Tag Archives: Picture Book

Skit-Scat Raggedy Cat Ella Fitzgerald

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Title: Skit-Scat Raggedy Cat Ella Fitzgerald

Author: Roxane Orgill

Illustrator: Sean Qualls

Publisher and Year: Candlewick Press, 2010

Number of Pages: 38

Genre: Biography

Analysis: Skit-Scat Raggedy Cat Ella Fitzgerald is a biography about Ella Fitzgerald and her swing dancing and singing career. The book goes through a timeline of events throughout her life, some that were challenging, some that were joyful, but all ending with success.

This book could function as a window for many people who are not sure of who Ella Fitzgerald is. Throughout the book the audience can learn about Ella Fitzgerald as a person, her career, success, family and much more. Not only can this book function as a window, but it can also function as a mirror for African American young girls who love singing and dancing. After reading this book, young girls can feel encouraged to continue pursuing their passion like Ella did. Young girls may feel exhilarated or confident after reading about Ella’s success singing and dancing.

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Perceptually, this book has an entertaining and engaging front cover along with a fun title that children will enjoy reading because of the phonics. Initially, the audience is not able to tell that the book is also about dancing, one may simply think that this book is only about singing. While first seeing the front cover, the reader may think that this book is fiction and not a true story about Ella Fitzgerald. It isn’t until reading the first few pages that the true story begins to emerge.

Structurally, there are a lot of words per page resulting in the reading of each page being quite lengthy. However, the author is sharing a lot of information about Ella Fitzgerald. The images throughout the book are unframed, allowing the audience to feel included in the action and connected with Ella Fitzgerald as a book character. Throughout the book, the illustrator portrays a variety of facial expressions, which are understandable to all audiences. The audience can connect with Ella and her story while reading the book because of the true story and connections that can be made throughout the book.

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Skit-Scat Raggedy Cat Ella Fitzgerald ideologically portrays a positive message for young girls, however, there is also a negative lesson. First, the story of Ella Fitzgerald and all of her hard work and success can be inspirational for all girls. This book can teach girls to never give up on their dreams because with hard work they can be successful in whatever they do. A negative lesson seen in the book is that Ella disobeyed the law multiple times resulting in her being sent to a school for orphans. Reading this book, children can understand that even though Ella disobeyed the law she was still very successful.

Dear Primo: A Letter to My Cousin

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Author: Duncan Tonatiuh

Illustrator: Duncan Tonatiuh

Publisher and Year: Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2010

Number of Pages: 29

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Analysis: Dear Primo is a book about two cousins who live in different countries, one in America and the other cousin in Mexico. These boys write letters back and forth comparing the cultural differences in their own country. Dear Primo is also a 2015 Monarch Award Nominee.

This book could function as a mirror for other families whom are separated by country borders. Many families experience separation from one another and have some cultural differences within their family members. For families who are experiencing the same dilemma as Charlie and Carlitos, this book could function as a door because it could encourage them to write letters or communicate more with their families in other countries. However, this book could also function as a window for those who have family living in the same town or even same state because they could learn more about different cultures amongst families after reading this book.

Perceptually, the unique depictions of the characters on the front-page make the audience wonder what the book is about and curious if all the images will have a similar style as the drawings of the boys on the front. Once seeing the cover, the reader may want to dive into the book and read more about the culture seen. From the front cover, people who have learned about Spanish will recognize the word “primo” which means cousin in Spanish. This hint allows Spanish-speaking readers to know that this book will include the Spanish culture.

Structurally, the unframed images allow the audience to feel part of the action, experiencing the moments with Charlie and Carlitos. While reading the book, a reader may relate more to one cousin than the other. Within the book there are a couple pages that have similar instances portrayed with minimal differences. For example on the last page, which Primo2is seen to the right, the boys are both in bed, but the differences of their shoes, lights, beds, shelves, tables and toys all vary based on the culture and country that the boys live in. The images throughout the book add to the words. Often times when Carlitos is writing he will include words in Spanish, so the images help the reader to understand the meaning of those few Spanish words.

