Art and illustrations play a very important part in children's literature. A story with bad illustrations that don’t go with the text can really hinder a child’s ability to comprehend and pay attention to the book. There are many children books out that have many qualities in their illustrations that are crucial. Some books, like Last Stop On The Market, Monsters Love Underpants, Duncan the Story Dragon, and The Rain Came Down possess these qualities like color, value, character development, and lines that help make them very entertaining to children. Last Stop on Market Street, written by Matt De La Peña and illustrated by Christian Robinson, is a story about a boy and his grandmother taking a trip to the soup kitchen after church. The boy, CJ, keeps complaining about a variety of things like why it is raining and why they did not have a car. His grandma replies with answers like ‘the trees get thirsty, too’ and ‘we got a bus that breathes fire and old Mr. Dennis, who always has a trick for you’. Slowly throughout the …show more content…
In the beginning of the story, CJ kept complaining about the situations he and his grandma were in, not really appreciating anything that he and his grandma are doing. He wondered about why they had to walk in the rain, why they did not have a car, why they had to go to the soup kitchen, and many other questions. His grandma explains why with positive reasons, like they get to experience going on the bus, meeting many different people, why it is beautiful to see these things, etc. There is a part in the story where a man on the bus starts to play a song, which CJ really listens too. He closed his eyes and was ‘lost in the magic’. This was the turning point for CJ. He started to complain less, and started to enjoy and really take in his experiences. At the end of the story, he states that he is glad that he came to the soup kitchen. In the end it shows him holding a bright orange book, which relates to
In the book this happens after TJ returns home from foster care and becomes involved in gangs, violence, and drugs. TJ is spinning out of control with no direction until one day when his foster care manager comes to school to check in on him. She says, “I can’t save you. You have to do that on your own. You may not know this, but you have choices that you can make. You can choose, TJ” (Tillit 161). This quote directly relates to the theme of the story. In the story TJ is letting others influence his future and leading him down a bad path until his foster manager consults with him. The meeting helps TJ see that he can escape his life of poverty and violence and live a better life
For this activity I chose to read the book “The Last Stop on Market Street” by Matt de la Pea. The story is about a boy (CJ) and his grandmother (Nana) taking their daily Sunday bus trip across town. However, this Sunday CJ seems to be noticing the differences between himself and others on the bus. On the bus ride, CJ’s Grandmother shows him how to respectfully interact with different races of people. His grandmother also shows him to see and respect the beauty in the low-income neighborhood that they are in.
she gets flashbacks of the past incidents that occurred all because of her uncle. This story overall,
Eric Carle, a widely known children’s book illustrator, was born in Syracuse, New York in 1929. His stylistic technique of collaging hand painted papers that are cut and layered to create cheery images has made him and his work distinct and easily recognizable. He grew up in Germany but moved back to the states where his advertising career began, followed by his work as an illustrator. Due to Carle’s love for nature and successful advertising career, his vibrant, simple, and animal-filled illustrations are clear pieces of evidence that reflect his past experiences.
I chose to read and comment on Barbara Kiefer’s “Envisioning Experience: The Potential of Picture Books.” Kiefer’s main point in writing this essay was to get the message across that children enjoy picture books that allow them to identify and make connections with the characters or the plots, and that while reading and analyzing the pictures, they gain a better sense of aesthetics and how to interpret them.
After a four week survey of a multitude of children’s book authors and illustrators, and learning to analyze their works and the methods used to make them effective literary pieces for children, it is certainly appropriate to apply these new skills to evaluate a single author’s works. Specifically, this paper focuses on the life and works of Ezra Jack Keats, a writer and illustrator of books for children who single handedly expanded the point of view of the genre to include the experiences of multicultural children with his Caldecott Award winning book “Snowy Day.” The creation of Peter as a character is ground breaking in and of itself, but after reading the text the reader is driven to wonder why “Peter” was created. Was he a vehicle for political commentary as some might suggest or was he simply another “childhood” that had; until that time, been ignored? If so, what inspired him to move in this direction?
