Blog Entry #30

 

One Green Apple

By Eve Bunting

Illustrated by Ted Lewin

Clarion Books, 2006

32 pages

Multicultural

 

            One Green Apple is a very touching story that puts you in an immigrant’s shoes, after coming to America. This book is about a Muslim girl, named Farah, and she cannot speak English yet. This is her first day at school after arriving in America, and she goes on a field trip to an apple orchard with her class. She feels very odd, nervous, and out of place, and she cannot understand anything anyone is saying. She wears a dupatta over her head, women and girls wear them, and it is a custom in her country. She notices that no other girls wear them here. Some of the students have welcoming expressions and some do not, and Farah’s father explained that people from her country are not always well-liked in America. She recognizes some common factors throughout the day like laughter, smiling, and dogs barking. Farah makes a few friends and says her first English word out loud that day, apple.

            The illustrations in One Green Apple are done in watercolor. The paintings in this book look so real and so much like photographs. They are definitely done in a quality that could be hung on the living room wall and are very beautiful. One aspect a reader would notice about the illustrations is the shading of the light and darkness. It is easy to see where the light touches each page. There is use of bright colors, but it is done in a soft and subtle way. Some of the illustrations have negative space, using a muted color, to bring attention to the characters’ actions on the page. I really love the colors chosen, and the quality of the paintings in One Green Apple.

            One Green Apple is a second grade level book. I believe it would take at least a student in the second grade to understand how Farah felt and to recognize the underlying conflicts between American and Muslim cultures that affect her in the book. If I were a second grade teacher, I would read this book aloud to my students and make it available in the classroom library. For older grade levels, it could be used to spark a discussion or debate about the issues in America today that are mentioned in this book. It would be a great opportunity to teach about immigration or the Muslim culture. It provides a chance for students to connect to how they would feel if they were in a new place with people that spoke a totally different language from them. One Green Apple has no awards or honors.

Blog Entry #29

 

My Abuelita

Written by Tony Johnston

Illustrated by Yuyi Morales

Harcourt Children’s Books, 2009

32 pages

Multicultural

 

            My Abuelita is a super cute book, and the way the story is told is quite funny. It is about a boy that lives with his grandmother, or abuelita, and her cat named Frida Kahlo. The way the boy describes his abuelita in the book is what is hilarious. The boy and his grandmother get up, get a bath and a shower, have breakfast, get dressed, and he helps her get her stuff in the car and ready for work. She likes to stretch, yodel, and sing to get ready for it, and he does it with her. At the end of the book, it reveals his abuelita is a storyteller, she tells stories to children, and he wants to be one just like her.

            The illustrations in My Abuelita are very unique. They are made up of polymer clay, wire, felting wool, acrylic paints, fabric, wood, metals, and Mexican crafts. They are made, then photographed and digitally altered. It looks like objects are set on top of paintings and different surfaces. The characters are little dolls dressed in fabric clothing. They resemble little baby dolls, especially their hands and feet, and they have sort of strange-looking faces. This book has different illustrations than you would normally see, but that is part of what makes it fun.

            My Abuelita would be appropriate for a second or third grade student and up. It would be a great read for an independent read or for a teacher read aloud. A teacher could really use this book to connect with a Spanish-speaking ELL student. It would be a good read for an ELL student. This book would provide a great opportunity to teach about the Hispanic culture, and it could create a connection through grandparents. Almost everyone has a grandparent they love, and it could bridge the gap between two different cultures in a classroom. The only thing I wished this book had would be a guide to some of the Spanish words, because it is hard to know the pronunciations of them. My Abuelita has no awards or honors.

Blog Entry #28

 

 

The Friday Nights of Nana

By Amy Hest

Illustrated by Claire A. Nivola

Candlewick Press, 2001

23 pages

Multicultural

 

            The Friday Nights of Nana is a book that reflects Jewish culture, and I have not seen many children’s books that mention the traditions of this culture. It is a really nice story about a girl, named Jennie, and her Nana. Jennie is helping her Nana prepare for a Sabbath meal for the whole family to eat. Nana and Jennie pick out their clothes, get flowers, bake pies, and braid the dough for challah. It is about everything they did to prepare for the Sabbath meal, from the morning to the dinner that night. The Friday Nights of Nana makes you feel the religious traditions of the Jewish culture and the pleasure of being with family.

