The Snowy Day Review by Allison Trippe

Bibliography

Keats, Ezra Jack. The Snowy Day. New York: Puffin Books, 1976.  
ISBN 0-14-050182-7

Plot Summary

Peter, a young and whimsical boy, awakens to find an unlikely playmate has covered his surroundings: snow. Peter can hardly wait to explore and play in the blanket of white. All day long he crunches, builds, smacks, slides, and pounds until he retires for the evening. He enjoys his time with the snow so much that he even decides to take some home with him. Reflecting on his day, he longs to be back outside frolicking in the white abyss. That night, almost as if it were a nightmare, Peter dreams that the sun melts all of the snow. As he wakes up the next day, he is delighted to discover more snow has fallen. When he leaves his house that morning, he invites a friend to join him for another day of merriment in the snow.

Critical Analysis

Like a character equally as important as the protagonist Peter, the snow symbolizes a new friend. Through adventure and exploration, Peter comes to know and love his new, wintry companion. Children are able to to easily relate to Peter’s imagination and wonder throughout the believable and realistic plot. With an integral setting taking place in a snowy city, this classic children’s book, originally published over fifty years ago, stands the test of time. Themes of friendship, imagination, and innocence are implied in Ezra Jack Keats’ masterful yet simple story. The Snowy Day is concisely told and to the point.

The author-illustrator combines a simple story with colorful, geometric images. The contrasting white snow and Peter’s bright, red snowsuit help the reader “watch” Peter play. With somewhat ambiguous figures, Keats enables children to connect to Peter’s experience but leaves room for imagination. The eye-catching collage of patterns and solids, and the overlapping designs on each page offer a unique and effective technique.

Review Excerpts

Winner of the 1963 Caldecott Medal

Top 100 Picture Books #5 by School Library Journal

From Horn Book: “The Snowy Day was the very first full-color picture book to feature a small black hero.”

From Publisher’s Weekly: “Ezra Jack Keats’s classic The Snowy Day, winner of the 1963 Caldecott Medal, pays homage to the wonder and pure pleasure a child experiences when the world is blanketed in snow.”

Connections

• Teachers can use The Snowy Day as a read aloud with Pre-K up to second grade. This book can compliment a lesson about winter weather.
• Art teachers can guide students understanding and appreciation of color, contrast, and shape. Students could create a snowy background and layer geometric shapes to show their favorite winter activity.
• Following the reading of The Snowy Day, students could be given a writing prompt such as “Snow is…” or “Snow reminds me of…” and illustrate their writing pieces.
• This story could be use to teach students how to sequence events.

*Created as an assignment for a Texas Woman's University course.

That Is NOT a Good Idea! Review by Allison Trippe

Bibliography

Willems, Mo. That is NOT a Good Idea!. New York: Balzer + Bray, 2013.

ISBN 978-0-06-220309-0

Plot Summary

That is NOT a Good Idea! is a cautionary tale written with humor and wit by the award-winning author/illustrator, Mo Willems. In the story, a hungry fox meets a seemingly naive goose. The sly fox invites the plump goose to join him for a stroll. As he coaxes her to dinner at his house, he plots to trick the goose into having her for a meal. Meanwhile, noisy baby goslings heed warnings throughout the story that something terrible is soon to happen. But, exactly who are they warning? In the end, an unlikely character learns a lesson the hard way, and is outsmarted.

Critical Analysis

In a unique and hilarious style, meant to resemble silent film, Mo Willems pairs detailed graphics with simple dialogue in his original version of a familiar story. In keeping with the characteristics of a silent film, the main characters portray an evil villain and damsel in distress. The script is displayed opposite the graphics on black pages with ornate borders and white text fashioned after intertitles. Mostly depicted in illustrations of anthropomorphized characters, the reader is led to believe that a stereotypical hungry fox is about to outsmart an innocent mother goose. Suspense builds throughout the book with the forewarnings of baby geese, who also provide foreshadowing on every other page. The repetition and predictability of these warnings give way to audience participation. Young children will enjoy echoing the cries of the baby geese.

