Children Literature---Gorilla by Anthony Browne

SUMMARY
Hannah loves gorillas.  She reads, draws about gorillas but she has never seen a gorilla.  Her father is always busy at working.  The night before her birthday, she receives a gorilla toy at the foot of the bed.  But it is just a toy, Hannah throws the toy into the corner.  Something amazing happens, the gorilla gets bigger.  Hannah is frightened, but the gorilla talks to her with a nice smile and wants to take her to the zoo.  The gorilla wears her father's hat and coat and swings through the trees towards the zoo.  They creep into the zoo and see many gorillas.  She thinks the gorillas are beautiful, yet sad.  Then, the gorilla takes her to the movie and they have meal together.  They go home and Hannah falls asleep.  Next morning, Hannah wakes up and sees the toy gorilla.  She rushes downstairs to tell her father what had happened.  Later, her father takes her to the zoo.  And she is very happy.

ANALYSIS

CHARACTERS
Protagonist---Hannah
Antagonistic---Hannah's father
Foil Character---Gorilla

SETTING
Backdrop Setting--- with no specific starting point of time

NARRATIVE POINT OF VIEW
Limited Narrator---through Hannah's eyes to see the story

PLOT
Plot Type---Dramatic Plot

Setting: Hannah wants to go to zoo, but her father is too busy to take her there.
Conflict: When she receives a toy gorilla, she throws it into the corner.
Rising action: The gorilla gets bigger.
Climax: The gorilla takes her to the zoo and they have a meal together.
Denouement: Her father takes her to the zoo.

CONFLICT
The protagonist against Another---she feels unhappy about her dad just gives her a toy gorilla instead of taking her to the zoo.

THEME
family

STYLE
Word Choice---easy to understand
Sentence---descriptive sentences
Exposition / Dialogue--- about half-half

TONE
Warm

AWARD

Kurt Maschler Award
Kate Greenaway Medal


REFLECTION


This is the third book reflection of Anthony Browne's.  I really enjoy reading his books.  So much imagination in his books and also, the gorillas.  It's an enjoyment to read his books.  I like the story a lot with the imaginary character, gorilla that the author created.  I can see gorilla's images every where on the wall or even  the statue of Liberty.  
This book talks about a little girl who can't really spend her time with her dad because her  dad is always so busy.  I think it's the reflection of the kids nowadays for their parents are always busy working and earning money.  Always, the parents forget the most important thing is to spend more time with their kids.  I'm glad that my parents accompanied me through my childhood time.

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

Children Literature---Willy's Pictures by Anthony Browne

SUMMARY

Willy loves painting and looking at pictures.  He knows that every picture tells a story.  His works look like some famous works, but not really... You can see Willy and his bananas in famous paintings like Mona Lisa, The birth of Venus, ...and so on.

ANALYSIS

CHARACTERS
Willy the monkey

NARRATIVE POINT OF VIEW
Internal Narrator

THEME
Using pictures to tell Willy's Story

STYLE
Word Choice--- Use kid's way to talk, so the words are easy to understand.
Sentence---Most of the sentences are long because of describing pictures.
Exposition--- Willy described the meaning of his idea about each picture.
Dialogue---None

TONE
Humorous,  warm, lovely

AWARD
Hans Christian Andersen Medal---for excellence in illustraition

REFLECTION
I like this book because it changes the famous paintings by putting Willy in and his bananas.  After painting these pictures, Willy would like to add some words under the pictures.  Plus, the writer help us to understand the picture more, he puts fold-out pages of the original famous paintings at the end of the book.  With his humor, we can see the writer uses different point of view to see a picture, so do us~

 The Birthday Suit

"Quick, cover yourself up!"

Lots and Lots and Lots of Dots

"We gradually started to notice some very strange thins in the park."

Coming to Life

"I was just finishing this painting when I heard a small voice say, 'give us a hand.' "

Children Literature---Piggybook by Anthony Browne

SUMMARY
Mr. Piggott lived with his two sons, Simon and, Patrick in a nice house with his wife, Mrs. Piggott.  Everyday, he and his sons just opened their mouths and waited to be fed but Mrs. Piggott had to do every houseworks.  One evening, when the boys got home from school and Mr. Piggott got home from work, they couldn't find their Mom but found a piece of paper written"You are pigs."  Since that day, the father pig and pig sons didn't know how to cook or do the houseworks.  Few days later, Mrs. Piggott went back and they all started to help Mom do the housework, and they even sort of liked it.  And Mom was happy.

ANALYSIS

CHARACTERS
Protagonist--- Mrs. Piggott
Antagonist--- Mr. Piggot, Simon and Patrick
Round Character--- Mrs. Piggott, Mr. Piggott, Simon and, Patrick

SETTING
Backdrop Setting

NARRATIVE POINT OF VIEW:
Omniscient Narrator

PLOT
Plot Type---Dramatic(Progressive) Plot

Setting--- The piggott lived in a nice house.
Conflict--- The father and sons never did any housework but Mom.
Rising action--- Mom left a piece of paper written "You are pigs." and went away.
Climax--- When there were nothing left in the house for the father and sons to cook, they started to root around and found some scraps.  Just then, Mrs. Piggott came back.
Dénuement--- The father and sons started to do houseworks and cooking.
End--- Mom could fix the car.

CONFLICT
The protagonist against another

THEME
Doing housework together is a must, not just Mom's work.

STYLE

Word Choice--- easy words
Sentence--- Using same repetition in different paragraphs.  Most of the sentences are long to describe the situation.
Exposition--- Most expositions are the descriptions of Mom's action or the connections between each situation.
Dialogue--- Most dialogues are between the father and sons, Mom doesn't say any words.

TONE
Humorous, satirical, warm

REFLECTION
I was attracted by the title of the book.  From the cover, you wouldn't know why it's called "Piggybook," I mean, there's no piggy on the book cover.  As I started to dig into the book, I found the most essential part of this book is in the pictures.  At the beginning, there were just a few pig pictures in the ads or cereal cartons.  Then, in the next page, I started to see Mom's appearance but we cannot see her face also, Mom's background color is yellowish and somewhat lonely.

We can easily see that it's always bright and shining when the father and sons is on the pitcture, but Mom's is so dim.  It's a really big contrast.  The big change of the father and sons became pigs was when they found out Mom's leaving and the background changed into pig patterns.  Their life became dull and unhappy and lived like in a pigsty.

Days later, Mom came home like a lighthouse lighting up the house.  The father and sons were so happy, not just opened their mouths waiting for food.  In the end, they knew they should help Mom do the housework and later, Mom could even fix the car.

I think the end picture that Mom fixing the car is a really big change because Mom is not just working in the house to be a housewife, she can also do something else she like.  Also, it indicates that the stereotype of Mom doing housework alone has been changed, father and children starts to do housework now.  I believe this is a perfect book to teach children doing housework. :)