Charlotte's Web

White, E. B., Williams, G., Rosenwald, E. G., Juvenile Collection (Library of Congress), & Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection (Library of Congress). (1952). Charlotte's web. New York: Harper. 

Summary: A farmer is going to kill a young pig, but his daughter convinces him to let her take care of the pig and not kill him.  Fern, the girl, names the pig Wilbur and treats him like a baby.  Even though they become close friends he is soon sold.  Fern and Wilbur stay close friends and at first he had trouble making new friends at Zuckerman's farm.  Throughout, the rest of the story he makes lifelong friends that protected him from danger. 

Reflection:  This story is an animal fantasy because the animals behave as humans through their experiences, emotions, talk and they have the ability to reason.  For example Charlotte, the spider, talks and find ways for Wilbur to fit in and be excepted by Zuckerman.  The best way to reflect on Charlotte's Web is through it's theme of friendship.  In the books it showed many ways as to how friends will make a effort to help their friends in times of need.  Several occasions Charlotte spin words like, some pigs, and terrific in her web to help keep Wilbur alive.

Questions:

1.  In what ways would you help save your friend?

2.  Who was your favorite charter and why?

3.  What type of friend are you?

Yo! Yes?

Raschka, C. (1993). Yo! Yes?. New York: Orchard Books.

Summary: Two characters of different cultures become friends on a street using unique words. This story would be great when a new student arrives or at the beginning of the year when every body is sad, lonely and have little friends.

Reflection:  The artistic style used in this book is expressionistic.  On each page the two characters express their feelings and emotions through exaggeration.  It looks like they are acting out what they are saying through their body language.  The artistic media helps convey this style because pastel colors are used on the background while bright colors are used on the characters.  The illurstations are doublespread and extend over the facing of two pages.  Each character is looking at each other from each page.  The characters and words stand out in this story because the letters are in bold print and the character have a spot light shining on them and their shadows are showing. 

Questions:

1. Ask students to look at punctuation used.

2. Ask students to predict what will happen in the story.

Blackout

Rocco, J., & Hyperion Books for Children. (2011). Blackout. New York: Disney/Hyperion Books.

Summary: A little girl becomes bored and wants to play a board game with her family.  They are not wanting to play, then the town blacks out.  What will they do?  I am not going to give the ending away.  This is a must read!  Students would love this book and it can be used during writing workshop time. 

Questions:

Has their been a time in your life that the lights went out?  Write about how you reacted?

Reflection:

I loved this story and the illustration.  I disagree with the judges because it needs to be a Caldecott medal winner not a honor book winner.  The artistic styles was different then any other book I have ever read.  John Rocco used a cartoon style and I loved it.  Each page dark shades of color used and it really showed that the town was blacked out.  When the character sit in the dark their eyes popped and when they lit a candle or flashlight the yellow color popped and was the focal point in the story.  So far this is my favorite picture book I have read because of the illustrations.

A Tree Is Nice

Udry, J. M., Simont, M., & Harper & Brothers. (1956). A tree is nice. New York: Harper & Bros.

Summary: This book is about the characters of trees, ways they can be used and how they change throughout the year.  This book could be used during a science lesson of the seasons of the year or teaching about planting seeds.  The illustrations remind students how to care for trees, the author did not.  

Questions:

What happens to the leaves of the tree during the fall?

At the end of the story what did the illustrations show about planting a tree?

What does the cover page remind us to do if we plant a tree?

Reflection:

In this story the visual elements of color stood out to me the most.  Every two pages were different.  The first two pages which included the title page was black and white and to me it looks like the media was graphite pencils.  I believe the pencils were used and then a tool or finger was used to smear to fill in the illustrations.  On the next set of pages the pictures were in color.  The illustration still have the same swirly line style and thickness but the colors were bright and primary and secondary colors were used. 

Kitten's First Full Moon

Henkes, K. (Year 2005). Kittens's first full moon.. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.



Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes was a great picture book for primary children.  This book is a black and white book containing detailed illustrations that provide context clues to help tell the story as you read.  The context clues make the book very understandable to early readers. 

The plot of the story is that the kitten believes the moon is a bowl of milk and she tries many ways to drink the milk.  The climax of the story occurred when she climbed a tree and saw the bowl of milk in a pond. She thought she finally made it to the big bowl of milk, but instead she got wet and sad. 

From reading this book I thought of questions and lesson ideas to use in my kindergarten class.  While reading this book questions need to be asked of what the students predict will happen next along with what they think the title has to do with the book.  A science lesson can be developed when covering the phases of the moon.  The focus for this book would be "full moon." 

My students will love this book!

Owen

Henkes, K., Greenwillow Books., & South China Printing Co. (1993). Owen. New York: Greenwillow Books.

The way the author told the story seemed was very convincing.  Each time the mother and father tried to break Owen of his attachment to the blanket I was convinced it would work.  Each idea made me think about my future children and breaking them from a blanket, bottle or picifier.  The theme is significant to real life children who have that special item that they do not want to depart from.  This book could be used for other items, not just for a blanket.  If a teacher asks her class "What is one item you are not allowed to bring to school," every student probably would have that one item that goes/went everywhere with them until they started school. 

When comparing this book to another Kevin Henkes book I noticed great visual elements.  The characters in this story were mice and the expressions showed really portrayed the theme of the book.  When Owen learned he could not take the blanket to school, the small tear on his face really stood out to me in the illustration.    Both books had great illustrations even though one was in black and white.