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The book ideologically portrays some important lessons about family and culture. The value of family can be seen throughout this book by the letters that Charlie and Carlitos write to each other. The boys care for one another and value the differences within their culture. Even though the cultural differences exist, the boys still love and respect one another. The differences are what make the family special in their own way. This book teaches others about a new culture and some basic language that children may be able to use. The lessons throughout this book are beneficial, informational and intriguing.

The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses

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Title: The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses

Author: Paul Goble

Illustrator: Paul Goble

Publishers and Year: Harper Collins Publisher, 2010

Number of pages: 25

Genre: Fiction

The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses is a tale about a young Native American girl who ran away with a band of wild horses. Many years later, upon returning to her native village she desperately wishes she were back with her true family, the horses. In the end she is reincarnated as the mate of her favorite horse.

This book serves as a literary window because it gives us an insight into a culture that may not be familiar to all readers. Throughout the story the readers pick up little pieces of Native American culture. For example, through the main character the readers are able to witness the appreciation of animals that is help in Native American circles. Although her story is fictional, it carries very real elements of their culture that serve as windows for children learning to value cultures that are different than their own.

The illustrations also do a good job of capturing the folklore of a tale passed down from generation to generation. The power is evenly distributed between the horses and the humans. This is portrayed in the way our human characters are close in size to the horses. This speaks of the unity in spirit the girl believed to have had with the horses.

The illustrations in this book perfectly speak to the freedom of spirit displayed by the main character. The illustrator used a lot of vibrant colors, which give us the boldness. There is also a lack of framing which allows us to step into the story with the characters. Overall, this book is about finding passions and following them, even if they are non-traditional. The young girl knew where her heart was and what she was passionate about. When she allowed her family to talk her out of it she was miserable. So this story speaks to children about doing what they love and pursuing their passions, no matter what they might be.

Each Kindness

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Author: Jacqueline Woodson

Illustrator: E.B. Lewis

Publisher and Year: Nancy Paulson Books 2012

Number of pages: 28

Genre: Fiction

Analysis

Each Kindness is a Coretta Scott King Award winner and tells the story of an elementary school classroom that gets a new student named Maya. Maya often dresses in worn out clothes and is ignored and made fun of by the other children, especially the narrator Chloe. Chloe is one of Maya’s biggest bullies. Maya does not make friends with the class and eventually her family moves. After Maya’s departure, the teacher, Ms. Albert, speaks to the class about kindness and changes Chloe’s mind about being kind to others.

This story is told from the perspective of Maya’s classmate who she sits next to and attempts to interact with. Chloe is consistently rude, ignores Maya, and makes fun of her with her friends. In the end, after Ms. Albert conducts the lesson on kindness, Chloe reflects on her sadness that she mistreated Maya and would not have a chance to make it up to her. This book delves into the importance of economic differences and bullying in schools.

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While this book is a good tool to show how kindness can be spread, there are some flaws in the presentation of a classroom. While Maya struggles consistently for several months with the rest of the class, her teacher does not step in and attempt to make the rest of the class stop bullying Maya, until she is gone. At that point it makes a change in Chloe’s future action, but does not change her previous actions to Maya. This enforces the idea that in a classroom the teacher wouldn’t step in until it is too late to benefit the person being picked on. While the teacher’s lesson at the end of the book about ripples and chain reactions in relation to kindness is proven to be a successful lesson with the way it impacts Chloe, there is no impact on Maya. This is a problem because it reinforces the idea that the students can get away with this bullying behavior and only have repercussions later on.

One of the positive things about the book is that in the classroom the students are illustrated as all different races. Overall, this book would be a good tool to use in a classroom to teach about kindness and deal with bullying problems, but classroom ideologies should not be modeled after the teacher in the text and one should be more vigilant in looking out for these bullying behaviors.