            The illustrations in The Friday Nights of Nana are drawn in pen and ink, and filled in using watercolor painting. The illustrations are very realistic, like a painted photograph. The lines are very soft and thin. There are pops of bright color on every page, but it is usually from the characters’ clothing and items in the background setting. The majority of the background is clean, with muted colors, and there are a lot of white and taupe shades. I think the illustrations are very appealing and simple, yet formal. The formal look is due to the illustrations being framed-in square, and the negative space that is given for the text.

            The Friday Nights of Nana would be appropriate for a second grade level and up. It would be a great book for an independent reader or for a classroom library. It would be a good book for a teacher to read aloud and use as an opportunity to teach about a different culture, the Jewish culture. It would be great for students to see how families in other cultures gather together or to talk about grandparents, and the traditions they have in their families. The Friday Nights of Nana has no awards or honors.

 

Blog Entry #27

Walking Home to Rosie Lee

By A. LaFaye

Illustrated by Keith D. Shepherd

Cinco Puntos Press, 2011

32 pages

Multicultural

 

            Walking Home to Rosie Lee would be considered historical fiction, but I chose this book because of the heartwarming story about the African American culture. This book highlights a common struggle among African Americans, after the freeing of slaves. It is about a little boy named Gabe, his father died, and his mother was sold to another slave-owner before emancipation. Gabe walked and walked all over the South, from Mobile to Tennessee, in search of his mother, Rosie Lee. He met many different people in search of family members and many different Rosie’s, just not his. Gabe was tired, hungry, and just about to give up on ever finding his mother when he saw her sitting out pies in the windowsill of a hotel kitchen. This book will definitely tug at your heart strings and make you realize just how many people were walking the roads, all over the South, in search of their family members. It really places in your mind just how many families were worn torn apart, some were never reunited, and it is something many today would never even think about.

           The illustrations in Walking Home to Rosie Lee were done in acrylic paint. They all have a rough-edged texture and depth of color. The colors used in this book really pop and are pretty bright. The characters in the book are realistic when shown up close but still done in a graphic style. I believe the illustrations really reflect the mood of the story and the African American culture. The reader can feel the emotion and rich history on every page of the book.

Walking Home to Rosie Lee would be appropriate for a least second or third grade and up because of the content area subject matter. This book would be great to use during a social studies lesson about the post Civil War reconstruction period. It would be a great teacher read aloud or an addition to a classroom library. This book would be wonderful to pull out during Black History Month every year. Walking Home to Rosie Lee is a great read about African American history in the United States. It was selected as a 2012 Skipping Stones Honor Book and for the 2012 IRA Teacher's Choices Reading List.

 

           

Blog Entry #26

 

How Do You Sleep?

By Louise Bonnett-Rampersaud

Illustrated by Kristin Kest

Marshall Cavendish Children, 2005

30 pages

Nonfiction

 

            My first impression of How Do You Sleep? was that it did not really seem like a nonfiction book, because it has a nice rhyme to the text and beautiful illustrations. The text in this book is written in a repetitive, poetic style and has good use of rhyme. The pages visit different animals and tell how each one of them sleeps. How Do You Sleep also mentions where each of the animals sleep and describes what they look and sound like. At the end of the book, there are children. Their dad reads them a story, and it tells how they fall asleep for the night.

            The illustrations in How Do You Sleep? are just stunning. They are done in oil paint on paper and are very realistic. The illustrator did a wonderful job making the animals look as real as possible, and the settings of the illustrations are also accurate. The color is very nice and soft, and not too bright. There were very natural colors used in the paintings, because all of the settings are in nature. The pages that include the children are not, but they look like the classic, historical paintings of children. The way the children are dressed, along with some other features of the paintings, makes it feel like they are in an earlier time period.

            How Do You Sleep? feels like one of those books you could read to a very young child as a bedtime story. It would be appropriate for a teacher to read aloud in preschool or the early elementary grades, like kindergarten or first grade. I think it would be great for a beginning reader, the text is not lengthy, and the vocabulary would not be difficult. I believe the repetitive nature of the book makes it a great book for a student to choral or echo read. The first two words of each line repeat, and two lines on each page rhyme at the end. The book would be great for poetry lesson because of this, and it has poetic form. This book has no awards or honors.

