Spring 2020 Children's Literature discussion

Use this area to post your Wordless Book Reviews. Use information from our discussion on Tuesday that focused on the elements of wordless picturebooks. Here's an example of a review that I found that might be helpful: https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-...

Of course, add in your ideas about how you might use your selected book in your classroom to assist your colleagues with some ideas.

Overview
Flotsam by David Weisner follows a young boy at the beach. During his time at the beach, the boy is searching for an adventure. The book’s dust jacket explains what flotsam is – any floating thing that is washed ashore. The boy brings his magnifying glass, very much interested in finding flotsam while at the beach. While a crab had originally caught his attention, when the beach’s waves bring in an unexpected find – a camera that shows intriguing photographs of an imaginary underwater world and other children who have posed with the same camera, the young boy adds his photograph and throws the camera back into the waves to find another human being, waiting for the same excitement.

Opinion
I truly enjoyed this piece of children’s literature and would recommend it to colleagues and young children to read. This wordless picturebook leaves much to the imagination and allows its readers to interpret and make meaning of the text on their own – a comprehension strategy necessary to processing texts. Often, especially beginning readers, can struggle with phonics and decoding and shy away from texts. Wordless picturebooks can help to eliminate some of that fear by allowing the pictures to do the talking – and the readers creating the story on their own.

Illustrations
The colors also help to set the mood for the story – mostly pale blues, greens, grays and whites set the background for the illustrations. They provide a sense of calm and do not build an element of suspense as the story progresses. The illustrator, however, does a wonderful job at capturing different facial expressions as the boy continues to discover new things at the beach. When he finds the camera and takes a look at the pictures, the background of the photos on the page changes to black and white, illustrating that the photos are of a time past.

Classroom Integration
I would integrate this into my classroom by inserting it as a sort of “prompt” at my writing table. Students would be able to add captions or speech bubbles at different points within the book to show evidence of their thinking while reading the book (metacognition). Students could also write an additional story explaining where the story came from, what happened when it got to the boy, and where it went next (sequencing). Students could also build their vocabulary by perusing the book, naming some of the objects and use a Frayer model template to expound on some of the objects they named. As a science activity, a lesson could be done on magnifying glasses, different plants and animals that live in the sea, or waves.

Additional Wordless Picturebooks
Mr. Wuffles by David Weisner, Flora and the Penguin by Molly Idle, Goodnight Gorilla by Peggy Rathmann, Once Upon a Banana by Jennifer Armstrong, The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney, A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka, Wolf in the Snow by Matthew Cordell and 10 Minutes Till Bedtime by Peggy Rathmann.

The Snowman
The Snowman is a delightful wordless picturebook. Raymond Briggs tells the story of a boy who wakes up, and seeing that it has snowed during night, excitedly gets dressed to go out to build a snowman. Briggs uses sketched panels in light colors throughout his book. In the beginning, we see the boy’s step-by-step creation of his snowman. That night he cannot sleep so he goes out to check on the snowman, and here is where the magic begins! Watch as the boy introduces his new friend to his home and the snowman’s funny responses. Then it is the snowman’s turn to lead the boy through a magical adventure through the night sky. Sadly, the boy wakes up again to a melted snowman.

I would rate this book five stars for its many muted colorful panels that show the passage of time. They help the reader use his imagination to put words to each illustration. The artist uses white and yellow hues to show light and darkened tones to show night. The artistic element of boxes is used as the boy and the snowman fly through the snowy sky, in a beautifully sketched darkened toned landscape. A lone vignette ends the story. My copy is paperback, so it does not have a dust jacket or flyleaf, but the cover and title page show a sweet up-close boxed sketch of the snowman.

As a kindergarten teacher, I would use this book for students to orally tell the story and sequence the events. I would have the students choose a favorite part to label and write sentences about. As a class activity, I would use the students’ words to write the story and then read it together. For older elementary students, they might work in groups to write text for parts of the book and then put the parts together with other groups for a class writing activity that tells the whole story.