After Junior’s sister Mary dies in a terrible fire, he feels sad and alone. At school, his fellow students and friends make him feel better by giving him hugs and small slaps on the back. “They were worried for me. They wanted to help me with my pain. I was important to them. I mattered. Wow,” (Alexie 212). Back on the Reservation, Junior never felt important, which really put a damper on his confidence. However, at school he knows people care about him and it makes him feel good and appreciated. This experience impacts Junior’s identity and makes him a better, and more confident person. Junior goes to his first school dance, and afterwards him, his girlfriend, and a few of his friends go to a Denny’s to eat pancakes. He is poor and obviously cannot pay for the food, but he orders it anyways. Later that evening, his friend Roger finds out that he does not have enough money to pay. Instead of getting mad, Roger lends him forty dollars and goes on his way. When they got back to the school after having pancakes, Penelope, Junior’s girlfriend, finds out that he is poor and kisses him on the cheek. “But then I realized she was being my friend. Being a really good friend, in fact. She was concerned” (Alexie 127). This entire event shows Junior that being poor is not a bad thing. It lets him know that people will still be his friend even when they know he is
Marcus, L. (1990). Garth Williams; his career spanning almost half a century, the artist's illustrations for children's books have become classics. (PW Interviews). Publishers Weekly. Retrieved from http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-8541967/garth-williams-his-career.html
Richard Robinson, the President and CEO of Scholastic Inc., the world’s largest publisher and distributor of children’s books, said that a great children’s text contains a simple and original idea, is written with humour and makes the world more interesting. Despite being published in 1928, A.A. Milne’s The House At Pooh Corner remains a highly effective children’s text. The text meets the criteria set out by Richard Robinson and it has been able to do so through its good uses of literary elements such as style, themes and characters. Some examples of this can be linked to the works of various developmental theorists such as Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky and Erik Erikson.
Chris Van Allsburg has been named one of the most intriguing authors and illustrators of children’s books. He has a unique style that captivates children and adults alike. Often, a person’s background and experiences influence their work. Imagination has many roots into the childhood of an individual.
Junior sometimes had to go to bed hungry, but that wasn’t the worst thing about being in poverty. He made a diary entry stating, “Poverty= empty refrigerator+empty stomach. And sure sometimes my family misses a meal…and hey, in a weird way, being hungry makes food taste better (8).” This really puts the diary reader in his shoes about how many times he had to go without food and starve while trying to go to sleep, simply because his family couldn’t afford it. But to Junior, being hungry wasn’t necessarily that bad. What he felt was the worst thing about his poverty was that there was no money to save his beloved animal Oscar. Oscar became really ill and Junior wanted to take the animal to the doctor, but the family couldn’t afford it. When it came down to it, his father had to put the dog out of misery, and decided to shoot him. Visualizing someone having to shoot your best animal friend is heart wrenching. Most people have been in Juniors shoes where they have a sick animal, however they never imagine having to shoot it. This comparison of being hungry and losing an animal, shows Junior’s great strength at a young age about going through poverty, and sometimes even hope...
She uses her grandkids as a source for her argument and pleads to her son that they would much rather visit Tennessee than Florida. The grandma even resorts to scare tactics and mentions and escaped killer who the newspapers speculate to be heading towards Florida as a reason for taking the trip to Tennessee. Though these instances may seem like small instances of selfishness to some readers these instances are still acts of blatant selfish behavior by a senior figure. Instead of being grateful for any vacation she could possibly partake in with her son and her grandchildren she rather complain and mope about going to Florida. These example of small acts of selfishness in the story can be interpreted as acts of everyday selfishness every human regularly experiences that can eventually accumulate up and become a negative detriment to the characters of many. While on the trip the grandma experiences fond memories of an old plantation she used to visit when she was a kid. She pleads with her son to let her visit the plantation and in order to get him to abide she lies to her grandkids
The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Voices in the Park were published at either end of the twentieth century, a period which witnessed the creation of the modern picturebook for children. They are both extremely prestigious examples of picturebooks of their type, the one very traditional, the other surrealist and postmodern. The definition of ‘picturebook’ used here is Bader’s: ‘an art form [which] hinges on the interdependence of pictures and words, on the simultaneous display of two facing pages, and on the drama of the turning of the page’ (Bader, quoted in Montgomery, 2009, p. 211). In contrast with a simple illustrated book, the picturebook can use all of the technology available to it to produce an indistinguishable whole, the meaning and value of which is dependent on the interplay between all or any of these aspects. Moebius’s claim that they can ‘portray the intangible and invisible[. ], ideas that escape easy definition in pictures or words’ is particularly relevant to these two works.
As children’s literature matured, so did the books. Illustrations were first made with woodcuts or on wood blocks that were colored by hand. By the late 1800s, printing had evolved and illustrations became mor...
Hall, C. (2008) ‘Imagination and multimodality: reading, picturebooks and anxieties about childhood’, in Sipes, L. and Pantaleo, S. (eds) Postmodern Picturebooks: Play, Parody, and Self-Referentiality, New York; London: Routledge, pp.130-146.