Blog Entry #25

How People Learned to Fly

By Fran Hodgkins

Illustrated by True Kelley

Collins Publishers, 2007

30 pages

Nonfiction

 

            I chose How People Learned to Fly, because I thought the title was interesting and wanted to read about it. This book connects with the thoughts and answers the questions children would have about flying. It really explains scientific things like gravity, drag, thrust, wind, lift, wing shape, and engines. It also gives some details about the history of flight and some of the first machines made to test flight. It basically explains what it takes to fly, and I found it pretty interesting. One very interesting fact in the book was about an English man named Monk Elimer. He strapped some wings on his arms and broke his legs after a 15 second flight in A.D. 1010.

            The medium was not mentioned in the book, but it looks like it was done using acrylic painting. Some of the illustrations resemble watercolor painting, so it could be a mix of both media. I assumed painting was the medium used because of the visible brushstrokes in the illustrations. The illustrations have depth and texture, and some look realistic but some look like cartoonist style. The planes, birds, and landscapes look realistic, but the people look like cartoon characters. The illustrations are very bright and contain a lot of blue sky, which would be appropriate for a book about flying.

           

          How People Learned to Fly would probably be more appropriate for third grade and up, since it contains a lot of content area subject matter. This book could be added to a classroom library for a student to read independently, if they are interested in the subject. A teacher could use this book for a read aloud if he/she were doing a science lesson on flight. There are a lot of experiments that could stem from reading this book. It could be used as an introduction to the history of flight, although it does not go into great detail about that. There are plenty of opportunities to teach new vocabulary from How People Learned to Fly. This book has no awards or honors.

Blog Entry #24

 

 

Roadwork

By Sally Sutton

Illustrated by Brian Lovelock

Candlewick Press, 2008

30 pages

Nonfiction

 

            Roadwork is a lyrical nonfiction text that would appeal to most boys, and that is why I chose this book. This book goes through every step that it takes to build a road from start to finish, and it gives the names and information about the machines at the end of the book. What I really loved about this book was the text is written lyrically, like a poem. The second and last line of every page rhymes. The lines are very repetitive and have a lot of expressive sounds to depict the roadwork throughout the book. This was not how I expected a book about roadwork to be written, and it was a pleasant surprise.

            The illustrations are done in pigmented inks, but they almost look like paintings. The texture in the illustrations looks like there are paintbrush strokes on the pages. The colors used in the book are very bright and are mostly primary. The illustrations are very simple, some have a lot of negative space, and the machines or the setting is usually the focal point on the page. Every page has a double-page spread illustration and the text format is mostly formal. The illustrations are very cute and look just like a little boy’s style.

            Roadwork would be appropriate for as early as preschool to first or second grade. This book would be a great addition to a kindergarten or first grade classroom library or for a teacher to read aloud. A teacher could really grab a boy’s attention with this book. Poetry could be taught from this book, because it has a poetic form and rhyme. Onomatopoeia would be one of the best things to be taught from this book, because every page has sounds of the roadwork expressed in words. Choral reading could be done easily. Roadwork has no awards or honors.

 

Blog Entry #23

 

 

A World War II Story: Across the Blue Pacific

By Louise Borden

Illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker

Houghton Mifflin Company, 2006

37 pages

Historical Fiction

 

Across the Blue Pacific is an exceptional war story. It captures the feeling of war times in the 1940's, and that is why I chose this book. It is the story of a soldier named Ted Walker and his neighbor, Molly. Ted went into the Navy and graduated from Anapolis, and he left Orchard Road. He left when Molly and her brother were still small, and he came home when they were much bigger. Ted told them things about Navy ships and about the war. Ted's submarine, the Albacore, was lost at sea, and Molly had to deal with the war coming too close to home.

The illustrations in Across the Blue Pacific are done in watercolor. The color is very muted and soft, and the lines are dark and defined. The illustrations are kind of abstract, and the characters' faces and bodies are not well-defined. The text format is formal, there a single-page illustration every other page, except for one double page illustration. The quality of the book is nice, but I think less abstract paintings would have made the book much more appealing.