My Friend Rabbit

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Title: My Friend Rabbit

Author: Eric Rohmann

Illustrator: Eric Rohmann

Publishers and Year: First Scholastic Printing, 2003

Number of pages: 30

Genre: Fiction

My Friend Rabbit tells the story of a rabbit’s attempt to help her friend mouse. The rabbit means well and tries incredibly hard to help her friend mouse. She enlists the help of many other animals (mostly against their will). However, no matter what rabbit does, trouble never seems to be far behind.

I view this book as a door because it models for children some of the core values of friendship. The story models what it looks like to walk through a mess with someone and love them through it. This concept provides an opportunity for children to take hold of this value for themselves and incorporate that into their own relationships, even if in small ways at first.

Power is distributed in this book in a number of ways. On the first few pages, rabbit looks huge when compared to mouse. This shows the increased power rabbit has over mouse. However, mouse is always higher than rabbit on the page, which shows us how highly he is esteemed. As the story goes on, rabbit struggles more and more to help his friend. As this happens, rabbit’s character appears smaller and smaller. The other animals appear very large and powerful, sometimes taking up more than one page.

The author also used very little text in the book creating space for the pictures to tell a story of their own. The pictures agree with and add to the story. The pictures show the hard work and movement of rabbit. Throughout the text, rabbit is continually moving towards the left of the page. In every page he makes more and more progress left which signals gaining security. Throughout the process he goes from ground level to standing on top of all of the animals in power and security. Eventually, however, trouble follows and rabbit is left at the bottom once again. The visual process of progression and power is very obvious, however, and seems very intentional.

The visual progression of rabbit in power and stature speaks volumes of his goal of helping a friend. The text plays a less important role in the story, since the majority of the story is told through the illustrations. Overall, children can learn much about friendship from this book. The story of rabbit and mouse teaches us what it looks like to go out of our way to serve a friend and to see someone else’s need as greater than our own. This is an excellent lesson for children and adults alike.

Owl Moon

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Author: Jane Yolen

Illustrator: John Schoenherr

Publisher and Year: Philomel Books 1987

Number of pages: 29

Genre: Poetry

Analysis:

Owl Moon is a Caldecott winner that tells the story of a girl who goes owling with her father. The book delves into her family’s tradition of owling and how this instance is the first time she gets to accompany her father. Late at night, they go into the forest in search of an owl and trek through the snow and through the trees. Her father intermittently does owl calls and eventually they encounter one.

This story serves as a window or a door into the world of owling, the world of nature, and the importance of family traditions. The illustrations are done in a watercolor style full of a balance of rich, dark colors and the stark white of the snow described by the narrator. Although the story takes place at night, the characters and their surroundings are illuminated in the moonlight to create a serene aesthetic. The text itself is written in a poetic style with flow akin to that of a child forming thoughts. The words are eloquently strung together to reinforce the importance of the event in the young girl’s mind. While the flow of the text is broken up into small lines and stanzas, the word choice shows a more adept writer who is writing in a more carefree manner.

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Culturally, this book touches on the importance of family traditions and familial relationships. This one, seemingly simple, event had enough of an impact on the little girl that she retells the story. Overall, this book does not have much cultural value to it. While Owl Moon has beautiful, award winning illustrations, it does not have multicultural significance. The two main characters of the book are both white and there are no other people in the book. The text may have nice flow and beautiful word choice, but the story itself holds little cultural importance in a classroom. There are several activities that could be created from this book, but in order to ensure that a class does not exclude anyone, the activities would need to change from the inherent ideologies presented in the book. Instead of reinforcing the idea of a typical family being parents as being the primary caretaker, instead stress the importance of every family type. This may still exclude children who live with foster families so when discussing this book, be sure to specifically include them as well. Although problems may arise from teaching a lesson only with this book, Owl Moon could be paired with other more multicultural texts to discuss many family types and family traditions.

