Danielle Mikhail
Professor Schiffman
Children’s Literature
Animal Adventure
Picture books can have a very important role in a classroom, from elementary school through middle and even high school. They offer a valuable literary experience by combining the visual and the text. Picture books allow authors to relay a critical message to young children. It's all about showing and telling, it opens a window for the reader to explore their imagination. Exploring the relationship between words and pictures. The importance, popularity, and positivity of this these books display why the following books should be incorporated into this course’s syllabus.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar, written by Eric Carle is a short simple picture book full of learning opportunities. A very hungry caterpillar emerges from an egg and spends an entire week feasting on all kinds of foods, including strawberries, a lollipop and a piece of pie. As he eats through each food, he also eats holes in the book big enough for little fingers to fit through. At the end of the week he is a very full caterpillar with a bellyache. At the end of the second week, he emerges as a beautiful butterfly. Going from learning the days of the week, to counting, to metamorphosis. The words are easy enough for the target audience and small child to be able to understand the story line, and for a beginning reader to get through with little difficulty. Carle's colorful collage illustrations and the book's deigns makes the book even more appealing. Every page has a hole in it where the caterpillar eats through the food.
Make Way For Ducklings, written by Rober McCloskey was one of my favorite children's books when I was a child. It is about two mallard ducks trying to find a place to raise their family. As a small child I believe that this book made sense to me at around the age of six or seven. The language used is fairly easy although the story is a little complex. It I hard for children that young to understand the concept that animals have to find a place to live so that they can raise their families. That is the one thing that took me so long to understand in the book. Family is the central theme in this Robert McCloskey classic. The mallard ducks illustrate love and care in the family. McCloskey describes the adult ducks carefully selecting a nesting site and, later, teaching the ducklings basic survival skills. Tension and adventure are created in the story during their dangerous trip across busy streets to get to the Public Garden and safety.
Kitten's First Full Moon, written and illustrated by Kevin Henkes is nationally bestselling picture book about a kitten, the moon, and a bowl of milk. Henkes introduces the reader to a character named Kitten, which is a character that any person, young or old can relate to. True to curiosity of a cat, Kitten sees a bowl of milk in the sky when she looks at her first full moon. Children experiencing the story can relate to the feelings confusion when experiencing something for the first time. Adults can relate to the trial and error we all experienced and learned from. After reading this book I old say that the underlying theme is "if at first you don't succeed, try, and try again." The story demonstrates to the reader of any age that despite heartache and hurt of trying and failing more than once, sticking to it may end up with reward in the end, even if it isn't what you first set to accomplish. Henkes wrote this story with no dialogue and little punctuation and vocabulary for the reader to relate to. While keeping it simple, the reader still gets a feeling for the personality of a kitten. The reader is instantly ready to dive in for an adventure with an active kitten.
Curious George written by H.A. Rey is the first adventure in the popular series that tells how the little monkey who was caught in the jungle is brought back to the city by a man in a yellow hat. He can’t help but be interested in all the new things around