Notes: Convincing portrayal of the use (and well-meant abuse) of pets by young children; it surprised me to realize halfway through |
|that Rosie is a toy! Nice to see adults that the child runs to and trusts, and that they admit infallibility and use the opportunity to |
|teach—like real parents. |
|Illustration Notes: Simple acrylic paintings have very real-looking adults, who appear in the pictures even when they are not mentioned. |
|This is a nice touch of reality, since little boys do not run around beaches alone. Great waves in the ocean, with big, bold brush strokes|
|and different colors blended. |
|Applications: Sponsor a stuffed animal day, make beach art, sew stuffed animals. |
|Age Range: younger elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: beach, goose, stuffed animals |
Review #95
|Citation: | |
|Isadora, Rachel. Lili at Ballet. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1993. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Lili dreams of becoming a ballerina and attends classes. Many elements of learning ballet, such as the way classes are structured|
|and what the different pieces of equipment are called, are described in introductory terms. |
|Story Notes: Includes information about what it’s like to attend ballet classes and about the art itself, good for the aspiring dancer. |
|Pays attention to boys in the sport. |
|Illustration Notes: Delicate watercolor and pencil pictures, sometimes with light and sometimes rich, saturated colors. Pictures vary in |
|scale from a collection of small items, almost like diagrams to show what things are, to a full spread of a dramatic scene in a theater. |
|Includes a picture of a half-naked girl dressing for ballet lessons, not explicit but not for class use. Includes a boy or two in many |
|pictures, which is a bit token but also a good reminder that this is not just a sport for girls. |
|Applications: Suggest for anyone interested in dance. Use in conjunction with other introductory books to compare all the different arts |
|and have students learn a little about each one. Add to a French culture unit. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: ballet, dance |
Review #96 #
|Citation: | |
|Davis, Donald. The Pig Who Went Home on Sunday. Little Rock, Ark.: August House | |
|LittleFolk, 2004. Ill. by Jennifer Mazzucco. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Mama Pig sends each of her three sons out into the world, warning them to build their houses out of brick and to please come and |
|visit her on Sunday. One their way out, a fox meets each pig in his path and tells them a reason they should build their houses out of |
|something flimsy, like cornhusks. The first two fall for his tales, build flimsy houses, and get eaten. Third pig, however, is alert and |
|clever, and when the wolf tries to get into his house (which he has built of bricks), he tricks the wolf and escapes safely. Then he goes |
|home and visits his momma on Sunday. |
|Story Notes: Variation on the three little pigs, from the inside point of view. Shows the fox as having set up the pigs to build houses |
|out of poor materials from the start. Does not have the wolf blow down their houses, though. Has the third pig as proactive and alert. |
|Cautionary tale. |
|Illustration Notes: Starts illustrations on frontispiece and title page, with an ingratiating-looking pig. Bright-colored watercolors with|
|colored pencil for texture on the wolf. Clever use of the fold between pages to be the two sides of the door when the wolf tries to get |
|into the third pig’s house. Uses stars and other lines to show the pain the fox is feeling. |
|Applications: Compare with other versions, use with other Appalachian tales as local culture unit. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: Appalachia, pigs |
Review #97 (
|Citation: | |
|Langton, Jane. The Queen’s Necklace. New York: Hyperion Books for Children, 1994. Ill. by| |
|Ilse Plume. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: A king, wicked in every way, desires a wife. He sends his nephew and heir into the countryide to find a woman as perfect as the |
|necklace of pearls he intends his future wife to wear. The nephew returns with a woman, and the king demands that she wear the pearls with|
|a death penalty if she turns up without them. She is kind and generous and keeps giving away the pearls to people who need them. When |
|they are gone the king imprisons her for execution, but the birds she loves gather pearls for her and kill the king. She marries the |
|nephew, who has loved her all along. |
|Story Notes: Fairly long and complicated text. Dramatic in its consequences and the evil of the king, would translate into a movie. |
