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/
No comments:
Post a Comment