Fourth grade students could read this book independently, but it is appropriate for third through fifth grade. Across the Blue Pacific would be great to use for lessons in social studies or even geography. The book tells a good deal of information about Navy ships and submarines, the oceans, and locations in the war. It would be great for a teacher read aloud or for independent reading, because the reader can really connect to what people felt during this time period. This book has no awards or honors.

 

Blog Entry #22

Freedom School, Yes!

By Amy Littlesugar

Illustrated by Floyd Cooper

Philomel Books, 2001

37 pages

Historical Fiction

 

Freedom School, Yes! was a great book that is accurate to the civil rights movement of the 1960's. This book is about a young, black girl named Jolie and her family. Her mother decides to let a white school teacher, named Annie, from up north come live in their home. Annie is going to start teaching school in Chicken Creek. Jolie and her family knew the dangers of letting Annie stay with them, and several things happened that struck fear into the family and the community. Annie, nor the community, let those things stop them from their mission.

This book has beautiful illustrations that depict the events of the story well. The black southern culture is reflected beautifully. The medium used for the illustrations seems to be pastels, because the texture looks chalky or like crayons. The colors and lines are very soft, but the texture is rough looking in the illustrations. I believe the illustrations do a great job of capturing the struggles, pain, joy, and the abundant history of the characters in the story.

Freedom School, Yes! is a book that is appropriate for third through fifth grades. It would be great for a read aloud or independent reading. Obviously, it would be a wonderful addition to a social studies or cultural lesson. The students could make meaningful connections to the characters while learning about a time in history. I think this book would be great choice to use for reader's theater in a classroom. This book has no awards or honors.

Blog Entry #21

 

 

Crow Call

By Lois Lowry

Illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline

Scholastic Press, 2009

29 pages

Historical Fiction

 

Crow Call has a beautiful story plot and illustrations, and that is the reason I chose this book. The story is about a girl and her father that she does not know. The reason she does not know her father is because he was away fighting in WWII. This book is a story about how she bonded with her father. They spent the day together and went crow hunting. It is considered a fiction story, but it is actually about the author and her father. The details of the story are true.

The media used in the illustrations were watercolor and acrylic gouache. The paintings are simply beautiful, and they are so realistic. The colors are soft, some are muted, and the brushstrokes give texture to the illustrations. The outdoor scenes make you feel as if you are standing out there with the characters. The illustrations have a way of making you feel as if you have stepped back in time to 1945.

I believe Crow Call would be appropriate for third grade students and up. The wording and vocabulary is advanced, and the text is lengthy.  This book would be great for a read aloud or as an addition to the classroom library. It could be connected to a social studies lesson, involving WWII, and the issues of that era. Character education is very much a part of the storyline of this book. Crow Call has no awards or honors.

Journal Entry #20

 

 

 

Yuck, a Love Story

By Don Gillmor

Illustrated by Marie Louise Gay

Stoddart Publishing Co., 2000

28 pages

Fantasy

 

            I chose Yuck, a Love Story because it reflects the typical relationship between girls and boys when they are children. This book is about a boy named Austin Grouper who liked to play with his dog, Fresco, his friend, Sternberg, and his red bicycle. This was pretty much his life, until he got a new neighbor, Amy. Everything Amy did and said was yucky, but all he talked about was…Amy. Austin was not fond of any girls, especially not Amy, but he was always going to Amy’s house. One day, she had a birthday, and Austin spent all night roping the moon for Amy. When he gave her the moon, they figured out it was made out of bleu cheese. So they both tasted it and said, “Yuck. Let’s go eat some cake.” This is a cute book, about a confusing first crush.

            The illustrations in this book were done by drawing and painting. The drawings were done in black pen, and the painting is watercolor. The background colors are very soft hues, and the characters stand out with a few pops of bright color. Most of the texture is shown in the drawings of the characters, and the background has simple lines and a clean look. The day time scenes are very bright and the night time scenes are darker hues. When the moon shines down in the illustrations, the ground is white, and everything the moon shines on is left in white. One thing I noticed about the illustrations is the sky, in the background of every page, is done very beautifully in watercolor.

