Fantasy Book Review

Little Tad Grows Up, is a great children’s picture book written and illustrated by Giuliano Ferri. This book is about a tadpole who enjoyed his life as a tadpole. However, as he starts to mature into a frog he becomes sad because he did not want to grow up. By the end of the book, Tad realizes that it is okay to be grown up—maybe even a great thing (Ferri, 2007)!

            I would put this book under the fantasy genre, animal fantasy to be more specific. It would fall under that classification because the main character is an animal and he possess human qualities. In this book, Tad, plays basketball with the other tadpoles and he also hold conversations with his family members. The tadpole even experiences human emotions such as sadness and happiness. Other characteristics of fantasy is that it takes the readers to a whole new world of life as a tadpole as they read the story.

            The illustrations of this book were generated with mediums such as pencil and water color with the help of digital media. The author does not use bold colors, but instead uses more calm hues of blue, green, and yellow (Ferri, 2007). The books illustrations take up the whole page, which makes it apart of the story as you find the word within the images. Doing so, really helps to bring readers into the setting (a pond) as those colors best resemble the real world. I believe the illustrations enhance the text because it really helps to set the scene and the mood for the story.

The setting takes place in early Spring in a pond with other animals. The author does a great job with characterization, as the readers witness Tad go through extreme growth in the story. In the beginning of the book, the readers learn that Tad is a young tadpole and he loves to play with the other tadpole. As he begins to change physically and grow up is becomes scared to change until he finally realizes that it is good to grow up (Ferri, 2007)! The readers definitely see huge growth in the main character. The theme of this book is teaching children that everybody grows and its okay to get older, and change is not always a bad thing. The style of this book is written in an easy-to-follow way for young readers.

            I personally enjoy the book, and I think it is a great read for children. The author finds a great way to teach children a valuable lesson in a way that is fun and entertaining for children. This book is actually the only one written this author had written as his focus is more illustrations and drawing comic animations for children with disabilities for therapy. He was born in Pesaro, Italy and went to the Urbino Institute of Art where he specialized in animations (Marvin, H., 2008).

            Some activities that could be done after the book is read is to have the students write about a time they had to go through change that they did not want but in the end realized that it was not so bad (Cullian et al., 2010). Another activity for children to do is to have them do is to draw out how they imagine themselves when they grow up and what they want to be. After they complete the drawing they can say one fear they have about growing up and discuss how to overcome that fear with the class.  

References

Cullian, B., Galda, L., Sipe, L. (2010). Literature and the child. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Ferri, G. (2007). Little tad grows up. Penguin Young Readers Group: New York, NY.

Marvin, H. (2008, August 18). Giuliano Ferri. Retrieved January 27, 2017, from http://stories-alive.com/author/giuliano-ferri/

Multicultural Book Review

             “Too Many Tamales,” was written by Gary Soto and illustrated by Ed Martinez. It entails a story of a girl named Maria who helps her mom make Tamales. While her mom steps away from the kitchen for a moment, Maria sneaks and tries on her mother’s ring. When her mother returns, she quickly goes back to kneading the masa. Maria later becomes frazzled when she realizes that her mother’s ring is missing! After eating all the tamales in search of the ring, Maria learns that her mother had the ring all along. The genre of this book would have to be contemporary realistic fiction. Typical characteristics of realistic fiction is a story plot that could happen in real life with realistic characters. Also, another characteristic of this genre takes place in a modern time. “Too Many Tamales” fits into this genre because Maria and all the other characters are definitely ones that could exist outside of the story. The book also, has a real-life problem (the possibility of the ring being loss) that she is trying to solve. Finally, there is no magic or fantasy in the story line. The illustrations in this book contains illustrations that use paint and pastel art to illustrate this story with dark colors and thick lines. The dark colors show the intensity of the book and the weariness in the story.  The illustrations throughout the book cover in the entire page, and are predictable to add to story plot and help the readers with a better interpretation. The theme in the literature is that telling the truth always surpasses a lie because eventually the truth will be known. The setting in the story takes place during Christmas in a Mexican household. The setting is great because it incorporates different culture that is mixed with Mexican culture (making the tamales) and American tradition (Christmas tree).  The plot of this story is centralized around Maria helping her mother with the Tamales, to her mother’s missing ring and the search for it, and ends Maria telling the truth and finding out that everything is still okay. A good activity that could be used with the book is having the readers to write a reflection about the different ways the story could have played out if Maria had decided not to the tell the truth. This could help them to understand that telling a lie is not a good thing, and that there can be many bad outcomes that come with telling a lie. Another activity that could be used with this book is have all the readers discuss with their peers something that they learned from the book, whether it be about the Mexican culture, the theme, or anything else that they took away from the book. Since this is a multicultural book, it is good to have children discuss the differences in the book so they are able to reflect on them and gain a learning experience. Good reader response question for this book would be; Explain a time in which you were in a situation like Maria where you had to choose between telling the truth or a lie? What did you do and why? Another good reader response question for this book would be; If you were the author, would you write the story in a different way? Why or why not? These questions will help the readers think about the literature in a different way, and help them personally connect to what they have read in the text. This book overall is a great book for children to read. It teaches them in a subtle way that honesty is appreciated and that you should want to tell the truth mainly based off of the fact that it is the right thing to do.

                                                                   References 

Cullian, B., Galda, L., Sipe, L. (2010). Literature and the child. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage        Learning.

Martinez, E., Soto, G. (1993). Too many tamales. New York, NY: Putnam