Picture Book Evaluation: This is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen Author Jon Klassen’s This is Not My Hat is picture book that seeks to teach a lesson or offer a moral guideline for the reader. In this regard the picture book would qualify as a fable because it utilizes animals as the primary characters and teaches a moral lesson as its primary theme (Kiefer & Tyson, 2014, p.117). In this case, Klassen’s plot centers on a small fish who steals a hat from a big fish. The moral of course being that one should never steal because it invariably turns out bad for the person who is stealing. One unique aspect of this picture book that immediately captures the attention of the reader is that the illustrations primarily make use of a dark background. In …show more content…
The author himself notes that part of the purpose of this picture book was to construct a fable that demonstrated the thought processes that people might experience if they tried to steal something: “I wanted to give the feeling of what it is to do something wrong and try to talk yourself through it” (Drabble, 2014, p.12). In this regard, the way in which the story is told, which is through monologue, does strengthen the lesson that is imparted to the reader. The style structure relying on the use of such monologue allows the reader to put him or herself basically in the position of the small fish which includes experiencing the negative consequences that eventually arise due to stealing. The small fish even expresses the over-confidence or perhaps the false confidence most thieves might feel when the steal something: “I knew I was going to make it” (Klassen, 2012, p.28). The use of monologue as the style format ensures that the readers feel the same insecurities that the small fish feels despite his bravado or bluster. By using this monologue to allow the small fish to speak in the first person, the reader is forced to imagine him or herself as being the small fish and as having done something
Vermeer’s Hat offers a unique look at the rise of global trade through Brook’s eyes. Brook uses each of the paintings to describe to the audience a different picture of how the world began progressing. Most think of Vermeer as an isolated artist, with no real connection to the world outside of the walls of his mother-in-law’s house. However, as Brook shows us throughout the story, this could not be further from the truth. Brook relies on the paintings to interpret the rise of global trade to show the audience how architecture has contributed to the rise of global trade, how specific objects in the paintings related to trade, and how geography influenced trade.
Effect on others: Throughout the first three quarters of the story, three different illustrations portray the fish scowling at the cat (11, 25, and 37) immediately after each of the cat’s activities. When the cat returns to clean up his mess at the end of the story the fish is shown with a smile on his face (57). Explaining the scowls on the fish’s face support the argument that the cat’s behavior at the beginning of the story is not acceptable to the fish. The fish’s smile at the end of the story reveals that the cat is engaging in behavior that is now acceptance to the
Sensory Imagery: make the reader envision objects and settings in the book with greater detail.
Krauss’ illustrations are very simple with great detail. Each page has open white space between each picture that helps children to focus on the action-taking place within the story that is being told. For example, on the same page as when Krauss is exploring faces, each pair of children is spread apart from one another on the page. This helps to show each expression individually with no distraction of what is being represented.
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.
Through the use of complementary colors, she achieves great contrast. Contrasting hues develop a theme of light vs. dark, or in Liu’s case, expectations vs. reality. Dark colors are used to suggest the harsh, chaotic conditions experienced by the workers; while light, less saturated colors illustrate the calm passivity of traditional Chinese customs and ideas. The sky surrounding the stylized women contrasts greatly with the surroundings of the exhausted men. The dark hues establish heavy visual weight below the figures and the light tones of the sky create a sensation of weightlessness and help to further distinguish the fantasy like qualities. Liu also includes the application of analogous colors, primarily to make the traditional figures less dramatic and to help unify the surrounding
A poem without any complications can force an author to say more with much less. Although that may sound quite cliché, it rings true when one examines “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop. Elizabeth’s Bishop’s poem is on an exceedingly straightforward topic about the act of catching a fish. However, her ability to utilize thematic elements such as figurative language, imagery and tone allows for “The Fish” to be about something greater. These three elements weave themselves together to create a work of art that goes beyond its simple subject.
Picture books unlike novels have a very limited amount of words to inform the reader about the characters and the plot (Scott )(ou dvd no7). The use of a picture to complement and enhance the story is paramount, combining with the experience of the reader to disassemble meaning from the picture (Nodelman, 1999). Moebius quantifies this inherent ability into the elements of colour, perspective, position and size with finally line and capillary to create a code. It is possible to use this code to explore and evaluate some invisible and intangible concepts in Voices in the Park and The Tale of Peter Rabbit.
In fact, the fish story has become a metaphor reflecting the technique used by Finney for expressing the difficult thing beautifully, to compress a poem choosing what should be kept in a poem and what should be thrown away (Finney, “Interview with: Nikky Finney”), to express whatever difficult feelings she has without much noise or rage. Finney sees activism as a basic part of her work.
Sector 7 and Free Fall are two of the well-known picture books that Wiesner has done. Sector 7 is an excellent example of this particular style of work. Many of Wiesner's themes deal with the sky and this book is no exception. From the very first page, a child's attention is grabbed and kept through every page of the book. As the reader glances at his pictur...
Don Freeman (1968) writes this book title Corduroy is a bear that once lived in the toy department of a big store. Day after day he waited with all the other animals and dolls for somebody to come along and take him home. While looking the cover of the book, it shows vibrant illustrations that will truly captures the heart of the child and parents. Molly Bang (1991) stated that colors effect on us is very strong. One of the principles that she mentioned is that white or light backgrounds feel safer to us than dark backgrounds. The background of the last page of the book is white when Lisa held and gives a hug to Corduroy and assures him that he is a friend. The color portrays some meaning to the readers by just looking the picture on every page of this book.
To get started with my research on fables I looked up the definition of “fable”. I also asked my mother what she thought a fable was, and she ended up describing a fairy tale. I found out that fables were mostly stories revolving around animals acting out an event with a moral to it. Then I...
Throughout time the way we visualize things has changed. When the Brothers Grimm’s created “Little Snow White” in 1812 they did not have any way to visually show their ideas to the public. They could not just make a movie or hire an illustrator to bring life to their words. So instead they relied on their readers to use their own imagination to create the characters and scenarios throughout the s...
Jones, Marnie. "The Threat to Imagination in Children's Literature." International Journal of the Book 3.2 (2005/2006): 71-76. Print.
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.