The Caldecott Medal Essay

Today, I will tell you about the illustrations in three articles. Illustrations help me understand what the passage is talking about. Also, illustrations help me visualize the story better. The articles I will tell you about are: The Wild Horses of Assategue Island, Wild Ponies of Chincotegue, and In Thunder and Rain, Chincotegue Ponies Make Annual Swim.

The author of this book did make use of literary elements to tell the story. These elements are also used in other picture books such as lines, shapes, color and speech bubble. The book is a graphic novel and dialogue takes majority of the writing in the book. The dialogical and concise style of writing of the author including the pictures

There are only a small number of illustrations but these add character to the story.

By using imagery throughout the book, the reader gets a better idea of what life was like through Jeanette's eyes.

significant because it shows that the book is trying to draw a picture in the reader's mind about

The illustrations are simply unnecessary and do not add anything but a distraction from the reading. Several pictures included in the text simply don’t relate to what is occurring in that specific chapter. One example of this is on page 114, where a picture of Pooh in a forest is included. Although beautifully illustrated, the chapter is talking about “Ode to Joy” by Beethoven, not about Pooh in a forest. The overall meaning of The Tao of Pooh was very abstract and often extremely unrelated, similar to the illustrations.

Though they may seem like simple stories meant for children, picture books can often contain deeper meanings using not only the story but also the design of the book. The artwork, placement of the text, and even the usage of the book’s gutter is intentional and can contribute to the central theme of the book. Eric Carle’s Little Cloud is an example of a simple looking picture book that is more than it seems. Through this story about a cloud changing shape, Carle demonstrates the process of children discovering their own identities and being accepted into society.

The Nobel Prize for Literature was not rewarded to the deserving writer. You have awarded Bob Dylan the Nobel Prize for Literature on October 13, 2016 degrading dedicated writers around the world. After dropping out of college in the 1960’s to pursue an occupation in which he was already well known as the times “most loved folk poet”, he turned to singing and writing rock-type songs with anti war messages. Whether he did “create new poetic expressions within the great American tradition” he has not proven himself worthy of such a significant award. Such a legendary award offered to many other brilliant writers, should be received by someone who can and will continue to change the world. This award could help out developing writers, developing countries, and should not be handed out single handedly.

I could easily imagine a parent using this book to help their child learn colors as well as learning to read. There isn’t anything that I disliked about this book or the illustrations. I think the author and illustrator done a wonderful job on all of it. I hope that they continue to work together on other books.

As a digital artist myself I immediately noticed what would normally be considered "sloppy" illustrations. But on retrospect I realized that's not at all the case. Young ones easily recognize simple drawings, much like what they are trying to mimic and create on their own, and it's exactly drawn for their level. I read the book through twice myself, then brought my toddler over to read it with me. Not only was he able to immediately recognize many of the images, he seemed quite engaged and excited by them. He even recognized a few items in the pictures before I pointed them out, clearly they're illustrated in a way that children will be happy to

2. Give your opinion on how the text and graphic features in this book helped you comprehend the content of the book. Explain using evidence from the text. If there aren’t many features just focus on the titles and book cover.

Seuss was still able to make reading fun and enjoyable to children. Along the lines of his illustrations, Theodor Geisel was among the first authors to put illustrations equal with text, enabling his readers to follow the action and the story simultaneously. True to his eccentric character and unique perspective, Seuss basically drew things as he saw them. Surprisingly, he had strict guidelines on how to write children's books. There was only one illustration per page and nothing could describe anything pictured. That way, children can work out the story from the illustrations. In addition, his characters are unique. Although his characters may seem simplistic, Seuss' illustrations are inimitable. Through his drawings, word selection, and rhythm, Seuss created subliminal messages for his readers.

I enjoyed the illustrations of this book. In the beginning of the story, you see a family going through daily life in black and white. As the grandfather begins to tell the story of the town of Chewandswallow to his grandchildren, the illustrations transition into color. For me this was reminiscent of the movie, The Wizard of Oz and a nice touch to separate the grandfather’s

The first book is called Stuck about a boy who got his kite stuck in a tree. This book’s illustrations are very simplistic. The boy, Floyd, has a dot for eyes and a line for his mouth. He has stringy hair and very thin, disproportionate body compared to his large head. The trees in the pictures are different colors such as blue, brown, and red. The boy himself changes colors throughout the book, and his colors do not have much relation to the story. For example on the words on one of the pages is “Then he had an idea, and went to find a saw.” The entire page is blue along with the boy and the light bulb. I would consider these illustrations to be naïve because they are realistic, but they don’t

The illustrations in The Cat in the Hat really show the story and even if this book was a wordless picture book then children could understand what is going on. I think that goes to show how much the illustrations really do enforce the text. On the very first page, Dr. Seuss establishes the setting with a picture of a house and one can assume that is where the story takes place (Seuss 1). Dr. Seuss uses a lot of visual elements such as lines to show movement and he only uses shades of blue and red to add color to his book. Something else that I found interesting was the fact that he used the seam in the book as a corner in the house. On the first page, you see the house with a window on its side but no door which would presumably be on the left side of the house where the stairs are. When you open to the second page, you see the children sitting at the window. On pages five and six you finally see the door appear on a separate page than the window. If you close the book slightly you can imagine this is a 3-D element to the book. I may be overthinking it but I think that if this was intentional then Dr. Seuss may have been smarter than people give him credit for.