            This book would be appropriate for early elementary grades and would be a good fit for an independent reader. Yuck, a Love Story would be a good teacher read aloud, and it could be used before a science lesson on the moon. It would be easy to integrate into a science lesson. A teacher could talk to the earlier grades about how the moon is not really made of cheese, and they could investigate into what the moon is really made of. It would create a good opportunity for creative writing about the moon. I think this book really identifies well with how young boys and girls interact with one another. This book has no awards or honors.



Journal Entry #19

 

 

Chicken Chickens

Written and Illustrated by Valeri Gorbachev

North-South Books, 2001

32 pages

Fantasy

 

            I chose Chicken Chickens, because it has a catchy title and is a cute, simple book to read for early elementary grades. This book is about two baby chicks that go to the park for the first time with Mother Hen. All of the other animals offer to let them swing, slide, and see-saw, but they are scared to try anything. The chicks think they are too little, but they wanted to try to slide. When they got to the top of the slide, they got scared, and would not try it. Then beaver offered to let them slide with him the first time, so they slide down the slide on his tail. After that, the chicks were not scared anymore and could slide by themselves.

            The illustrations in Chicken Chickens are done by drawing and painting. It looks like they are sketched in pen and the color is filled in with watercolor paints. The colors are soft, not too bright, but very colorful. The lines create a lot of texture, especially on the characters. The pen marks make the chicks look fuzzy, and the mice, the dog, and the cat look furry. There is a lot of detail in the feathers on Mother Hen too. The illustrations are very cute and playful, reflecting the nature of the book.

            Chicken Chickens would be great for a beginning reader in first grade, and would be a nice addition to a classroom library for independent reading. It would be a great read aloud for early elementary grades like kindergarten. It would be useful to talk to students about how everyone is scared to try something, at least once in their life, and this could be a prompt for a journal entry. This is a good book to talk about helping others, and friendship, for character education. The genre of Animal Fantasy could be taught, and the students could discuss how animals cannot do those things in real life. This book has no awards or honors.   





Blog Entry #18

 

The Dinosaur Tamer

By Carol Greathouse

Illustrated by John Shroades

Dutton Children’s Books, 2009

32 pages

Fantasy

 

            I chose this book because I thought it was a fantastic read for boys! This book could really hold their attention and interest. The Dinosaur Tamer is about a boy named Rocky, who became the greatest dinosaur tamer in the land. Rocky was a small guy, but tough. From the time he was a kid, he could rope a dinosaur in no time. So when the toughest dinosaur of all came to town, Rocky was the one to call. Rocky tamed a big T. Rex and stopped him from wreaking havoc in the town. He broke T. Rex and rode him everywhere he went from that day forward.

            The illustrations look as if some of them are a mix of computer graphics and drawing. Computer graphics look like the dominant feature of the illustrations, but there may be some drawing involved. The colors in the book are bright hues and tones. It is a fun book, and the colors the illustrator chose reflect that. The vivid color really brings out the nature scenes in the book, and there is some texture to the illustrations. Since it is a fantasy book, the illustrations are highly exaggerated. For example, the scene when Rocky roped the T. Rex is very unrealistic, but the illustration looks very real. It looks like it could have really happened.        

            This book would be appropriate for probably third grade and up for independent readers, because the book contains a lot of scientific names for dinosaurs. The dialogue of the book is pretty easy, besides the scientific names, but the text is lengthy. The book could still be used for a teacher read aloud for an earlier grade, and the Old West accent in the dialogue makes it a fun read aloud! I read this book to a kindergarten student, and he absolutely loved it. He was so interested the whole time, but I did stop to explain what some of the words meant. This book would be great for an integrated science lesson on dinosaurs for the upper elementary grades or a lesson on the Wild West for social studies. A vocabulary lesson could also be taken away from this book. The Dinosaur Tamer has no awards or honors.