In addition to The Snowman, I read four other wordless picturebooks. They include: 1. Frog, Where Are You? by Mercer Mayer. The story is told using boxes, is monochromatic, as each picture is sketched in brown, with green plant life seen only on the cover. 2. Window by Jeannie Baker is a vividly colorful story with a dust jacket, turquoise end paper and flyleaf, and full bleed illustrations, each containing a window’s view into the changing landscape of the neighborhood as a baby grows up in his family’s home. 3. Unspoken by Henry Cole tells the story of a girl’s experience with the Underground Railroad. It is filled with a tone of light brown-sketched full-bleed illustrations, with a dust jacket and brown end paper and flyleaf. 4. Ocean Whisperer by Dennis Rockhill tells of a boy’s dream of exploring the ocean with the whales. The book has a dust jacket and blue end paper and flyleaf. The illustrations are vividly colorful and use mostly different hues of blue representing the calming ocean. All of these books could be used with the writing assignments mentioned above for The Snowman. Window could also be used for science and social studies as a resource when learning about human impact on the environment.

Pancakes for Breakfast

Pancakes for Breakfast written by Tomie dePaola is a story of an older woman who woke up one morning and wanted to make pancakes. As she begins to make her pancakes she realizes that she is missing necessary ingredients needed to make the pancakes. Missing eggs? Find eggs in the chicken coop. Missing milk? Visit the cows. She finds all of the ingredients needed. When she returns back to her home with the syrup... she realizes that her pets have gotten into some trouble at home!

I enjoyed this wordless picture book and actually bought a copy for my son. It allows the reader to make predictions and models problem solving skills throughout the book. Although there are no words, the reader can easily understand the plot and story by just looking at the pictures and using picture clues. This book uses alot of brighter but subtle colors, such as pale yellows, orange, pink, red in the illustrations. The main character in the store has very distinctive features that portray her to be an older woman, from her facial structure to the clothes that she wears. The illustrations come in variety, varying from full bleed illustrations, to panels, to vignettes. Also, I noticed that on the pages where a problem is being solved or a main event in the story is occurring, the illustrations are full-bleed and fill the page with no margins. The illustrations in the story are clear and concise, allowing the reader to make clear predictions and understanding of the story. The pets in the story are also intricate characters in the story as they are always around the old woman. The illustrations of the pets are clear to tell what type of animal they are but they are not detailed and realistic. The illustrator did pay close attention to adding small details in the home and setting using black lines. Such as the line patterns in the wooden fence, the lines in her hair to detail her straight black hair, the lines in the hay in the barn, and the lines in the upholstery in the chair.

I would use this in the classroom when teaching students to use picture clues to help understand a story. Picture walks would also be great to model with this story. Students could also practice making predictions as well. I would also use this story to have students create their own dialogue to the story as a writing assignment. Students could also do a character study on the older woman, based on how she solves problems and treats people and animals.

Some additional wordless picture books that I would recommend include:
Mr. Wuffles written by David Weisner
Flotsam written by David Weisner
Museum Trip written by Barbara Lehman
The Red Book written by Barbara Lehman

"The Red Book"
The color red “is associated with energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love”.(color wheel 2020) This is shown through the rich illustrations shown in the book “The Red Book” by Barbara Lehman. In this story a young girl spots a red book that takes her on a new adventure. The grey background of the story helps the reader focus on the main character of the story with her bright blue shoes, green jacket, and vivid red hat. The story also displays the determination of the young girl who wants to meet a new friend found in the book. The story takes the reader on a surprising journey with a plot twisting ending. The ending of the story can tie into many different activities and strategies.

I think this text is a wonderful way to practice inferencing with students. Being that making inferences is a challenging skill for students to learn, using pictures is a great way to tackle this standard. While reading the text we can discuss and infer information from the text. Along with this I would use this story as a creative writing assignment by allowing students to continue the story. This story ends with two cliff hangers, that leaves the reader wanting to know more about the story. Students in my class would be given the opportunity to write about what happens next in the story. After allowing students to create a new version of the story we would compare their story to the part two of this story with the book “Red Again”.

