Recently published picture books

I selected and read the following picture books for this assignment:

Bildner, P., & Parra, J. (2015). Marvelous Cornelius: Hurricane Katrina and the spirit of New Orleans. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books LLC.

Cyrus, K. (2011). The voyage of Turtle Rex. Boston, USA: Houghton Mifflin Children’s Books.

Evans, S. (2016). We march. New York: Square Fish.

Gamble, A., & Veno, J. (2006). Good night, New York City. Dennis, MA: Our World of Books.

Harrington, J. N., Lagarrigue, J., & Browne, J. (2004). Going north. New York: Melanie Kroupa Books/Farrar Straus and Giroux.

Holub, J., & Lichtenheld, T. (2012). Zero the hero: a book about nothing! New York: Henry Holt.

Hoppe, P. (2009). Hat. New York: Bloomsbury.

Isadora, R., & Isadora, R. (2007). Yo, Jo! Orlando, FL: Harcourt, Inc.

Iyengar, M. M., & Wanardi, J. (2007). Romina’s rangoli. Fremont, CA: Shen’s Books.

Jacobs, P. D., Swender, J., & Yaccarino, D. (2014). Count on the subway. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

Lin, G. (2010). Ling & Ting: not exactly the same! New York: Little, Brown.

Messner, K., & Siegel, M. (2015). How to read a story. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.

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I reviewed my favorites, using the guidelines from Kathleen Horning’s book From Cover to Cover : Evaluating and Reviewing Children’s Books:

The first book I chose was Count on the Subway – a simple counting book. The text rhymes throughout, and repeats the phrase “momma and me” on the first and last pages of the book. The book counts up to 10 using train stops and other information, then counts back down to 1. Illustrations were created with brush & ink and Adobe Photoshop. Paper is glossy and thick, and the cover is a high-quality matte image with a glossy offset title. Visual elements support the text, and are playful – with bright color themes on each page, and semi-abstract representations of city scenes, train stations, and commuters. There are enough graphic details on each page to inspect closely and discuss with children.

Activities around 1-10 counting could be a fun program for children. Cut out circles, like those in the book, could be created and posted on artwork of a train, helping the children to count forward and backward, using their numbered circles.

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The second book is called We March and is an historical depiction of the 1963 human rights march on Washington D.C. Broadly, it shows who marches, how they march, and why they march. Text is simple and sparse – almost poetic – and the images support the same-page text with each of the two-page illustrations. Key words are repeated throughout the book, to support the essence of marching: “We work together, we walk together.” Illustrations are artistic paintings with visible brush textures, earth tones, and soft shapes. Characters are primarily African-American, but also shown are varying ethnicities, religions and ages represented at the march on Washington. The final narrative page is a striking two-page image of Martin Luther King, Jr. with a portion of his famous speech painted behind his raised hand. There is an afterword, for adult readers, describing the march on Washington and other marches that have changed legislation and improved human rights.

            

Activities might be to make signs like those displayed in the book, or to talk about ways to improve human rights now. If it is an older class, there could be letters written to congress, or reading and viewing current marches that are currently happening.

References

Horning, K. (2010). From cover to cover : Evaluating and reviewing children’s books (Rev. ed.). New York: Collins. Ch. 5

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