Poetry for Children- The Llama Who Had No Pajama

The Llama Who Had No Pajama

By Mary Ann Hoberman

Illustrated by Betty Fraser

ISBN: 978-0-15-205571-4

Each week I try to select a book that I not only want to take out from my local library, but one that I want to purchase and keep in my own personal library, and to use professionally with students in the future.  I am confident that the selection I made for this week's assignment is one that I will use time and time again as a teacher.

I chose The Llama Who Had No Pajama by Mary Ann Hoberman because I found the collection of poems entertaining and engaging.  I think that poetry can be a wonderful genre to share and explore with students, but that you must be careful in the selection and approach you take so that the children in your class grow up as poetry fans.   The poems in The Llama Who Had No Pajama will definitely appeal to students with topics such as cockroaches, frogs, worms, and everyday items such as windshield wipers; everyday items, animals and ideas. 

The other component that I liked about this collection of poetry was the artwork by Betty Fraser.  The colors are not bright, and the images are not extremely detailed, but they accompany the text very well, and are position around the poems themselves, making the images even more apart of the written words.

The Llama Who Had No Pajama is the winner of the National Council of Teachers of English Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children, as well as other accolades, and it easy to see why; the poems are wonderfully written.

My favorite poems in the story are those about sea life such as "Whale", "Way Deep Down", "A Thought" and "Fish"... the subject matter of sea life fascinates me, the illustration that accompanies these poems is beautiful, and the adjectives and flow of these poems grabbed my interest.

There are far too many poems in this book to share with students in one sitting, a hundred poems actually.  I think it would be best to share only a single poem at a time and really enjoy and digest each individual poem.  There is so much that can be done with poetry, and it would be great to use book to show children poems about nature and everyday and then take a trip to a local park and have students create their own poems about things they see there- trees, insects, people, etc.

Its A Small World After All

Whoever You Are

By Mem Fox

Illustrated by Leslie Staub

Published by Voyager Books

ISBN: 0-15-216406-5

I have to admit before the beginning of this semester I had never heard of Mem Fox. I was completely unfamiliar with her stories and have yet to recognize one as having read it before. I am a career changer, and as an undergraduate my reading consisted primarily of business textbooks. So, there is a large gap in my knowledge of children’s literature. If I did not read an author as a child myself, there is a good chance I have not been introduced to their work until now.

With that being said, I am so grateful to have been introduced to Mem Fox’s work. I think many of the books we’ve looked at in class are varied in their style, composition and subject, but are all poignant and high quality. Also, since Fox works with different illustrators, many of the designs, layouts and illustrations are varied in her books as well, and I find that appealing as a reader.

I have selected Mem Fox’s Whoever You Are, published in 2001 by Voyager Books and illustrated by Leslie Staub as an example of a multicultural picture book to share with you.

While many of Fox’s stories take place in her native Australia and display her own culture, there are some other stories that do not. Whoever You Are celebrates cultures around the world and shows the commonalities we have as a human race. That is a very big concept, yet this book is clearly written for children as young as kindergarten. I especially love how the story begins, “Little one, whoever you are.” Fox is talking directly to the child and letting them know right from the beginning that this story is written for them, about them. The language is eloquently written throughout, and sends a clear message to children that despite the differences in cultures throughout the world, inside everyone is the same.

The book details the differences in ethnicities such as language, skin color, schooling and even the land where they are from, but focuses on the similarity that people from these different cultures all share. This similarity is feelings; everyone loves, laughs, hurts, and feels the same emotions. I think the message of this story is so important to share with students. I would use this story to begin the school year, as well as when learning about multiculturalism and different ethnicities.

The illustrations that go along with the story are what really caught my eye. I skimmed through a few contenders, but eventually settled on Mem Fox’s Whoever You Are because I always try to pick a book I want to purchase and keep in my own library. The illustrations are a big part of the reason I was drawn to this book. Leslie Staub created the images. Originally, the illustrations were done as oil paintings. Each page has an image of the actual frames that the oil paintings are in, and these are made from painted plaster and wood and have gems on them. I would take a great amount of time examining each page with students to look closer at the culture being highlighted in each picture, be that in Asia, Europe, Australia, the Americas or Africa.

