A Chair For My Mother

Williams, Vera B. A Chair for My Mother. New York: Greenwillow Books, 1982.

This is a story told by the young girl who selflessly devises a plan to donate her hard earned money to her single working mother and grandmother. She wants to help buy a piece of comfy furniture after a fire destroyed their home and belongings. The family fills a huge jar with spare coins they collect each day and optimistically count the money inside nightly until the day when the jar is full and their dream of a comfy armchair is obtained.

Vera B. Williams's (author and illustrator) use of the little girl as the narrator creates a selfless and optimistic theme of a child trying to give something of value to her mother. She plays on the child’s hopeful narration and invites readers of any age to relate to and enjoy the realistic story. The specific setting of the story is never mentioned, but obviously it is located in a city which allows for a large spectrum of readers to insert themselves into the story. Williams's Caldecott Honor illustrations enhance the story further by expressing the scenery and mood of the story through artistic color and borders. Williams's relationship between text and art helps a wide range of audiences understand visually her theme of selflessness; a solid lesson for kids and adults to learn and review which I believe is Williams’s hidden meaning behind her book.

Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting and illustrated by Ronald Himler

Fly Away Home is a story of a homeless boy and his father who live in an airport, each day moving to a new terminal in an effort to go unnoticed. One day the boy sees a bird trapped in the airport and when the bird escapes through a door, he realizes that he also will find a way out someday. Some readers may not be able to relate to being homeless and having to live in an airport, but they can probably relate to the feeling of being trapped in a situation at some point in their lives. Since the story is told through the eyes of the boy, children can relate to his feelings and adults can relate because they were children at one time.
The idea of being trapped can be felt through both the pictures and the text. The pictures help to capture the boys’ sadness and the dull colors enhance the readers' feelings of pain and lifelessness. Both the boy and his father always wear blue, a color often associated with sadness and the pictures seem to close in around the words, drawing the eyes of the reader inward which may represent feeling trapped, as well.
According to The Horn Book, "the problem of homelessness, so distressing and so difficult to explain to children, has found moving expression in a simple, universal picture book…"[1] I agree, homelessness can be hard to explain and the feelings of those who are homeless can he hard to get across. This book helps children and adults experience the pain of the homeless through words and pictures.

[1] This quote can be found on the back of Fly Away Home.

Bunting, Eve. Fly Away Home. New York: Clarion, 1991.

The Loudness of Sam By: James Proimos

 

Proimos, James. The Loudness of Sam. San Diego: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1999.

 

This story is about a young boy by the name of Sam who has been conditioned by his parents to express his feelings LOUDLY since birth. He takes a vacation with his pet Duck to visit his Aunt Tillie who lives in the “Big City”. Aunt Tillie is someone different than Sam; she suppresses her feeling and expects Sam to do the same. Ultimately Sam teaches his Aunt to express her feelings as well.

 

The color choices are very vibrant which is representative of Sam’s personality. The neon colors are exploding off the page creating a visual noise similar to the “Loudness of Sam”. The textures of these illustrations are rough and according to Cullinan & Galda, “texture conveys a sense of reality” (Pg.80). Sam’s fluctuation of moods and emotions between crying and laughing create a rough transition throughout the story. The illustrator exaggerates the typical human form by expanding, stretching, and elongating geometric shapes such as round ears to appeal to the imaginations of children.

 

I believe that James Proimos was extremely effective in bringing literary and artistic components together. Throughout the book, color selection, increase in the size of the words and the cartoon illustrations truly emphasized Sam’s loud persona.  Also, children having difficulty reading would be able to decipher the story from the pictures. This book appeals to both young and old and does a good job conveying the message that, it is ok to be surprised in a new environment and you can express yourself accordingly.

 

Other Sources:

Cullinan, Bernice, and Lee Galda. Literature and the Child. 5th ed. Wadsworth, 2002

The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash by Trinka Hakes Noble, Illustrations: Steven Kellogg

Noble Hakes, Trinka. The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash. New York: Puffin Books, 1980.

In The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash, a little girl tells her mother about the adventures she experiences while visiting the local farm with her class. The story all begins with the mother asking her daughter how her field trip was only to get the response of “oh… boring…kind of dull…until the cow started crying.” Which then begins the story of all the debauchery, which occurs on the school field trip to the farm.