Other Books: Chalk by Bill Thomson Shine by Dagny Griffin Good Dog Carl by Alexandra Day and Zoom by Istvan Banyai

Goodreads Review – Wordless Picture book

Title: Goodnight Gorilla
In this short wordless picture book, it’s closing time at the zoo. As the Zookeeper says goodnight to all the animals, a smart gorilla sneaks the keys out of his back pocket and releases the animals. This is a great bedtime story to read to infants and toddlers to help with the development of emergent reading behaviors such as determining how to open a book and the difference between illustrations and text. The text is repetitive which makes reading easy for emergent readers. The pictures are colorful and detailed. I find this very helpful for teaching students the problem solving strategy of looking at the illustrations for unfamiliar words.

In my opinion, the author, Peggy Rathmann did a great job writing and illustrating this book. I liked how she kept the plot and conclusion simple. If I was an emergent reader, I would possibly love listening to and reading this story. In my classroom, this text could be used for teaching sequence. As I continue to prepare my students for reading higher level texts, sequencing is a key tool students must learn to demonstrate comprehension. This text could also be used as a quick science journal activity where students draw the living things from the story or draw their favorite animal. In addition, Goodnight Gorilla could be used in mathematics. Teachers can create addition and/or subtraction story problems based on the characters from the book, while students solve the problem using drawings, their fingers or fake animals/manipulatives to find the answer.

Four more Wordless Picture books

Flotsam by David Wiesner
-Very deserving of a Caldecott Medal (2007)!
-Detailed illustrations of the children holding photographs
-Great use of colors to depict the majesty of the sea
-Interesting story line of a boy who finds an underwater camera and the adventure he experiences

Have You Seen My Duckling by Nancy Tafuri
-Caldecott Honor book!
-Excellent illustrations
-Repetitive text for emergent readers

Pancakes for Breakfast by Tomie dePaola
-Allows the reader to create their own text
-Vintage illustrations showing how the main character acquired ingredients for pancakes
-Side by Side illustrations showing sequence

Noah’s Ark by Peter Spier
-I remember reading this as a child!
-Caldecott Medal winner in 1978
-Vintage colors/illustrations
-Realistic Animal illustrations, farmland, and the ark
-Great story line about the biblical story of Noah

Flotsam is a fantastic wordless book written and illustrated by David Wiesner. This two-time Caldecott medalist writes and illustrates a spectacular fantasy story that leaves his readers mesmerized. The story begins with an inquisitive boy exploring during his beach visit. He loves science and takes time using a magnifying glass in order to examine a crab and other things along the shoreline. While doing so, a wave carries an old camera right into the boy’s view. After getting the photos developed, the boy steps into a fantasy world made of mechanical fish, an octopus family on a couch, pufferfish hot air balloons, town on turtles and mini underwater aliens. At the end of the story the boy sees kids holding pictures of other kids holding more pictures.  This inspires him to do the same and he takes a photo of himself holding the pictures and throws the camera back into the water. 
It was amazing to read through this wordless book and be drawn into a story of great imagination and exploration. The illustrator’s spectacular full and double-page panoramic views are colorful and bursting with description.
This wordless book can be used in the classroom in many different ways. Below are some activities that would nicely accompany this story.
• Make a glossary of sea-themed words, including vocabulary from the book’s title and blurb.
• Write an acrostic poem based on the word FLOTSAM.
• Create some captions, speech and thought bubbles to accompany the beautiful illustrations in the book.
• Write the story from the boy's point of view.
• Write a story about the previous owner of the underwater camera.  
• Choose one of the photos that the boy discovers and write a description of what you observe.
• Make a glossary of sea-themed words, including vocabulary from the book’s title and blurb.
• Write an acrostic poem based on the word FLOTSAM.
• Create some captions, speech and thought bubbles to accompany the beautiful illustrations in the book.
• Write the story from the boy's point of view.
• Write a story about the previous owner of the underwater camera.
• Choose one of the photos that the boy discovers and write a description of what you can see.
Additional wordless books
• Float by Daniel Miyares
• Mr. Wuffles! by David Wiesner
• Wold in the Snow by Matthew Cordell
• Journey by Aaron Becker