Mo Willems’ illustrations are independent of text, adding to the style of silent film as it applies to a children’s book. He uses a fade-in technique to distinguish the dialogue of individual characters. The faces of each character are drawn to show their emotions and thoughts as the plot advances. Each page offers a colorful scene and humorous details from the distinct features of each baby gossling to the backdrop setting. That Is NOT a Good Idea! could easily be adapted into an animated short cartoon since the illustrations give the reader a sense of motion. The author’s use of onomatopoeic words furthers the feeling of watching a cartoon. Readers who are familiar with Mo Willems will appreciate the inclusion of his skillfully hidden, familiar characters from his other children’s books.

Review Excerpts

From Kirkus Review: “From the cover to the cast credits to the title page, the story presents itself as a movie in book form, observed not only by readers, but by a gaggle of excitable goslings.”

From Publisher’s Weekly: “Cinematic conventions, like neatly framed white-on-black intertitles and gauzy iris-eye close-ups of the eyelash-batting heroine, join allusions to classics like “Henny Penny,” Rosie’s Walk, and perhaps even Mighty Mouse. Trust Willems to blend silents, animation, and comics for a wickedly droll poultry-in-peril yarn.”

From School Library Journal: “This charmer is lovingly composed as an homage to silent movies and the concept of picture books as the “theater of the lap.” Readers will become totally involved as they watch, along with several chicks, a drama unfolding, certain to end in tragedy.”

Personal Response

I found myself smiling with delight as I read and reread the book That Is NOT a Good Idea!. This is the type of book where a reader finds more and more details with each subsequent reading. In fact, had I not read the book multiple times, I would have missed the clever addition of the cast of characters included on the copyright page. I appreciate the book’s originality, style, and humor. This is the perfect book for young elementary age students, and adults. I do not see middle and high school age readers appreciating it as much.

Connections

• Since the book is written with few words, it allows teachers to guide students through the process of making  inferences.
• Students can learn to pay attention to details through think-aloud readings, or by rereading the book and looking for clues they missed.
• Students can also practice making predictions before reading the book.
• Teachers can pair this book with the story of Chicken Little, then ask students to compare and contrast the two stories.
• That Is NOT a Good Idea! is an excellent candidate for a Reader’s Theater activity.

*Created as an assignment for a Texas Woman's University course.

Last Stop on Market Street Review by Allison Trippe

Bibliography
de la Peña, Matt. Last Stop on Market Street. Ill. by Christian Robinson. New York, NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2015. ISBN 978-0-605-85126-9

Plot Summary
CJ and his nana frequently ride the city bus together after church. He longs to be outside the confines of the bus, and questions his nana about why he doesn’t have the same things that other people do. He wants to be out playing like other boys his age. He wants to ride in a car like his friends. Like an old sage, his grandmother responds with wisdom and grace after each question he asks her. Through her natural and clever replies, she challenges him to take on other perspectives. By the time they reach their destination, she teaches him to see beauty in the plain, and to be gracious for what he has in his life.

Critical Analysis

Author Matt de la Peña tells this original story from the limited point of view of his main character. CJ is a curious, young boy growing up in a large city. Like any child, he wants to be like everyone else around him. Throughout the book, readers get to know CJ as he queries his nana. Nana, CJ’s grandmother, shares her view of the world by answering his questions with empathy and wisdom. De la Peña unfolds the order of events in the plot by paralleling the steps riders take when riding a bus. He weaves strong imagery throughout the story to help young readers build mental images.

The dialogue of the characters contain a vernacular that adds to the setting of the story. This, along with diverse characters, reflects the culture of a large city. Implicit themes of tolerance, gratitude, and service are subtly interlaced throughout the book. In her review, Nell Beram explains how the message of the story reaches audiences both young and old, “This quietly remarkable book will likely inspire questions of a sort less practical-minded than CJ’s; it will also have some adult readers reaching for a tissue (Beram 2015).”