One great idea I saw to try with students is having them create illustrations, using Leslie Staub’s work in Whoever You Are as inspiration. This is exactly what one class did in a school in Quebec, Canada. (Don’t you just love that not only does the book transcend to different places, but so does the lessons and activities you can do with students.) The images the class created are pretty amazing, check them out for yourself.  The work that students can create will be able to fill your classrooms wall and bulletin boards, and serve as a reminder of the message in Mem Fox's story.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun... The Twelve Dancing Princesses: The Original Fairy Tale of Girls Night Out!

The Twelve Dancing Princesses

As Told By Marianna Mayer

Illustrated by K.Y. Craft

Published by Morrow Junior Books

"What is your favorite fairytale?"

That is the question I asked friends and family this week.  I received a host of answers including Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Rapunzel, and my own personal favorite Sleeping Beauty.  Then I asked a coworker and finally received an answer I was unfamiliar with, The Twelve Dancing Princesses.  I was intrigued.  Disney hadn't tapped into this fairytale, and neither had I.  I decided that I needed to find this fairytale to focus on for this week.

The Twelve Dancing Princesses is a German fairytale originally published by the Brother Grimm.  There have been various adaptations of this story told over time.  Every story that I came across had a few key components in common and the general synopsis that there were twelve sisters that were all princesses that would go out dancing every night after their father, the king, would lock them in their bedroom.

I chose the Mulberry Books' version of this classic story, written by Marianna Mayer and illustrated by K.Y. Craft, in 1989.  In this version of the story, a gardener discovers the girls are sneaking out to a secret castle at night to dance with princes, as they and the princesses are all enchanted.  The gardener has a magic flower, that when worn as a boutonniere, makes him invisible.  This is how he is able to follow and discover why the princesses slippers are so worn out each morning.  The gardener falls in love with the youngest princess in this version, as the male hero does in each version of this story.

One of the main reasons I chose this story was because of the ending.  In this version of the story, the youngest princess, name Elisa is the hero.  She saves the gardener from falling under the trance that all the princesses and princes at the secret castle are under by taking his poisoned drink and throwing it on the floor.  This act of love, saving the gardener, also breaks the spell and saves everyone else in the kingdom.  I think that it has a very positive message, showing the princess as the heroine, instead of the damsel in distress.

The other main reason that I selected this version of The Twelve Dancing Princesses was due to the quality of the writing and illustrations.  Each illustration looks like a mural from a museum and help evoke the essence of the time the story took place, centuries ago when kings and queens ruled over kingdoms. 

The illustrations matched the text very well.  In fact, the illustrations were done so well that without any text you are able to follow the events that are taking place.  I truly enjoyed the detail of the illustrations in this book.  The text of this story is well written and although it is quite lengthy, I found it to be engaging and an enjoyable read, that I would want to share with my future classes. 

There was an additional version of this story that I considered using, written by Susanna Davidson and illustrated by Anna Luraschi in 2007.  There were a few notable differences with this version.  Firstly, this story was clearly written for a younger audience.  While the Mulberry version had paragraphs of text on each page, this version had a line or two, making it an acceptable selection for younger students to read independently.  Also, the illustrations are much cleaner and basic, using brighter colors; also it seems to appeal to a younger audience. 

The final difference in this version was that the story seemed truer to the Brothers Grimm version in the sense that there were many "heroes" that tried to discover the princesses secret, and all failed and were beheaded.  I was surprised to find this part of the story translated for children in this book, because it seemed as though the author and illustrator had made many adjustments to allow this book to be accessible to children and yet kept the idea of having people suffer a penalty of death as something that was not altered.  For this reason, I did not select the Davidson/Luraschi version of Twelve Dancing Princesses.  With that said, I think comparing and contrasting various versions of this fairytale is something I would definitely want to do with a class.  I think that modeling comparing the two, and other versions, could lead to an entire unit looking at folktales and fairytales and making connections and assessments. 

One of my favorite part of reading is discovering new, old and retold stories, and for this reason I am very glad to have been introduced to The Twelve Dancing Princesses!