This is a wordless picture book for kids of all ages. A young girl finds a magical red book that reveals another world where a boy has the same book and can see her as well. The girl finds a way to join her friend at the end of the book and leaves you wondering. It is a delightful story with simple yet telling colorful illustrations.
This book is a good choice for introducing the genre of magical fantasy to young readers. It offers children an opportunity to discuss the story as they look at the details in each successive frame. For older children, they could write text to match the pictures and practice targeted literary skills. Here is the story for the "Red Book" red out loud.
After reading this book or viewed you can make some great collage, that show places, people transportations etc. The great thing about this book is that you make your own story by just seeing the pictures in the book and how you does it ends.
This story is categorized as a realistic tale, and I can see why! The boy is extremely lazy, while his mother is a hard worker. His mother wants him to go work but the boy comes up with a plan so he won’t have to. He pretends to be a god, and goes to the merchant demanding that his daughter marry Taro. He knows that she will never marry him unless their house was in better condition. His plan works, and the merchant has people come and fix up his house, meaning Taro won’t have to. At the end, Taro has to supervise the merchant’s store, which means he will no longer have any time for naps, which is what his mother wanted all along. This story has a very realistic plot and I would enjoy using this story to teach my students about why laziness is not a value. It’s a story I could see being passed down from generation to generation to teach children to value work. This story would also be good to compare the Chinese culture with, and to discuss what theme might be.This book is for older children's from 6-8.
After reading the story ask some questions. 1- what time do you wake up? 2- Do you help around the house? 3-What are your duties in the house when you are not in school? 4-With your family make some soup or rice and share it at school. Here is a recipe that you can make at home with a little help.
This book is a great way to introduce the topic of bullying through a multicultural lens. This story centers around a boy that does not fit with the social and cultural norms of his classmates throughout his school career. He continually is bullied and made fun of until the sixth grade when a teacher takes interest in him and creates opportunities for him to show his talents and knowledge. This account of prolonged bullying and the resilience of a single student who does not fit in the social norm uses what seems to be colored pencil illustrations that allow for shading, multiple color use, and abstraction within each illustration. Each classmate's face along with the main character's face are somewhat blurred and allow for a greater audience for this story, since it is not esoterically identified with Japan and Japanese culture. The theme truly carries this story of an outcast boy who is later admired for his crow calls and becomes called "Crow Boy".
The Japanese culture is portrayed sparsely in this account, but it is clear, from the illustrations and some parts of the language, that this story takes place in Japan. The colors that are used, such as yellow, bright blue, pink, and green, are not typical to Japanese traditional arts, but bring a great vibrancy to the story and a lighthearted nature to parts of the story that are more optimistic. The faces are somewhat abstracted so the characters are not expressly Japanese, but the cultural elements, such as a lunch of a rice ball wrapped in a radish leaf and a raincoat made from dried zebra grass, show Japanese elements are included in this story.
I would definitely recommend this story to grades 2-4. This is a short picture book with bright illustrations that covers an interesting theme that is extremely applicable and relevant to American students today. Although this book was written some time ago, the topic of bullying, respecting multiple intelligences, and encouraging unknown talents in students are still truly important for students to understand. Overall, I think that this book shows some authentic cultural details with vibrant illustrations and a terrific theme.
After reading the story make some questions.
1- How would you field if you where crow boy?
2- Do you know someone that looks like crow boy in your class or neighbor ?
3- What would you o to make "Chibie" feel better?
4- What does "Chibie" means? it means small boy
After this you can make some craft using things that you can find in the feel,
like acorn rap or dried leaf and try to make your own Chibie or Chibie clothes.
Yashima does a wonderful job making an umbrella come alive, through the eyes of a little girl. The anticipation builds up in Momo as to when she will be able to but her umbrella to use. The rain took forever to come but when it did, her umbrella came alive and so did the rain as it danced and made music on the little girl's umbrella. Cute children's story and the illustrations are very colorful and pretty to look at. The Japanese symbols on the top corner of each page add to the celebration of the Japanese culture. This book is for 4-6 years old and it would be great to ask question about the weather in circle time. 1- Use some cotton and cut some construction paper and ask the chid to glue them in the the paper after you have asks them what does the weather looks like.? is it sunny? cloudy? or is it going to rain by predicting you are helping the children to develop his/her sense of intuition in the weather.
