Amber's Tutu

I just finished with my children’s book. I called it Amber’s tutu. It is about an elderly lady who finds her old tutu while cleaning out her attic. After Amber finds her tutu, she remembers a time whenever she had a recital and she was late. Amber and her mother had to fight traffic, run down the sidewalk just to get to the recital. When they arrive, another child is dancing and Amber thinks she has missed her turn. However, Ambers turn got switched so she arrived just in time. While recalling the memory, the doorbell rings so Amber opens her eyes. Amber’s granddaughter is at the door so amber gives her the tutu.

This story was so much fun to write and illustrate but it took a lot longer than I thought. I illustrated all of the pictures with water colors.
Here is my analysis

I used the Literature for Children book (Russell) a great deal when I started to write my children’s story. On page 123, Russell states that, “Picture-books plots tend to be simple […].Often picture-books rely on repetitive patterns.” In Amber’s Tutu the motivation of Amber to get to her recital is simply to dance. When it comes down to it, the book would not exist if it was not for Amber’s motivation to dance. Although I did not use repetition of a particular phrase, I did however use repatition within the sentence structure. Many of my sentences use the word “and” many times (like on page 15). Russell later states again on page 123 that, “Many [picture-books] rely heavily on dialogue […].” Amber’s Tutu has nine pages with dialogue out of the thirteen pages with actual text on them. Dialogue lets the reader connect with the story easier than a simple passive sentence. In addition, round shapes, curved lines and circular lines show comport, security, and stability (125). In my story I tried to make Amber’s attic have roundish window frames, door borders, and boxes to show the calmness of Amber’s world. Furthermore, Russell states, “Squarish, angular shapes many elicit more excitable responses, agitation, alarm, confusion.” In Amber’s Tutu, whenever the conflict arises that Amber is going to be late for her dance the pictures get angular. On page 10, the stair case picture is very squarish as opposed to the previous illustrations. The car illustrations are also very squarish while the stage illustration with Susie is angular. These are the conflict scenes of the book. Color is another element of children’s books that Russell talks about. I used blues and greens in scenes what were meant to be calm (many of them are with the roundish illustrations) and I used reds and yellows in the exciting action scenes (many of them are with the squarish illustrations).