Blog Entry #17

 

Puss in Boots

Retold by John Cech

Illustrated by Bernhard Oberdieck

Sterling Publishing Company, 2010

32 pages

Traditional Literature

 

 

I chose Puss in Boots because it is a classic fairytale in the genre of traditional literature, and I think it is a great story. This story is about a Miller's son that inherits a cat when his father dies. The son is poor, all he has is this cat, and the cat promises to make it worth his while to keep him. The cat starts bringing the king of the land gifts in his master's name, Lord Fortunato, and this gives his master a great reputation with him. Puss in boots ends up outsmarting and taking an ogre's castle and land, and creates a new life for himself and his master.

The text in this book is mostly formal and informal in relation to the illustrations. There are a lot of vignettes and double page spread illustrations in this book that are composed of soft colors. The lines in this book show a great deal of texture making everything look very realistic. The media used in this book by the illustrator are painting using watercolors and drawing using pen and ink. The illustrations in this book are very beautiful and are reflective of the time period of the story.

Puss in Boots is appropriate for middle elementary grades and up, based on the length of the text. For earlier grades, the teacher could read the book aloud to the students. This book would be a great read aloud for first and second grade, and a second grader may be able to read this book independently. This book would be great for character education, because it focuses on friendship. It would be great to use to talk about how it is not appropriate to take things from other people in real life. It could be used to study the genre of traditional literature for upper elementary grades or in a classroom library with several other books of this genre. Puss in Boots would be a great book to learn new vocabulary, from a different era, and learn some historical information. This book has no awards or honors.







Blog Entry #16

 

 

Bruh Rabbit and the Tar Baby Girl

Retold by Virginia Hamilton

 Illustrated by James E. Ransome

 The Blue Sky Press, 2003

 30 pages

 Historical Fiction

 

I chose this book because the story was very cute, and the illustrations were beautiful. I had never heard of this story before, but apparently it is a classic tale. The vocabulary used is reflective of African American culture in the southern United States. Bruh Rabbit was lazy and didn't plant anything for himself for the winter. Bruh Wolf did plant for the winter, and Bruh Rabbit stole from him. Bruh Wolf wanted to teach the rabbit a lesson so he set up a scarecrow out in the field, but it didn't scare him away. So the next night, Bruh Wolf made a baby girl rabbit made of tar. When Bruh Rabbit came back, he got stuck in the tar, and got caught.  In the end, surprisingly, Bruh Rabbit outsmarted Bruh Wolf.

            Bruh Rabbit and the Tar Baby Girl has many double-page spread illustrations, and the text in relation to the illustrations is mostly formal. The illustrations in this book are paintings with what appears to be watercolor. The colors are softened, and this reinforces my decision of the medium being watercolor based. Almost every page of this book is a landscape, so the colors and mood of the paintings are naturalistic. The illustrator paid attention to the fine details of the animals and objects that are in close view, so the texture is easily seen. I love the formality of this book with large text on one side and large paintings on the other side. The informal pages are great too, all of them are double-page spread illustrations, and they are just beautiful.

This book would be appropriate for at least second grade level and above, the text is semi-lengthy, and the vocabulary is different. This book poses a great opportunity for a teacher to go over some of the vocabulary that may be new to some of the students' knowledge base. This book would also be great for a teacher read aloud or for placement in a classroom library. It is also a great opportunity to teach character education based upon the right and wrong actions taken by Bruh Rabbit in this book. This book has no awards or honors.



Blog Entry #15

Seed by Seed: The Legend and Legacy of John "Appleseed" Chapman

By Esme' Raji Codell

Illustrated by Lynne Rae Perkins

Greenwillow Books, 2012

30 pages

Traditional Literature

 

I chose this book because Johnny Appleseed is a favorite topic in schools this time of year, and his story is a classic. The illustrations in this book are beautiful, and that was the first feature that caught my eye. This is a brand-new rendition of Johnny Appleseed's story, and it starts with a comparison of our world today with his world. The book talks about how some of Johnny Appleseed's story is legend, and it states many facts that are true about his life. This is the story of his life and some of the fascinating things that happened to him along the way. Seed by Seed talks about why we should remember the man that spread apple seeds all over this nation and his principles and values, and how he lived each day.

