Book Critiques: Karen Massey-Cerda
a. Title: Lon Po Po (A Red Riding Hood Story from China)
b. Author: Ed Young
c. Publisher: Penguin Putnam Books. Published: 1989
d. Caldecott Medal 1990
Question1: What elements of the author’s style and language drew you into the book? Explain and give examples.
This Chinese version of Red riding Hood features three daughters who are left at home when their mother leaves to visit their grandmother. Lon Po Po the granny wolf arrives pretending to be their grandmother. Shang, the eldest child, asks why ‘she’ comes so late and why her voice is so low but the wolf finds excuses and the two younger siblings let the wolf in. He blows out the candles so they cannot see him. He pretends to be sleepy so they all go to bed. Despite the children feeling his tail and claws, he again makes excuses. Shang then catches sight of his snout and plans to trick him, persuading him to let them climb up a tree for gingko nuts for him. Once in the tree Shang reveals the truth to her sisters. They then lure the wolf into a basket and pull him up into the tree. They drop him repeatedly until he dies from the fall.
The author’s style and language draws the reader into the book initially with the book dedication; ‘To all wolves of the world for lending their good name as a tangible symbol of our darkness’. Beside this is a stunning, yet frightening blue and yellow water color of the shadowy outline of a grandmother. It is layered with the blue haze of a wolf’s face, white circular eyes staring hauntingly out at the reader. This unique choice of quote and illustrative style draws the reader in. You immediately feel cloaked by the wolf’s eerie presence, and wonder where in the shadows he will appear next.
The author’s translated text is simple yet it fits beautifully, almost softly in and over the contrastingly fearful, paneled illustrations. The violent ending is eloquently told: ‘Not only did the wolf bump his head, but he broke his heart to pieces’.
The author’s illustrative style draws you into the book. It conveys the mood and bite of the story, using beautiful watercolors with pastels. There are few fixed outlines, leaving the readers imagination to shift and move along with the illustrations. The first scene has an image of the wolf incorporated into the landscape. You see the mother leaving her children. The land beneath her is shaped like a wolf’s nose; the house is its eye and the second panel, the back of its large head. This imagery is repeated as the children are persuading the wolf to come outside and climb for the gingko nuts. The outline of the wolf’s head is muted and blended to become part of the sky and the clouds. The constantly shifting illustrations and flow of text succeed to hypnotize the reader as you look and read through the shadows in the story.
The author’s style of using three pictures sequences throughout most of the book is a formal contrast to the realistic and abstract watercolor illustrations. Their shifting quality , almost like clouds morphing to form pictures, appear to change form as if they need the constraints of the panels to remain on the page. Two of the most striking paneled pages that work simultaneously with the text to convey the frightening presence of darkness are before the children admit the wolf into their home. The use of paneling directs the reader’s attention to text and the focal point of each illustration. ‘My little jewels’ states the wolf, ‘this is your grandmother, your Po Po’. We see the girls frightened eyes juxtaposed with Lon Po Po’s menacing eyes and swirling blue cloak wrapped around him.
The author’s style evokes genuine fear in the reader, when the children are cuddled up with their ‘grandmother’ in bed. The wolf menacingly declares ‘All the chicks are in the coop’ referencing the predatory nature of wolves. We see the haunting image of his head looming over the three children.
The author’s use of perspective in the middle scenes conveys to the reader the height of the tree that the children climb. The text is positioned to the right of the scene. This perspective also reflects the isolation of the wolf and the shift in the battle of wits between the characters which draws the reader in further as they journey with the sisters towards their victory over the wolf.
a. Title: Rapunzel
b. Author: Paul O’Zelinsky
c. Publisher: Dutton Children’s Books, New York. Published: 1997
d. Caldecott Medal 1998
Question 3: Describe the artwork in terms of style and media. What elements of the illustrations appealed to you?
Zelinsky’s illustrated edition of the classic fairy tale Rapunzel utilizes spectacular oil paintings, rich with color and light. His renaissance style paintings reflect an almost golden light and equal amount of shadow, echoing Rapunzel and the darkness of the sorcerer.
The illustrations are visually appealing to the reader because of the elements of rich layers and detail that Zelinsky incorporates into each scene. The text is simple but elegant, enriched with words such as ‘luxuriant’ and ‘wretched’. Entire Tuscan scenes are created, vivid with color. Rapunzel is painted with flowing, raven hair, reminiscent of Botticelli’s paintings. There is incredible detail used to paint the Italian gardens, its statues and vines at the beginning of the tale. The reader can absorb a rich canvas of deep reds, oranges, blues and greens as Zelinsky recreates the ornate pattern and texture of cloth, tile, rug and medieval clothing. Rapunzel’s Italian bell tower is itself an intricate painting of stripes, diamonds inlayed with pattern, marble pillars and tulip shaped peaks.
The renaissance style of the artwork is appealing because the complex detailing and layering serves also to convey the deep feelings between characters and within the scene itself. Each illustration is alive with rage, jealousy, grief and of course love. When the prince climbs up into the tower, the light painted creates warmth and we see detail that portrays the tenderness felt between him and Rapunzel. This is juxtaposed with the truly frightening painting of the sorcerer who ‘in a rage, seized the braids and coils of Rapunzel’s silky hair and sheared them off’. The violence is palpable as the reader sees her cut Rapunzel’s hair, the fury etched into her face by the illustrators brush strokes. Rapunzel is painted holding her head in her hands, eyes closed in grief.
The author uses perspective in his next painting to convey the ‘wild country’ that the sorcerer sends Rapunzel too. We see a vast, layered barren landscape and a tiny figure in a blue dress, a tiny speck sitting on a rock, lost and alone.
