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).

Frances Hodgson Burnett

Frances Hodgson Burnett was born on November 24, 1849 in Cheetham Hill, Manchester. Burnett’s father died early in her life and as a result her family stuggled financialy. When Burnett was only eithtenn her mother passed away. Burnett was left with the duty to are for her four younger brothers. Burnettt started to write as a way to support her family. Burnett married Dr. Swan Burnett in 1873. Burnett wrote her first in 1877 called That Lass o' Lowrie's which was a story of Lancashire life. Burnett began to write many novels like: Haworth's (1879), Louisiana (1880), A Fair Barbarian (1881), and Through One Administration (1883), as well as a play, Esmeralda (1881). In 1898 Burnett unfortantly got divorced. But Burnett got remarried to a man named Stephen Townsend. Unfortnatly, this marriage did not last eaither. Burnett soon began writing again and she published: A Little Princess (1905); The Lady of Quality, The Secret Garden (1909). Most children and adults are probably familiar with The Secret Garden. Burnett died on October 29, 1924.

Junie B. Jones Loves Handsome Warren

On day a new boy comes to the school. His name is Warren is he is very handsome. On that same day Grace and Junie B. cannot find Lucille. When Grace and Junie B. finally find Lucille, Warren is chasing after her. Grace and Junie B. shoo Warren away, but Lucille gets upset because Warren is her new boyfriend. All three girls think Warren is very handsome (hey he was even in a commercial). The girls soon begin to fight over Warren. Lucille is worried that Junie B. and Grace will try to steal her new boyfriend away from her. Warren thinks that Lucille is beautiful because of her pretty dresses, he thinks Grace can “run speedy fast” with her new lightning shoes, and he thinks Junie B. is a nut ball because she cannot stop laughing. Junie B. tries to get Warren to love her. He seems to “love” all of them except Junie B. However, one day Warren is sitting in the grass sad and Grace and Lucille say they don’t want to be his friend today so Junie B. stays with Warren to cheer him up. Eventually, Junie B. gets him to laugh by telling knock kock jokes. So now they are friends and as Junie B. says, “it’s happily ever after.”

I can totally relate to this whenever I was in second grade me and all of my friends had a crush on a boy named Wesley. He told his friends that he liked all of us, so we would fight over his attention to make him like one of us more. And come to find out now he is now gay.

By the way, I love the Junie B. Jones books if you have not figured it out yet!!

Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business

Junie B. Jones finds out that her mother is having a baby. Junie is not too excited about having a little brother or sister because they smell like “P.U.” Before long, Junie’s mother is in the hospital giving birth to Junie’s brother. Junie gets to spend the night at her Grandpa Miller’s house. She is very excited about spending the night at Grandpa Miller’s house because she gets to try on her grandma’s clothes and most importantly she gets to eat a pie for dinner and only a pie. In the morning Junie’s grandma arrives and starts talking about the baby. Grandma Miller says, “Your new brother is the cutest little monkey I’ve ever seen!” Junie takes that as if her brother was a real monkey. So Junie goes to school and tells everybody that her brother is a monkey. Junie’s two best friends fight over who gets to see the baby monkey first. So they start to bribe Junie. When the teacher (Mr. as Junie calls her) finds out she sends Junie to the principal’s office to straighten out the little monkey business. The principal calls Grandma Miller and she tells Junie she did not really mean her brother was a monkey only that he was cute. So the principal takes Junie into the class and tells them of Junie’s misunderstanding.

I liked how Junie and a boy smiled at each other and she thought he was her boyfriend. She also said she had another boyfriend. I can totally remember being in second grade and the same boy was dating half the girls in the class.
Junie likes to convert words to their true meanings a lot
She talks of many descriptive things and what she likes and does not like a lot.

Dr. Seuss

First things first, Dr. Seuss’ real name was Theodor Seuss Geisel. Theodor went as Dr. Seuss in his children’s books. Theodor was born on March 2, 1902 in Springfield, Massachusetts. Theodor’s mother’s name was Henrietta Seuss (that is how his name came about) and his father’s name was Theodor Robert Geisel. Theodor had two sisters, named Marnie and Henrietta. Unfortunately, Henrietta died of pneumonia at only eighteen months old. Theodor attended Oxford University and attained his PHD. Also, Theodor met his wife at Oxford. Originally Theordor started out drawing political cartoons from the left-wing New York City daily newspaper; he drew over 400 cartoons in two years. Later, Theodor turned to writing children’s books. Theodor wrote and published over 40 children's books, which very distinctive by the frequent use of rhymes. A few of Theodor’s most his most notable books are: Green Eggs and Ham, The Cat in the Hat, and One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish.

The Tale of Peter Rabbit

These above are two videos of The Tale of Peter Rabbit story. The videos stayed very close to the original book. The color scheme was the same. And defiantly the story plot was the same too. One thing the video had that the book did not was Peter’s friend Benjamin. Benjamin was not an important character in the videos (he was seen once and mentioned another time). Peter wanted Benjamin to go with him to Mr. McGregor’s garden, but he could not. Another difference was at the end of the book Peter did not turn around or stop until get was home but in the video he stopped in the middle of the woods. I noticed that in both versions Peter was very boy or childlike but during his run in with Mr. McGregor he lost his shoes, lost his jacket, and started to run on all four legs. It seems like Peter turned into a real rabbit when he was being chased and he even acted less boy like. But at the end he turns more boy like. The story has a lesson at the end, just like many Victorian stories.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rppig5VYYlQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIwIhSj3t_0&feature=related

Children's Books and their Illustrations

In Children’s books the illustrations are so very important. I never really thought about the illustration as the most important part of the story but they truly are. Once I started to read the chapters from the Literature for Children book, I started to realize how important the pictures are. Thinking back, when I was younger I loved the pictures in all of the books I read. Sometimes, I would not even want to read the book I only wanted to look at the beautiful pictures. It gave me visualization for what the story was about. One thing that I wish I would have paid attention to when I was younger was the colors that were being used in the pictures. The illustrator uses bright colors and dark colors to show mood. Furthermore, the books states that red and yellows are warm colors that show excitement and blue and greens are cool colors that are used to represent calmness or quietness.