|Willing sacrifice and being rewarded by nature for goodness are not usual themes in America stories; this one is Swedish. |
|Illustration Notes: Bucolic colored pencil drawings, lots of details, with unlikely but symbolic scenes of birds fluttering near people |
|with castles in the clouds of the background. |
|Applications: Act out, tell from another point of view, write another ending. |
|Age Range: older elementary |Awards: |
|Tags: pearls, Sweden |
Review #98 (
|Citation: | |
|Nolen, Jerdine. In My Momma’s Kitchen. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books, 1999. Ill.| |
|by Colin Bootman. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Snapshots of all the good things in life that happen in a little girl’s mother’s kitchen. Family gather to cook and tell stories,|
|playtime happens with friends, and the cat gets into mischief. |
|Story Notes: Family places importance on school, first-generation college student. Set up in a series of scenes of good things that happen|
|in the kitchen. Very realistic stories (especially the antics of the cat, which hearken to my own life very strongly), may be at least |
|partly autobiographical. |
|Illustration Notes: Oil paintings have a curious degree of realism to them; they have great faces, look almost lifelike, but they seem |
|frozen in terms of motion. |
|Applications: Kids make books of snapshots from their own families, with pictures and stories of great memories. Bind and take home for |
|presents. |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: kitchen, family |
Review #99
|Citation: | |
|Daly, Niki. Jamela’s Dress. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Jamela helps her mom buy and wash some expensive cloth for a dress to wear for a wedding. Jamela is left in charge of the cloth |
|while it dries. She gets to daydreaming and walks off down the street wearing it, catching everyone’s attention and ruining the cloth in |
|the process. A photographer takes a picture of her in her get-up with everyone following her. Jamela is in big trouble when her conduct |
|is found out, but she is saved when it turns out the photo of her won a big prize. The prize money is enough to buy new cloth for her |
|mom’s dress, with some left over for a dress for her. |
|Story Notes: The story really seems grim there for a little while, when Momma has spent so much hard-earned money on something that is |
|ruined and lost and now has nothing to wear for the wedding. Her forgiveness of her daughter is beautiful, though, when she plays with her|
|daughter after washing the new cloth—keeping an eye on her daughter while it dries, this time. Looks like this is set in South Africa, |
|apparent from fashion and vocabulary that it’s not the U.S., confirmed in author’s note. |
|Illustration Notes: Tons of color and detail. Starts with outrageous scene on frontispiece and title page. Jamela proves to be a |
|daydreamer and to be trying to be extra grown-up by wearing adult high heel shoes. Postures and expressions make it very apparent how much|
|trouble she’s in after her romp. |
|Applications: Write apology letters or stories. Write tall tales of explanation (dog ate my homework). |
|Age Range: any |Awards: |
|Tags: South Africa, cloth |
Review #100 $
|Citation: | |
|Van Allsburg, Chris. Jumanji. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1981. Ill. by author. | |
|Source: Hodges Juvenile Collection | |
|Summary: Two children, left alone at home for an afternoon and bored with their toys, find a game that claims to be designed for bored, |
|restless children. When they roll the dice and get clues related to the jungle premise of the game, they find that it is coming to life |
|around them, with wild animals and natural disasters wrecking the house. When they finish the game, all returns to normal, and they set |
|the game outside for other unfortunate children to come upon. |
|Story Notes: Seems to be a cautionary tale about taking risks while bored and reading directions carefully. Not a very long text, but |
|significant enough for advancing readers. |
|Illustration Notes: Pencil drawings, beautiful details and shading as Van Allsburg always is. Shows not only the animals, etc. that |
|disrupt the house, but also the damage that they cause in the background, with furniture falling, food raked out of cabinets, etc. |
|Applications: Compare and contrast with movie. Draw pictures in pencil of jungle animals in house. |
|Age Range: older elementary |Awards: Caldecott Medal winner |
|Tags: jungle, board games, boredom, following directions |
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