ChalkChalk by Bill Thompson is about how three children use chalk and their imaginations on a rainy day. Each picture is a full-bleed with vibrant colors. The three nameless children each have a page dedicated to them with the illustrations drawn to match their perspectives. Some pages include a picture in a picture to show a different perspective. The pictures feel so real, almost 3-D like. The variety of angles makes the reader feel like they are a character in the book. While this book has no words, the author has done an excellent job of telling this story.
I really enjoyed this book and think this will be a great addition to my classroom and home libraries. This is an easy book for students to make connections. This book could easily be use as an anchor to an outdoor writing activity. Students could use chalk to draw their own pictures. Students could write short stories on what they would do on a rainy day.

Additional wordless books:

Float by Daniel Miyares
Have You Seen My Duckling by Nancy Tafuri
Flotsam written by David Weisner
A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka

Chalk

"Chalk" by Bill Thomson is a lovely wordless picture book that unlocks the imagination. The story follows 3 children who happen upon a bag of sidewalk chalk. They soon realize whatever the draw with the chalk comes to life in the real world. They begin drawing a sun and then beautiful monarch butterflies, all of which come to life.

The ultra-realistic illustration style is a smart juxtaposition to the fantastical storyline. Readers, especially students, will feel their imagination activated as the realistic setting is overtaken by the children's imaginations. The whole book highlights the power of imagination in both positive and negative ways. As the story progresses, the children draw a T-Rex and their previously idyllic day, full of wonder, turns dangerous and terrifying. As the plotline changed, the colors in the illustrations became more muted and in grey tones. Eventually, rain comes and clears away their T-Rex and the children decide to leave the chalk where they found it.

"Chalk" is a wonderful, immersive experience and would certainly make a great addition to any classroom library. "Chalk" could be used for students to learn how to analyze color and style choices illustrators make. Students could also evaluate how much power they have as individual creators, makers, and dreamers.

Additional Wordless Picture Books to Use:
"Art & Max" by David Wiesner: Though not truly wordless, this book could be paired with "Chalk" as to how we solve the problems our imaginations can make.
All of the following books also deal with the power and wonder in imagination.
"Journey" by Aaron Becker
"The Boy & the Book" by David Michael Slater
"The Wave" by Suzy Lee

The Boy & the Book by David Michael Slater is about a boy’s visit to the library and how the library books avoid him. One book, the Blue Book, manages to be grabbed by the Boy who tries o read the story inside of the book but can’t. So, the Boy proceeds to destroy the book and leave it there when it’s time for him to go home. The Book’s friends help fix him up using tape and glue, and the next day when the Boy comes back, they save the Book from the Boy. The other books cheer, but when Book sees that Boy is sad, he jumps down into the Boy’s arms. The Boy then reads the first few words on the page and takes Book home.

The illustrations are beautiful and done in a realistic way. The facial expressions and the books are detailed, even when they are in the background. The humans, especially the mom, have less detail on them showing that the books are the focus. Almost every illustration is a full bleed, except a few pages where there are panels or vignettes so show sequences of events in the story. The front cover, back cover, and title page all have scribbles and tape on them, which gives a clue as to what is going to happen in the story. The story actually begins on the dedication page, where it shows the Boy and his mom walking into the library.

Color is used in the book in an interesting way. The Book is blue, which shows calmness and peace. When the Boy comes into the library, and any page where he is terrorizing the books, the red walls of the library are shown, which is most prominent on the pages where he is destroying the book. Red is often used to show aggression and anger. When he starts to read the book on the floor of the library, and when he is reading in his room, the area around them is blue; like the blue floors in the library and the blue surrounding his bed at home.

This can tie into inferencing, context clues, sequence of events, point-of-view, and character actions and moods contributing to the story.

Four other wordless picture books are:
- A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka
- Wolf in the Snow by Matthew Cordell
- Flora and the Flamingo by Molly Idle
- Pool by Jihyeon Lee

Tuesday written and illustrated by David Wiesner is another one of his great wordless book that sparks readers imagination and creativity. This book won a caldecott medal in 1992 which was very well deserved. The story is about what happened to the frogs at on a Tuesday night. They left their pond on lily pads, flying across the town. They passed houses, chased a dog until the next morning when the sun rose, they went back in their pond leaving their lilly pads on the street. As the people wondered about what had happened over the night, the cycle started over the following Tuesday night, but that time with pigs flying around the town.