This Is Not My Hat

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Title: This Is Not My Hat

Author: Jon Klassen

Illustrator: Jon Klassen

Publishers and Year: Candlewick, 2012

Number of pages: 32

Genre: Fiction

This Is Not My Hat tells the story of a fish’s attempt to steal another fish’s hat. The thief fish hides with the assumption that the victim fish will not be able to find him. However, in the end the victim fish finds the thief and takes back his hat.

This book is an excellent example of literature functioning as both a mirror and as a window. It is an example of a mirror because it gives the reader an opportunity to see their own thought process/perspectives in the thief fish. Any reader can relate to the thief fish because people, in general, are often naive in thinking that things done in secret will remain hidden. The text of this book takes us through that perspective and allows us to connect with that thought process. The illustrations, however, provide a window for the reader to look through. The illustrations reveal the thought process and perspective of the victim fish. This perspective completely contradicts the text and leaves us with pictures that tell an entirely different story. This contradiction provides the window that allows the reader to understand an outside perspective.

Another method used to depict this was the intentionality of the illustrations. Although one might think that the thief would carry more power, the readers see the opposite portrayed in the illustrations. Rather, the readers notice that the victim is drawn significantly larger than the thief. I believe this was intentionally done to show that the power actually lies in honesty. The small fish felt and acted powerful in his attempts. However, he was continually swimming towards confinement (the place where leaves are close together) where the truly powerful fish would find him before swimming back into the ocean. Overall, the author did a phenomenal job of using contradictory text and illustrations to speak into the turmoil children might experience when deciding between right and wrong. Allowing children to see their own emotions and thought process as well as the outside perspective connects them to the world around them in a new way. It helps to erase the naivety and smallness of thinking people can get into.

The contradicting text and illustrations speak loudly in this text. The author/illustrator did a phenomenal job balancing the two. Despite the two contradicting themes, the story follows the normal thought patterns well. The way the text is displayed and even the diction used directly influences our understanding of the story. Overall, the author conveys that the things that are hidden will always come to the light so people might as well be honest with them in the first place.

Pool

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Illustrator: JiHyeon Lee

Publisher and Year: Chronicle Books 2015

Number of pages: 48

Genre: Picture Narrative

Analysis

Pool is a Picture Narrative book which shows the story of a young boy and his friend at the pool. The pool is crowded so him and his friend swim underneath everyone else and discover a fantastical world of sea creatures. They interact with many sea creatures, have a great adventure, and then leave when the pool is closing.

This text could be both a window and a mirror because of the depictions of the children. Although the two main children appear to be Asian, there is no culture directly addressed in this book because there are no words to tell exactly what their ethnicity is. Because this is a picture narrative, it initially seems difficult to draw meaning from the plot or anything that happens in this book however, the back of the book dedicates it to “Those who want to swim freely in the world.” With this quote in mind, the book becomes one that depicts the imaginative escape of a crowded world.

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The colors in the book speak to this idea particularly well. In the beginning, the boy arrives at the pool and before he can get in everyone else rushes in before him. Around 40 people fill up the pool and yet the only color in the entire scene is from the water. As the boy swims below the surface and underneath all the other patrons at the pool, his shorts go from grey to blue, his skin becomes colored as opposed to stark white and his white swim cap has tones of yellow in it. As the book progresses, the pictures get more colors in the sea creatures they encounter and the habitats they discover. The pages become filled with lively yet serene images of imaginative sea creatures that are depicted in a childlike manner, with smiley faces and humanoid mouths.

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This book truly captures the imagination and childlike wonder and in the end when the two friends leave they are in color while the rest of the pool goers are still in greyscale. This book speaks to the importance of imagination and creativity as a tool for innovation and personal gain. The two friends get to experience an adventure and after it is completed, they take it with them and learn from the experiences they shared.