The artwork of this book is a cartoon. The colors used are vivid, and the pictures take up the entire page with little writing on each page. This is done so that the reader feels like they were on the farm, seeing this first hand The pictures really enhance the story because the words are so simple; the pictures really make the story of what occurred on the field trip come alive. The media used to create the artwork is a combination of water colors and pencils, pencil being used to show details like the beard on the farmer, while water colors are used in shadows and other large areas.

This book would be considered contemporary realistic fiction because it is often children in the modern time would go to a farm for a school field trip. This book is intended for younger children in elementary school, however adults will find the pictures and language of the book humorous and relatable to a conversation they may have with their own child about a school trip.

Owl Moon~ Picture book, Contemporary Realistic Fiction

Yolen, Jane. John Schoenherr. Owl Moon. New York: Philomel Books, 1987.

Owl Moon is about a father taking his daughter owling. They walk through the woods and the daughter learns from her father. She learns about being quiet, brave, and patient. Finally, the daughter and father get to watch an owl fly over their heads together. The story is told through the eyes of the little girl.

The writing on the pages is always placed on a light blue or white background making it easy to read. This also makes the reader feel as if the writing is a message in snow. All of the illustrations are very detailed with faces and all of the owl’s feathers shown clearly. These pictures are also very colorful even though they are placed in the snow and woods where most would think that there are only a few basic colors. The shapes used in the illustrations are all very easily recognized by the reader and will help in understanding the images.

The illustrations and the text complement one another. A younger reader can grasp what’s going on through the pictures and the text without fully understanding all of the text. The illustrations mesmerize the reader making them want to read the text. The author is showing the importance of a daughter's relationship with her father. This story is very socially relevant because it shows the importance of male role models, even in girls' lives. Anyone can enjoy this book, however, the reading age level would be 7 years old.

Notes from spring break

Hi everyone,

I hope all of you are enjoying spring break. I'm staying home this year to focus on my writing and to spend some time catching up on my pleasure reading. I've also just reread posts on the blog, which have inspired me to pen some more limericks!

This morning NPR had a segment on "Harriet the Spy" that made me think of some of the conversations we had in class last week related to contemporary realistic fiction. (By following the link you can listen to the 7 minute broadcast.) I would love to hear people's experiences with the book and responses to the segment.

I'm reading "Brave Story" by Miyuki Miyabe this break. Miyabe is a Japanese writer who is known for her detective stories. "Brave Story" is a translation of her popular fantasy for kids. (It is 816 pages, so I didn't dare start it until break!) It took me almost 100 pages to get into it and now I can't put it down! A good reminder for myself that we all need time to sink into books.

As people come back from break, I hope you'll share any connections you made with your travels and the course!

Valerie

Session 7: Voices in the Park and Comtemporary Realistic Fiction

In next week's session we'll be having our second small group literature discussion!

• Read Voices in the Park. (I would suggest you read it several times. I usually do my first read "just for pleasure" and then do more careful reads.)
• If you don't know, check the list on Angel to see what letter you have been assigned. Then check the schedule to see what response role you will be taking on for the book.
  
• Refer to the syllabus for a description of your role and write a response. Those who are assigned artistic response need to create a response and write a paper. Those who are assigned intertextual response need to look for one or more other "texts" to bring to their reading of Voices...

• Read Chapter 7 (Contemporary Realistic Fiction): How is the genre defined? What criteria might we use to evaluate this genre? What might be points of controversy around the selection of these texts?
  
• Read Gillis (2002): What are multi-genre and multi-vocal texts? What do they offer us as readers? What do we need to be able to do to make sense of these texts?
  

• Submit your papers to the Angel dropbox by 6 pm the night BEFORE class meets. To clarify, you should upload your paper as an attachment. The attachment should be labeled according to the directions in the syllabus. Do NOT cut an paste your paper in the box!
  
• Bring a hard copy of your paper to class for reference and to give to your facilitator.

• Don't forget that you need to post or comment during the second 5 weeks of class!
  

Next week we'll share our responses in our small groups, look at some contemporary realistic fiction, and do an activity that will push how we think about multi-vocal genres.

Comment on this post with your questions as they occur to you! If you have a more particular question, please email me!