Children Literature---Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann

SUMMARY

Officer Buckle loved to write down safety tips and thumbtacked these on his board.  He shared his safety tips at schools, but nobody listened.  One day, the police department bought a dog, named Gloria.  Officer Buckle started to take Gloria to school when giving speeches.  Since that day, everyone loved his speech and more schools asked him to give a speech for them.  After every speech, Officer Buckle took Gloria out for ice cream.  Officer Buckle loved having a buddy.  One day, a television news team videoed Officer Buckle in the state college auditorium.  That night, Officer Buckle watched himself on the news, and found out the truth.  He felt sad and stopped giving speech.  Gloria went to school , but looked lonely on the stage.  Children wrote letters to Officer Buckle and hoped they could come back.  Later, Gloria and Officer Buckle were buddies again.


ANALYSIS

CHARACTERS
Protagonist/Round Character--- Officer Buckle
Foil Character---Gloria

SETTING
Backdrop Setting---With no specific time or place, but introducing the main character at the beginning

NARRATIVE POINT OF VIEW
Limited Narrator---through Officer Buckle's eyes to see the world

PLOT
Plot Type--- Dramatic Plot

Setting: The dog, Gloria, arrived in the police station one day.
Conflict: They started to give speech together to different schools.
Rising action: TV show at the  Stale College auditorium
Climax: Officer Buckle found out the truth that everyone likes to watch Gloria's show, not him.
Denouement: They were buddy again!


CONFLICT
The protagonist against Self---He was depressed that everyone love Gloria, but not him.  Finally, he realized that only he and Gloria could make a wonderful team and good buddies.


THEME
The importance of friendship and being safe

STYLE
Word Choice--- Sometimes, use capitalized type of words can grab attention.
Sentence--- Use longer sentences to describe situations.
Exposition--- Most of the sentences provide the situation.
Dialogue--- Dialogue is most used by Officer Buckle.

TONE
Humor, warm

AWARD
1996 Caldecott Medal Winner

REFLECTION
It's a very interesting book to describe the friendship between a human and a dog.  There are some interesting ideas in this book like different tips at the beginning of the book.  When I read each safety tips, I laughed a lot!  Some tips are actually very useful.  What I like the most about this book is the friendship between Officer and Gloria.  People sometimes have strops with friends because of little things.  For me, friends are important and essential in my life.  This book let me know that I should cherish the friends around me.  We all need friends and so our life can full of joy and happiness with friends.

EXTERNAL LINK