By providing realistic visual details in the colorful illustrations, the reader understands the setting is a present-day bus ride. People on the bus dress in modern clothing, and carry electronic devices. The style of illustrations enhance the story by reminding the reader of the innocence of children. Each double-page spread helps advance the plot by showing a familiar experience of riding a bus. The order of events parallels the steps riders must take when riding a bus. Brushstrokes and texture provide contrast and boundaries. Many of the other characters are portrayed with ambiguity, making it easy for children to connect to them. Yet, without these illustrations, the message of the story is so strong that it could stand alone and transcend time. Conversely, the images alone could tell a similar, wordless story while maintaining the integrity of story’s themes.

Review Excerpts

After reading the book Last Stop on Market Street, readers will easily understand why it was selected as a winner in the following categories:

• 2016 Newbery Medal
• 2016 Caldecot Honor Award
• 2016 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor Award

From School Library Journal: “Poetic narration, radiant geometric-shaped artwork, and an authentic and enrichingly eye-opening representation of a diverse urban setting combine with out-and-out child appeal to make this tale a standout.”

From Publisher's Weekly: “Robinson’s paintings contribute to the story’s embrace of simplicity.”

Connections

• Teachers can use this book to support young readers with social skills, reading comprehension skills, and art appreciation.
• Writing prompts about relationships or defining beauty can follow a read aloud lesson.
• A bulletin board collage could display students’ accounts of helping others or how they volunteer in their community.
• Pairing a poem with this book, like an excerpt from William Wordsworth’s I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud, could be used to develop students’ awareness and understanding of imagery.
• Last Stop on Market Street would compliment reading lessons when teaching theme, character development, and point of view.

Reference

Beram, Nell. 2015. “Review of Last Stop on Market Street.” The Horn Book Magazine, March/April 2015. http://www.hbook.com/2015/03/choosing-books/review-of-the-week/review-of-last-stop-on-market-street/.

*Created as an assignment for a Texas Woman's University course.

Blog Analysis of Chicken Spaghetti

Author Susan Thomsen contributes book reviews, lists and awards within her blog, Chicken Spaghetti found here: http://chickenspaghetti.typepad.com/chicken_spaghetti/. The simple design of the blog maintains the reader’s focus on the written content. Though very few visuals are provided throughout the site, most images are eye-catching book covers of the books being reviewed.

Chicken Spaghetti is organized and user-friendly. From the homepage, readers can navigate to other well-marked pages within the blog. Users are able to easily find old posts since they are listed chronologically on the homepage. The sidebar of the blog contains a link to the author’s contact information and biography. Additionally, links to the blog posts are organized by page titles, recent posts, categories, and archives. All of these subcategories can be found in the sidebar.

The content of the blog contains reviews of children and adult books; the author’s “favorites” lists; and lists of awards containing links to other blogs and award sites. Susan Thomsen also contributes narratives of her experiences as a volunteer reader in first and second grade classrooms. Occasionally, blogs posts contain quotes from other authors, along with her reflections about the quotes. She shares summaries of news and current events in the field of literature. Susan’s husband, Norman Trepner, is a guest contributor who provides an annual post entitled “Norman’s Best Books.” Here, he reviews his favorite fiction and nonfiction books read during the previous year.

Beginning in 2005, Susan Thomsen has contributed blog posts on a regular basis. She provides a section at the bottom of each blog post for readers to respond by commenting in a comments section. She interacts with readers by taking the time to respond to most comments.

Overall, the book review blog, Chicken Spaghetti, is an informative resource for reading book reviews, book lists, and awards. The site is modest in design and easy to use. With its catchy name, both children and adults will find the blog useful and interesting.

*Created as an assignment for a Texas Woman's University course.

Welcome!

Welcome to my Book Review Blog! My name is Allison Trippe and I am a graduate student in the School of Library and Information Studies at Texas Woman's University. In this blog, I will be posting interesting links, news, and reviews of children's and young adult literature.