Title: Visiting Day
Author(s): Jacqueline Woodson
Illustrator/Photographer: James E. Ransome
Publisher and Year: Scholastic Press2002
Number of pages: 32
Genre: Fiction, Family, Diversity
Analysis:
1) Summary:
The story is about a young African American girl that lives with her grandmother because her dad is incarcerated, and she is visiting him. The story takes place in her eyes which is the plans they have to do when they are visiting him. For example, the grandmother cooks a meal then they get on a bus to go visit him.
2) Theoretical Framework:
On the cover, it’s the dad and the little girl hugging each other and smiling. The first picture is the grandmother cooking food. This could be showing how grandmothers are known to cook great food out of everyone in the family. Next, the little girl is lying in bed smiling relaxed with all these bright colors in her room to represent how happy she is about this day. After that, the grandmother is doing the little girl’s hair in nice clothing. I think this shows that they are getting ready to go somewhere and they want to make sure they look nice. There are pictures in the background to maybe show how family oriented they are. Then, it’s a picture of the dad with another person in the background. They both are wearing a tan jump suit. The background showed drawing that the daughter made and a calendar with the dates crossed out. This hinted to me that the father was in prison. Next, there’s a group of people waiting to get on the charter bus to go somewhere. Afterwards, the little girl was seated and was getting food from a lady behind her. Everyone is happy on the bus like they are going to happy which is kind of ironic. The bus then pulls in front of a big building with barbed wire on top of it. That for sure told me that they were at a prison. Eventually, the girl and her grandmother sat and smiled with her father. There were other inmates enjoying their visits too. I think I could why people were smiling on the bus. But I would think that some people would find it hard to visit their loved ones in jail. Futhermore, it must have been time to go because grandma was guiding the child away while the inmates were walking back to their cells. On the side stood a white guard with a mean mug. I believe this book represents how a lot of African American homes are that don’t have fathers or mothers in it. Lastly, the little girl is making pictures to send to her dad until the grandmother gets her ready for bad.
3) Illustrations:
The illustrations matched great with the narrative. I believe that just the illustrations themselves would have been enough to understand what was happening. I would say the text and the narrative matched.
4) Commentary
The author explains how when she was little her uncle was arrested and she didn’t care what he was arrested for. Her grandmother would take her to go see him and she wanted to dedicate this book to the both of them.