The art work appeals because the illustrations are stories unto themselves. There is much to marvel at that would encourage a reader to spend time there discussing the details. A child could happily study the details, especially in the scene showing Rapunzel as a child dancing before her new ‘mother’ and the peacock. A child could ‘read’, through book talk, the joy and happiness of the reunion between Rapunzel and her prince, two children, a cat and a toad!
The care and detail taken by the illustrator is evident in his notes at the back of the book about Rapunzel. They reveal the research he discovered about the fairy tale-that it came from an oral source, a story printed in Naples that was from a local folk story. He states that he wanted to ‘combine the most moving aspects of the story with the most satisfying structure and to bring out its mysterious internal echoes’. The art work succeeds in depicting this combined hope beautifully.
a. Title: Joseph had a Little Overcoat
b. Author: Simms Taback
c. Publisher: The Penguin Group. Published: 1999
d. Caldecott Medal Winner
Question 10: How might you include this book in the social studies, science or mathematics curriculum? Write about a specific activity you might do that relates to the content of this book.
Based on a Yiddish folk song this story, Joseph’s overcoat becomes worn and he makes it into a jacket. When the jacket also becomes old and worn a vest is made out of it, then a scarf. This thriftiness continues until Joseph has nothing left of his original overcoat. The story concludes with Joseph making something out of nothing – actually the very story we are reading.
The collage in this book combines mixed media, real photographs and ink and watercolor. Characters are drawn in a slightly cartoonish way. Every part of the background is crammed with details and grouping of items. Clothing shaped die cuts are cleverly used to show the sequence of transformations that Joseph’s overcoat goes through. Young readers would enjoy spending time looking for new and hidden items and details on each page as they try and determine what lies behind the cut out.
Although this book lends itself to the science based topic of recycling, I would include this book as part of the kindergarten mathematics curriculum that explores the skills of classifying and sorting by their own and given criteria. Children can look back over the book’s pages that are intended to develop these very skills. Many of the pages show items and types of object either grouped or ungrouped. Children could first discuss what makes the objects, people in each group alike and different.
A follow up math activity would involve the children using scrap material and various shaped colored buttons with differing number of holes, collage pictures from magazines, and farm animals reflecting the groups in the book. The children could work on pairs initial to sort the items practically into groups by a given criteria such as by color to begin to develop these important classifying skills. Students would then be encouraged to sort and classify using their own sorting criteria. For example with the buttons they could sort them by color, shape and number of holes. With the scrap material they could sort by size or pattern. The items chosen for this classifying activity could then be grouped and glued down on construction paper and labeled according to their sorting or classifying rule. The farm animals could be used as an extension activity with the whole class to begin to discuss how two farm animals are alike or different, extending their mathematical vocabulary.
a. Title: Flotsam
b. Author: David Wiesner
c. Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company. Published: 2006
d. Caldecott Medal Winner
Question 7: Respond to the design and layout of the book. What do you think of the cover design, size of the book, font, spacing and visual elements?
While digging for crabs, a wave sweeps a boy off his feet and deposits an underwater camera on the sand in front of him. After he recovers, he has the film developed, puts another film in and is captivated by what he finds in the photographs. Having taken his own photos, he ultimately tosses the camera back into the sea where it is carried away by various creatures until it again washes ashore for anew child to find.
The title is given a definition if you look under the dust cover enticing the reader in with ‘a shared discovery’. The inside cover conveys to the reader an attention to detail as we see the title flotsam on worn beach wood, surrounded by a plethora of reclaimed items from the sea, each with its own store to tell.
The cover design of this wordless picture book reflects the authors fascination with what comes before and after a picture. We see a close up watercolor of the eye of a fish. A camera and other fish are concavely reflected back to the reader in its black eye; almost as if it is a porthole of a ship. The author immediately encourages the reader, like the boy to look carefully from every possible angle and at details to determine what you are actually viewing.
The layout of Weisner’s story frames are set up like a comic book. They shift perspective constantly from close ups to landscape views. Some are broad scenes, whilst others are tightly boxed sequences. These visual elements effectively create drama and motion to the story as well as echoing the types of choice for photographic frames.
The author skillfully blends realism and fantasy within his story frames to create different tones. The beachside pages are wistful and have an old fashioned look about them with cool blues and white for their palette. These scenes are fairly sparse but still have detail. The beach scenes are frequently framed and laid out as a series of smaller pictures set on the same large page. We see the full page water color of the boy recovering from the crashing wave and staring at the old fashioned Melville camera. The next page is a series of short frames that show him holding the camera, a close up of his hands and the camera and his examination of it.
The size of the book and the direction that it has is reminiscent of a photo album that you are looking through and sharing memories.
Humor is captured perfectly in the seven narrow images showing the boy waiting impatiently at the one hour photo. The scenes succeed to show the boys curiosity and wonder. The reader can follow every one of his movements.
The underwater photos are more colorful, wider in frame and more whimsical. They are very detailed demanding close attention from the reader as you explore fantastical mechanical fish, gigantic starfish with islands on their backs and giant turtles bearing shell cities. Weisner uniquely captures the imagination and the idea of this hidden underwater world that is visually appealing to the reader.
His stunning underwater illustrations invoke humor with the blending of realism and fantasy. To the left of a scene we see the boy holding a photograph of octopuses sitting in armchairs. To the right we are shown the shift in perspective, after the photograph, a large detailed picture of octopuses reading to their children. The reader will undoubtedly be entertained with the electric eels working as light bulbs, and an underwater fish bowl with fish casually swimming in and out. One of the final underwater scenes shows a spotted fish wearing a collar around its non-neck with the name tag ‘spot’. Tiny underwater aliens wearing bubble helmets, bowing down to sour faced sea horses are hilarious scenes for the reader.