The illustrations in this book are stunning, and there are many of them. The text placement in relation to the illustrations is mostly formal to informal, and there is no negative space in sight. Most of the illustrations are set in nature, and almost every color in nature is used in this book. The media used in this book is painting using watercolor and gouache, embroidery, woodcarvings, and burlap. The media used gives this book a very naturalistic feel, which is appropriate to the story. The embroidery, woodcarvings, and burlap give the illustrations a texture you can almost feel.

            This book would be appropriate for second grade and up based on the length of the text. For lower grades, the teacher could use this book for a read aloud. This book could be integrated across the curriculum for subject areas such as science, social studies, character education, and reading. I would love to use this book for an Integrated Language Arts lesson in which a reading lesson is paired with a social studies lesson on Johnny Appleseed. This book would be great for an addition to a classroom library. Seed by Seed has received no awards or honors.



Blog Entry #14

Under the Christmas Tree

By Nikki Grimes

Illustrated by Kadir Nelson

HarperCollins Publishers, 2002

29 pages

Poetry

 

 

            The reason I chose this book is it captures the joy and beauty of Christmas in 23 lyrical poems. This book is a collection of Christmas themed poems that are single illustrated. It includes both types of poetry, narrative and lyrical. The book captures the feeling of Christmas and covers many of the things that make it such a special season. The poems are about family gatherings, carolling, snow, decorating for Christmas, the excitement of getting a gift, and the many things you see in the city around Christmas. This book is focused on the African-American culture and the traditions, faith, and family values that are cherished in this culture.

            The illustrations are simply beautiful in this book. Kadir Nelson is a well-known illustrator, and painting is his medium in this book. He uses oil painting to capture the glow and warmth of Christmas time. The book has such soft lines and texture, and his illustrations really capture the feeling of the characters. Most of the paint colors are not very bright, but muted, and the brightness of the illustrations comes from the light that is painted onto the page. It can be seen very clearly where the light touches the pages in his paintings. That is a very important part of Christmas, the glow of all of the lights, and the illustrator reflected that appropriately.

            Under the Christmas Tree is appropriate for a second or third grade student that is an independent reader. I think this would be great poetry to read aloud with almost any grade level, but the early grades may need some vocabulary explanation on some of the poems. This would be a great book to read a different poem out of every day, for the month of December, in a classroom. There are several elements of poetry that could be discussed from this book. Poetic form could be discussed, because this book uses the couplet, tercet, quatrain, and cinquain forms. Narrative and lyrical poetry could be taught from this book, and free verse poetry. This book has a lot of free verse poems, and very few of them rhyme. This book has no awards or honors.



Blog Entry #13

 

America the Beautiful

Poem by Katharine Lee Bates

Illustrations by Wendell Minor

G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2003

45 pages

Poetry

 

 

I thought this book was an interesting pairing of the classic poem turned hymn, America the Beautiful, with an illustrator's beautiful artwork. The illustrator used Katharine Lee Bates poem and paid tribute to her through the beautiful paintings he created to join every line of America the Beautiful. All of the paintings in this book are actual landmarks here in America. The book also includes a map of all of the locations of the paintings and some information about them. This book starts with an introduction telling how Katharine Lee Bates came to write America the Beautiful, and the end of the book includes her and Samuel Augustus Ward's autobiographical information. Samuel Ward's music accompanies America the Beautiful in the song we know today.

The medium used in this book was painting using watercolor and gouache. The illustrations are absolutely beautiful in this book. Every page is a double page spread landscape painting. The text format is informal, so it definitely puts the focus on the artwork. The paintings are so realistic, and each of them looks as if they could be hanging on your living room wall. Every setting is in the outdoors, so the colors are endless. For the desert scenes, the hues are very warm, and there are darker, cooler hues in the city scenes. It is difficult to describe every color in the paintings, because each of them is a different setting and tone.

America the Beautiful would be great for second or third grade and up. The poem is easy to read, but the teacher would need to go over some vocabulary with the students since it was written in 1893. A teacher could read this aloud to the students, play the song, and integrate this into a social studies lesson on America. It could be used for a poetry lesson, and it would allow the students to see how some poems are actually ballads or songs. It could be used as a writing prompt, and the students could share what they believe makes America so beautiful. This book could spark all kinds of ideas for lessons, because there are so many different directions to go in. There are no awards or honors for this book.