Loretta Ace Pinky Scout

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Title: Loretta Ace Pinky Scout

Author: Keith Graves

Illustrator: Keith Graves

Publishers and Year: Scholastic Press, 2002

Number of pages: 30

Genre: Fiction

Loretta Ace Pinky Scout is the story of a young girl who, due to pressures of living in a perfect family, aspires to perfection herself. It tells the story of her attempt and failure at winning a marshmallow-roasting badge. This failure sends her into a spiral with the realization that she is not perfect after all. A visit from the spirit of her grandmother reveals the imperfections in all of the people she viewed as perfect, allowing Loretta to see that it is okay to have flaws.

This book functions as a mirror to its readers. All people, adults and children alike, compare themselves to others at times or strive, sometimes without knowing it, for perfection in one area or another. This book allows children to see the benefits of imperfections and flaws in Loretta and her family with the intent of allowing them to come to terms with their own limitations and flaws in a healthy manner.

The dynamic of power is interesting in this story in that Loretta is portrayed by the illustrator as very small compared to most objects (i.e. World-dominating chicken, scout book, etc.). This shows the readers a lack of power, despite the fact that the words are emphasizing her power. I think that is important because all of this takes places before she realizes the beauty in her flaws. The only time she is shown as large is the very last page. On this page she is receiving a medal for saving the world. I think that this shift in power is crucial in allowing the reader to see that that he or she is only truly powerful when they accept themselves as they are rather than trying to be a perfected version of themselves.

The images in this story do a fantastic job of showcasing Loretta’s accomplishments in a way that add to the image of perfection. The readers are visually overwhelmed with her deeds and character, heartbroken with her over her failure, and able to champion her well in her new found identity as an imperfect but powerful human. In addition to the images playing a major role in the story, there are strategically placed thought bubbles that give us greater clues to Loretta’s thought process. I think this was an intentional and genius decision of the illustrator that really helps to move the book along. Overall, this book addresses an important self-worth issue among children: Perfection is a fake ideology. This shatters the glass on perfectionism, and thankfully so. Hopefully children will be able to read this and realize that, like Loretta, they do not need to be perfect to be accepted or even good.

Mousetronaut Goes to Mars

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Author: Astronaut Mark Kelly

Illustrator: C.F. Payne

Publisher and Year: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Number of pages: 30

Genre: Science Fiction

Analysis

Mousetronaut Goes to Mars is the story of the mouse Meteor who is training to be an astronaut. After preparation, the astronauts are ready to leave but Meteor’s name was not on the list. Instead of just staying behind, Meteor sneaks onto the ship and goes to Mars with the rest of the humans. Meteor stays hidden until there is something wrong and the other astronauts a not able to descend to the planet’s surface. Because Meteor is so small, he comes out of hiding and tells the other astronauts that he is small enough to get to the planet with just one rocket. After Meteor is the first Mousetronaut on Mars, the ship heads home and Meteor becomes a hero for saving the mission.

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The story itself is very engaging and has colorful pictures that take up the entire page. This text functions as a mirror into the fantastical world of space travel. Since this is a children’s book, I believe it is safe to assume that no children are actually astronauts and thus this book would be a starting off point for children to get interested in space and space travel. Because the main character of the story is a mouse, it seems the illustrator crammed all of the diversity for the book into one astronaut. There are four astronauts usually shown, 3 white males and one black female. While this does have some diversity and is slightly better than all white males, it still enforces the idea that females and non-white people are not welcome in sciences and space travel. However, the text discusses how Meteor trains with three different people, Claudia, Claire, and Charlotte, which are typically female names.

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Although the text has these characters, the images are just of Meteor doing the exercise himself. The ideology of the story also leaves something to be desired. While the protagonist is a spunky mouse, he wrongfully goes onto the spaceship and does not get reprimanded. Instead of facing consequences for this, Meteor ends up saving the mission and being praised as a hero. This enforces the idea that children can question authority, which in itself is not necessarily a bad trait, and go against the rules if it is something they feel driven to do. If all children prescribed to this ideology, it could create chaos in a more structured school setting. Overall, I think this book does a good job of getting children interested in science and space travel, but lacks in diversity and a fully positive ideology.