Picture Book Literacy Analysis

Picture books:
A picture book is a format of book and therefore can be found in all genres
for all grade levels. Picture books enhance stories by telling the story
through the text and pictures.
1) Fiction/Fantasy picture books:
Where the Wild Things Are. Maurice Sendak. 1963.
Jumanji. Chris Van Allsburg. 1981.
2) Multicultural picture books:
Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans.
Kadir Nelson. 2011.
The Rough Face Girl. Rafe Martin. 1998.
3) Contemporary Realistic Fiction picture books:
A Letter to Amy. Ezra Jack Keats. 1968.
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.
Judith Viorst. 1972.
4) Nonfiction/Informational picture books:
Exploring the Solar System. Mary Kay Carson. 2008.
Out On the Prairie. Donna Bateman. 2012.
Development of cultural awareness: There are lots of books
these days about different cultures. Picture books can be used during
lessons in order to make cultural awareness more age appropriate.
When teaching students about different cultures, teachers can use
picture books that show the customs of certain cultures that keeps it
interesting at the same time. Picture books would be helpful in
teaching about cultures, especially for young students, because they
can what different cultures wear and what activities they participate
in.
Understanding of controversial issues that may come up in
picture books (stereotyped images, such as gender, cultures
left out, etc.): As the years go on there are more books being
written about controversial topics. Topics such as gender identity are
very common these days in everyday life. It is important for children
to be exposed to controversial topics so that they do not grow up not
knowing about everyday topics. If students are not exposed to
controversial topics at a young age they will be nave to these topics
until they face them in life. If students do not learn about these
topics early they may face offending someone, simply because they
are unaware of the topic. Teaching students controversial topics
through picture books helps students be interested and brings light
to controversial subjects.

Becoming critical readers of books (e.g., analyze the

illustrations, content, medium, style, format, compare to
other books): Using picture books is a good way to teach students
to be critical readers. Picture books have all of the aspects of a good
book, but also contains pictures that students can learn to analyze as
part of the story. Students can be taught how to analyze illustrations
and explain how they help tell the story in a way that words alone
cannot. Students can also learn tips for becoming critical readers
that would work for all books, not just picture books. For example,
students can fill out graphic organizers listing the content, whose
point of view the story is written in, and the format. Teaching
students early to analyze books is important and makes it easier for
them later on in their education when they have to analyze longer
books.
Name of book, author (include first and last name of author), and
year published:
Henrys Freedom Box. Ellen Levine. 2007.
Name genre using a picturebook format: Historical Fiction
Age range book is intended: Grades 3-5
Brief description or synopsis of book: Henry is a young boy whose age
is not known. He lives in a family of slaves until one day he is sent to work
in a factory. Henry grows up and is happy until his family is sold as slaves.
Henry must find a way out for himself and his family.
Book awards received, if any: The book itself has not received an award
that I found, but the author and illustrator have both won awards. Ellen
Levine: Jane Addams Peace Award. Kadir Nelson: Coretta Scott King Award.
Discuss how the books features could engage readers to promote
literacy growth:
This book is a historical fiction book that uses pictures to help tell the story.
This book promotes literacy growth because students will learn that
historical fiction books are not all boring, the author and illustrator of this
book do a good job together making this book interesting and telling the
story with the pictures. Many times students think that historical books are
boring and do not want to read them; by using a picture book format the
author made this book more appealing to the younger audience. Students
could talk about what slavery is, where it happened in the United States,
and talk about Henrys journey of being a slave. One creative way that
students could respond to this book in a creative way is by putting
themselves in Henrys shoes. For the activity students could pretend that
they were given a freedom box and decide what items they would put
into it. The artwork used in this book was very detailed and dark at times.
The facial expressions of the characters really help tell the story. Students
could reflect on the pictures and the facial expressions to decide how the

characters are feeling in particular scenes. One way that a teacher could
promote inference making is asking the students what they think will
happen next when a big scene is coming. After reading this book and
having the students do the activities, as a teacher you could do a survey
asking students how they felt about the book. Another way to see if the
students were interested in the book is paying attention to how engaged
the students were during the read aloud and the activities.
Appealing format:
Henrys Freedom Box is intended for children in grades 3-5. I think that the
author and illustrator do a good job of making this book appealing to these
young readers. The author takes a topic that is very sensitive, but
important to learn, and makes it easy for these children to understand and
learn about. The illustrations in this book are one of the main things that
engage the readers, they help tell the story deeper and in a visual way. The
font in this book is medium sized, but perfect for the age group intended.
The pictures are more important in the story so they take up most of the
pages. The amount of text per page is limited, there are only a couple
sentences. I think that this is important for these young readers because
they will not get lost in a bunch of words, they can read the few sentences
on the page then move onto the next one. The author does a great job of
using words that are age appropriate for grades 3-5, I did not notice any
words that these students would not know throughout the text. The front
cover of this book is a picture of Henry by himself. I think that this cover
does a good job of conveying the tone of the story. For most of Henrys life
throughout the story, the author focuses on him being lonely. Henry starts
out as a child working in a warehouse when he is sold to his masters son.
Then Henry starts a family of his own, and when his children are young his
family is sold on the slave market. For a good portion of the book Henry is
alone and upset. I think that the illustration on the cover does a good job of
conveying this.
Page layout:
Most of the illustration in this book take up the whole page with the text
written in a dark font so that it is visible within the illustrations. The pages
of this book do not seem crowded, I think that having the illustrations cover
most of the page helps tell the story and brings attention to what is
happening on this page. There is a consistent pattern for text and
illustrations. The illustrations consistently take up the entire two page
spread of the book, while the words are placed on the illustrations. This is
done to put emphasis on the illustrations, if the text was being emphasized
it would be bigger and the illustrations would not take up both pages. The
illustrations used in the book of the conditions that Henry worked in and
the facial expressions of Henrys family as they were taken away help tell

the story and shape the tone.

