Uglies

Written by Scott Westerfeld

In a world of extreme beauty, anyone normal is ugly. What adolescent wouldn't want to be made 'pretty' on their 16th birthday? Set in the future, the characters in this novel are constantly preoccupied with becoming pretty and only doing 'pretty making' things. The main character is forced to decide whether to stay herself and 'ugly' (normal) or to receive an operation that will brainwash her, but make her 'pretty'. This novel deals with real issues in a different way. The main character is appealing to me because she doesn't just do what she's supposed to; she makes her own decisions.

Peka-boo, the smallest bird in all the world

Written and illustrated by Eliza Feely

The illustrations in this picture book are built from line drawings and scribbles, starting off mostly grey and becoming more colourful throughout the book. The freeness of the drawings matches the craziness of the story. The author uses a lot of terms and sayings which the reader would need some understanding of Australia for them to make sense. I really liked the illustrations, but the storyline seemed a bit too crazy to me.

Ivan the Terrible

 Written by Anne Fine

Illustrations by Philippe Dupasquier

Ivan the Terrible was a fun novel to read. I enjoyed the storyline, but it is the technical aspects of this book that make it fun. The text uses a size 16 font and occasionally has illustrations throughout. It also has an accompanying audio book I used to read along while I was listening. These are the reasons I loved this book.

Memorial

Written by Gary Crew.

Illustrated by Shaun Tan.

This picture book is told through a family sharing the small memories that make up their day-to-day life, which they all relate to a memorial and tree in town. The text is quite specific, but the illustrations are more ambiguous and open to interpretation. I like this picture book because it's more about the nature of memory, rather than one specific memory.

Kaitlyn's Week 5 PRP Books:

This week I have read 3 books; 2 picture books and a novel.

Title: The Arrival

Author: Shaun Tan

The Arrival is a story told through illustrations, there are no words in the book. It deals with the issues of immigration. The illustrations create a world that is strange and confusing which means the reader shares the experience of discovery and learning with the character. The strangeness allows the place to be anywhere. The openness of the way that it is drawn allows the reader to make connections to themselves. The whimsical aspects of the illustration creates interest.

Title: The Water Tower

Author: Gary Crew

The Water Tower is a very interesting book. Its plot is mysterious and it uses very descriptive language. The illustrations enhance the story by showing part of the story not told through the text. The ending in the story is very open. It would be easy to use many parts of this book as starting points for activities in the classroom, especially predictive activities.

Title: Breath

Author: Donna Jo Napoli

This is a re-telling of The Pied Piper of Hamlin. Donna Jo Napoli expands the story and places it in a real world context. It takes out the magic and fills in gaps so that the story is more direct. However it also adds allusions to real-world  issues such as faith and multiculturalism. Napoli attempts to explain how the story could have happened.

Bianca's Week 6 Post

This week I've chosen to discuss three picture books that I read for my Personal Reading Program.

Mirror written and illustrated by Jeannie Baker is a story told solely through the use of Baker’s amazing collage illustrations. This book compares a day in the life of two families. One family lives in Australia, the other in Morocco. Although both families reside in very different environments, their day-to-day life is very similar and interesting comparisons can be drawn. The lack of text means that this book could be suitable for a wide range of ages, with younger children focusing on drawing parallels between the lifestyles of the two families, whilst older children may try to add dialogue, infer meaning behind the situations and activities the families go through and question perceived differences between cultures.

The Troll written by Julia Donaldson and illustrated by David Roberts is a bizarre story that blends the old fairy tale of trolls living under bridges with a bunch of pirates looking for treasure. I did not particularly like this book. The resolution of the story was not clear enough to me, and lacked the finality that it aimed to achieve. The illustrations were far more interesting and informative than most of the text, and added depth to the rather shallow narrative, and although it created a more ‘fun’ element to the story; overall I found this book to be overrated. This book is best suited for 6 to 8 year olds.

This Is My Book written and illustrated by Mick Inkpen is an intesting read. The story revolves around a naughty dragon which eats letters from the text of the book whilst a brave mouse is tasked to retrieve them. Althoug the dialogue is rather simple, I really enjoyed the idea of interacting the actual grammar of the text with the audience. This is an excellent picture book for young readers and tackles punctuation and grammar in context with the narrative. The illustrations are also rather simple, but match well with the text. This books is best suited for children aged 5 to 7 who are learning about basic grammar rules.