This fantasy and captivating book is full of double pages that engage the reader and gives them a visual appealing of the scene. As the reader enjoy the story, the panels throughout the book show the important part of the story to keep the storyline going and flowing. The mixture of the color blue, white, green, and black in the illustration convey a sense of mystery where calmness, turbulence and safety create a lot of suspense. The recurrent use of blue in the illustrations shows the love the author has for sea creatures.
This book can be used to inspire children with writing. They can learn from this book that stories can be told using only pictures. The reason I love this wordless book is that students can interpret it whichever way they perceive it, building struggle writers confidence.

Other wordless books:
Flotsam By David Wiesner
The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney
A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka
Mirror by Jeannie Baker

Jerry PinkneyIn this captivating retelling of the classic fable of, “The Lion and the Mouse” the message promotes gratitude, friendship, kindness, and bravery. In the story, the lion is disturbed and awakened by a mouse, attempting to climb over him. The lion captures the small creature and the mouse yearns to be released. The lion releases the mouse and shortly after is captured in a net. His roars are heard by the little mouse and he comes to the lion’s aid. The mouse now has a chance to return the favor, by helping to release the lion. The small creature does this by gnawing through the rope, finally freeing the king of the jungle. Children are able to see that everyone has the capability of helping others; even if they exhibit weaker physical strength. The illustrations are bold, colorful, earthy, and expressive; with great detail to character facial expressions. The character’s emotions are easily discerned through the illustrations, with the use of pencil and watercolors. Children are easily engaged and able to follow each scene in this wordless picture book, with the use of sounds only.

I give this book five stars for it’s beautiful illustrations, level of engagement, and several lesson themes that can be taught to children. The use of color was warm and earthy, yet vivid enough to feel captivated. I love how the story portrays two characters so different in nature, yet their commonalities to family and friendship.

For classroom integration, I would use this book for making predictions, cause and effect, and reinforcing kindness and friendship. Additionally, I would have discussion questions for students to turn and talk about the differences and similarities of the lion and the mouse in the story (fill out a compare/contrast venn diagram) and create and write their own ending of the story. Discussion of main character (s), main idea (supporting details), and moral of the story, using graphic organizers. Additionally, students could research the natural habitat of lions, which can also be a science activity.

Some additional wordless picture books that I would recommend include:
Free Fall by: David Wiesner
Journey by: Aaron Becker
The Red Book by: Barbara Lehman
Where’s Walrus? by: Stephen Savage

Chalk

Imaginations come to life in Bill Thomson's wordless picture book Chalk. Rainy days have a reputation for house bound boredom but the trio of children in this book put on their rainboots and head to the playground where a magical time awaits them. With no words to narrate the text readers become part of the story by using their imaginations to make up for the absence of a written plot to follow, allowing the pictures to speak for themselves, and speak they do.

The illustrations are spirited and lively in their choice of color and the realistic style of drawing used. Details down to the texture in the braids of one of the children are on display for readers to immerse themselves fully in the children's experience. You cannot help putting yourself in their situation and thinking of what your own imagination could bring forth. There is never a dull moment on the page with the illustrations stretching from edge to edge.

It is easy to follow the characters through their playground adventure. Some pages of the story have a mood that fills the reader with a sense of excitement and joy shared from the bold expressions on the children's faces, while other pages of the story provide a chilling dilemma for our heroes to solve. In all readers will be filled with a sense of wonder and then relief as if watching a thrilling movie plot unfold on a big screen.

In the classroom, I would use this text when teaching students how to develop dialogue by focusing on what the characters would be saying to each other in each scene of the book. I would also practice plot elements such as rising action, climax, and resolution by having students identify those elements in the text.

Four other wordless picture books
Flashlight- Lizi Boyd
Fossil -Bill Thomson
I Got It! -David Wiesner
Journey -Aaron Becker