Content:
I believe that the content of this book is appropriate for this age level.
Although the book talks about slavery, the author only talks about the
basics of slavery, she does not go into detail about slavery that would not
be appropriate at this age. It is important to expose children to these topics
at a young age and add on to their knowledge of the subject as the years
go on and as they become mature enough to learn about these aspects of
the topic. The author does not exclusively state where Henry and his family
live, but using my background knowledge of slavery and the fact that
Henry states that he is being shipped off to the North, I am assuming
that Henry and his family lived in the Southern part of the United States.
There is not much figurative language used in this book, maybe because
students would not understand it and it was unnecessary in this context.
As I read the book I could imagine what was happening in the book while I
read. The images paint an initial picture in my mind that I built upon to
create a mental image.
Describe characters:
The main character in this book is Henry. Henry is a flat character
throughout the book, his character does not change much. I would say that
Henry is a very strong person. Henry had to grow up at a very young age
being a slave and went through many tough times in his life from being
ripped away from his parents to having his own wife and children ripped
away from him. The author develops the character through describing his
childhood and showing pictures of Henry and his family. The book also
shows illustrations of Henry in the work conditions that he was exposed to.
We can infer through the illustrations that Henry feels very lonely for most
parts of the book. We can see this through his facial expressions within the
illustrations and the fact that he is pictured alone on several pages. The
other characters in the book are introduced, but are not explained in detail,
so we do not know much about the other characters.
Illustrations/Style/Color:
The illustrations in this book do a great job at telling the story, the pictures
go hand in hand with the words on the pages. The pictures that are in this
book are a big part of engaging young readers. When doing a read aloud
with this book students attention will be focused on the illustrations as the
teacher reads the words, this helps them to further paint a picture of the
story in their head. Most of the pictures in this story used dark/faded
colors, except for the very last page. On the very last page Henry has
reached Pennsylvania. This page is very bright and the facial expressions
show that the characters are very happy. The dark colors throughout the
story show that this is a dark and serious subject. The bright colors at the
end of the book show that the mood has changed and that Henrys life has

finally turned around.

Describe how you would you use this book in a classroom to
promote literacy learning?
I would use this book in my classroom to teach my students about slavery.
A good activity for this book would be to have my students write a letter to
Henry after arriving in Pennsylvania. In the letter the students would ask
Henry about his life as a slave and his journey to Pennsylvania, they would
also include in their letter questions about his new life in the North now
that he is free.
Book Cover

Hyperlink https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ2FAzDjK-o
Rate book on a scale of 0 to 5: Rate book according to the criteria
listed above. Justify your rating by discussing:
I would give this book a rating of a 5. I think that this book does a great job
of combining the text in the book with the illustrations to tell the story. This
book is also age appropriate for grades 3-5 and uses vocabulary that these
students would know and understand. This book explains slavery in a way
that is age appropriate for these grade levels, while still showing that this
is a serious topic.

Reference Page:
Allsburg, Chris Van. (1981). Jumanji. Houghton Mifflin.
Bateman, D. M., & Swan, S. (2014). Out on the prairie. United Kingdom:
Charlesbridge

Publishing.

Carson, M. K. (2006). Exploring the solar system: A history with 22 activities.

United States:

Turtleback Books.

Keats, E. J. (1984). A letter to Amy. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.

Levine, E., & Nelson, K. (2007). Henrys freedom box. New York: Scholastic
Press.
Martin, R., & Shannon, D. (1993). The rough-face girl. New York: Scholastic.
Nelson, K. (2011). Heart and soul: The story of America and African
Americans. New York:

HarperCollins Publishers.

Sendak, M. (1988). Where the wild things are. New York, NY: Harper Collins
Publishers.
Viorst, J., & Cruz, R. (1987). Alexander and the terrible, horrible, no good,
very bad day (2nd
ed.). New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

Rubric for Picturebook Literacy Analysis

2.5

The student defined/described picturebooks and listed four genres

(specified above) that used a picturebook format. The student also
provided two examples of books that fit under each genre listed after
the student read and analyzed these texts using Hucks Guidelines, p.
82. Further, the student analyzed one picturebook in depth, discussed
the books features, how it could engage readers to foster literacy
growth, critiqued its format, illustrations, described potential uses for
the book in the classroom, included hyperlink/s to a book talk, video,
and/or other book analysis/critiques for the book (if available), rated
the book according to specific criteria listed for this assignment, and
provided a reference page using APA format for all books listed in the
assignment. All directions for the assignment have been followed and
important details were included in order to present a clear
understanding of picturebooks in the students analysis. The paper is
organized with no spelling or punctuation errors.

2.0

The student has met most of the criteria described above. However,
the student is missing minor pieces of information and did not follow
one of the directions.

1.5 1.0

The student has met most of the criteria described above. However,
the students is missing several pieces of information and did not follow
two or more of the directions.

The students assignment was missing significant criteria described

above, was incomplete, and did not meet the objective.