Henry’s Freedom Box written by Ellen Levine and Illustrated by Kadir Nelson
ARTISTIC TECHNIQUE/MEDIA
The illustrations are pencil, watercolor and oil. The pictures were soft with some details show though the use of lines. After looking closely at the drawings and referring to the article, “horizontal lines suggest peace or relaxation, while vertical lines indicate stability” (pg4), there is an illustration where Henry is sitting with his family playing his banjo-happy times. Throughout this illustration there are many horizontal and vertical lines. There are even some circular lines around Henry. These lines are meant to “convey serenity, contentment, or safety.” (pg. 4) This is exactly the feeling I get from this page. Several times throughout the book the perspective has been changed. In one illustration in the foreground, where our eyes are drawn, is Henry’s family being taken away in a cart. The colors change several times in the book. The beginning there are blues and the background is light, but as Henry’s live changes, so do the colors turning darker and brown until finally when Henry is free the colors again brighten.
INTERPLAY OF TEXTUAL AND VISUAL IMAGES
The text and illustrations work together. On some pages the text is more obvious, for example the first page, the text is alone in a box and on the page facing it is a picture of Henry, each getting equal attention. While on other pages the text is dark and often goes unnoticed making the reader pay more attention to the illustrations. I noticed this on the page where Henry’s family is taken away. The text is also placed differently throughout the book, sometimes it’s written horizontally and other times it’s written vertically.
THEMES
The main theme throughout the book is one of freedom. Henry thinks he’s going to be free when his master is sick, but is then sold to his master’s son. A second time this occurs is when Henry and Nancy are allowed to marry and live together even though they don’t have the same master. Again this is taken away from him when his family is taken away. The last time we see freedom in the story is when Henry finally makes his way to Philadelphia.
EXAMINE THE EXPERIENCE OF THE AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR
After viewing the video from the Powerpoint Kadir Nelson, an African-American, talks about the importance of showing African-American history through his illustrations and also showing darkness that slavery really was. Ellen Levine, I found out wrote several books dealing with groups of people who were treated unfairly.
This book is a great introduction to a unit of study on the Underground Railroad and African- American history. I read it aloud to my class and plan on reading several other books dealing with this subject in the next coming days. We also talked a lot about slavery and I even used an example in class. One of my boys didn’t understand how someone could own another person that the thought there parents owned them. So I told him that I owned him and he had to do everything that I told him and I might give him a little food and maybe some water and the reason I picked him was because he had blond hair, not red. He didn’t think that that sounded right and he hoped that nothing like that would happen again. It’s a great lesson for kids to talk about and learn about prejudices that happened and are still happening today.
Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/books/ellen-levine-author-of-childrens-books-dies-at-73.html?_r=0
Frye, B , Picture Book Powerpoint
Giorgis, C Chapter 1 Exploring Visual Images in Picture Books
Nelson, Kadir. Interview. Readingrockets.org. Reading Rockets, 2013. Web. 17 May 2013.
Moses When Harriet Tubman Led Her People to Freedom
Written by Carole Boston Weatherford Illustrated by Kadir Nelson
ARTISTIC TECHNIQUE/MEDIA
The illustrations in this book were very powerful. according to Kadir Nelson’s interview in the Powerpoint he wanted to make the illustrations dark because Harriet Tubman did most of her traveling at night and also to portray how dark of a time it was. Nelson spoke about the use of color in his interview. He didn’t want to make light of the subject, but he also needed to keep his audience in mind, it is a children’s book. The illustrations were double page illustrations and full-bleed illustrations. Many of the pages were a close up of Harriet and showed so much emotion. The text was written in 3 different fonts: one was the narrator, one was Harriet speaking to God and the third was God speaking to Harriet. This gives the reader a the sense of conversation that the author was trying to express.
INTERPLAY OF TEXTUAL AND VISUAL IMAGES
The text and the illustrations work beautifully together. Several times the text flows from one page to the next. The text that is meant to be God speaking often times surrounds Harriet. Nelson also places important parts of his illustrations in the foreground which, according to the article, “Artists use the foreground or bottom third of an illustration to place items that appear closer, hence drawing more attention” (pg. 6). Several illustrations were like this,drawing our attention to Harriet and at times making her seem larger than life. Something else that I noticed were her hands, they were big, strong hands–carrying the weight of a people.
THEMES
The story had 2 main themes, freedom and determination. Harriet is determined to become a free woman. From the beginning of her life, she wanted and worked at attaining freedom. Then, once she was free, she risked her life over and over trying to help others reach that same goal. Whenever Harriet was struggling with her goal, she always looked for some kind of a sign, which she interpreted to be a sign from God. This also reinforced the determination in her.
EXAMINE THE EXPERIENCE OF THE AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR
Both the author, Carole Boston Weatherford, and illustrator, Kadir Nelson, are African-Americans. They understand more than others the struggles that their people have suffered. Weatherford has written many books dealing with many African-American figures and writes about subjects that as she says,”are relevant” to children of today.
Frye, B , Picture Book Powerpoint
Giorgis, C Chapter 1 Exploring Visual Images in Picture Books
http://cbweatherford.com/about/
Nelson, Kadir. Interview. Readingrockets.org. Reading Rockets, 2013.
Knuffle Bunny written and illustrated by Mo Willems
ARTISTIC TECHNIQUE/MEDIA
The illustrations in this book are a combination of hand-drawn ink sketches and digital photographs. The photos were sepia tone and the sketches were colored and shaded. The illustrations support the text and meaning of the story by creating a whimsical feel. The art is very interesting and it makes me think of my sister. She lives in a neighborhood like the one depicted in the book. I find myself looking at the details in the photos and thinking how perfectly the simple cartoon drawings fit.
INTERPLAY OF TEXTUAL AND VISUAL IMAGES
There is very little text on each page and it often carries over to the facing page. It, as well as the pictures, causes the reader to, as Eric Rohmann (2003) mentioned in his Caldecott acceptance speech, ask “What will happen next?” We want to know if Trixie will be able to communicate to her dad that Knuffle Bunny is at the Laundromat. Will she get him back? The pictures are framed, but there are no lines framing them and sometimes the drawings extend beyond the picture. This, to me, adds a sense of movement among the characters.
THEMES
I don’t think there was a big theme in this book. In my opinion Willems was creating a story, not trying to teach a lesson. I guess one could try to over analyst it and say the reoccurring theme is one of communication. Trixie trying to tell her father that Knuffle Bunny is at the Laundromat , but I believe that it was a story of a little girl and her father running errands and eventually leading to both being very frustrated at the other.
EXPERIENCE OF AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR
Mo Willems is a father and worked at a time for Sesame Street as a writer. He also began his career doing stand up comedy. I think this qualifies him to write this children’s book.
I was first turned on to Mo Willems when Jack got the book “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus”. Immediately we both fell in love with these books. Jack loved the interaction and the first book he memorized was “The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog”. Hearing a four-year old say “Hey, I’m a curious bird.” Priceless. We then discovered Knuffle Bunny, which spoke to me as a parent. I can totally relate to Trixie’s parents–the frustration at a fussy child, the attachment to an inanimate object–luckily we’ve not misplaced ours yet!
Frye, B , Picture Book Powerpoint
Giorgis, C , Chapter 1 Exploring Visual Images in Picture Books
Willems, Mo, Interview. Readingrockets.org. Reading Rockets, 2013. http://www.readingrockets.org/books/interviews/willems/
kristinploof 
Leave a Reply