Blog Assignment #1 INFO 5421 By: Duke Wojcik

 Book #1

Do Not Bring Your Dragon to Grandma's

By: Julie Gassman and Andy Elkerton

Genre and Category: This is a modern fantasy that I read in digital format.

Target Audience: Pre-K to K students.

Summary: As stated above, this is a silly modern fantasy that tells its young readers why they shouldn't bring their hypothetical pet dragons over to a visit to their grandmother's house. It has no real plot, just a set of silly scenarios.

Why I chose this book: Firstly, the rest of the books I chose for this collection of reviews are for slightly more mature children, so I figured I ought to have at least one that was for younger readers. It also works, because children nowadays are online a lot, often more than they should be, so I wondered what reading this book would be like online as a modern child would.

Evaluation: I will be evaluating this book based on it's Illustrations, Content/Themes, Language, and the experience of reading it digitally.

Content/Themes: The titular dragons in this book are clearly meant to represent common misbehaviors associated with early childhood, such as poor sportsmanship, impatience, and stubbornness. The obvious metaphor here being that one should not act up in such ways when visiting their grandparents. What I don't like is how much this book focuses on the bad vs the good, as it only spends 2 pages versus all the rest on how dragons can be helpful; It exudes an uncomfortable 'children are guilty of original sin' vibe. Not only that but the whole time, the narrator's language, which we'll cover more in the category, feels like they're scolding and taking agency of the story away from the child reader, thus removing the engagement children are meant to feel in their literature as the protagonist learning their own lesson and replacing it with didacticism.

Language: As I stated above, the language the narrator uses towards their young readers is noticeably sharp and didactic. Namely, it's use of dragons misbehaving as a metaphor for acting up is followed next page each time by a loud and bold, "So DO NOT bring your dragon to Grandma's!" with little other reinforcement. The whole time, no character gives the child character a voice, except in the last few pages when one awkwardly becomes a first-person narrator to beg for his pet dragon to be allowed to go with him. It's certainly fair to teach children to treat other people and their houses with consideration and respect, but the language used feels more threatening than educative.

Illustrations: You've probably guessed that I overall don't like this book, but I have to give credit where it's due. The illustrations in this book are well-drawn. They're not the most detailed artworks, but considering the young target audience, I see this as a good thing; too much detail is liable to overstimulate anyone, but especially young children whose sensory processes haven't totally matured- I say this as an adult who's played video games that were so impressively detailed, that they hurt my eyes as a result.

e-Book experience: This book was available on my public library's e-book catalog via Cloud Library, so I opened it on my laptop. Immediately, my first issue is that most of the book's text is rather small, so small that I, a young man maintaining 20/20 vision had to squint in order to read- I think that illustrates (pun intended) a problem. That said, it displayed the book 2 pages at a time, as if I actually had the book physically open, so it didn't take too much time to read. I tried opening it on my iPhone to see if that would make a difference, and it did but not for the better. For one, I received the pages only one at a time instead of two; but secondly, the text was even smaller. Perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised, but I wondered if maybe someone might've thought to upscale the font somehow to compensate for the smaller device. I'm no expert though.

Reference:

Gassman, J. & Elkerton, A. (2024, July 31). Do Not Bring Your Dragon to Grandma's. Cloud Library. 

Web Patron - roanokepl - Details - Do Not Bring Your Dragon to Grandma's (yourcloudlibrary.com)

Book #2

 

Cicada Symphony

By: Sue Fliss and Gareth Lucas

Genre and Category: This is Texas 2x2 non-fiction book.

Target Audience: Children of Pre-K to 6 ages.

Summary: This is a non-fiction book about the life cycle and nature of the species of insect known as cicadas.

Why I Chose This Book: I remember watching a documentary called Planet Earth when I was in 5th grade that introduced me to cicadas, and I was quite bewitched by their truly unique life cycles that made them seem like a species of zombie bugs that resurrected themselves; so I wondered how the authors would present this enigmatic species to kids younger than me at that time.

Evaluation: I'll be evaluating this book on: Illustrations, Language, and Plot (yes, in a non-fiction. Just hear me out).

Illustrations: Let's get straight to the point. This book's illustrations are an absolute splendor. Not only are they gorgeously drawn, but they're organized on each page in such a way that they help explain to the reader the information fed to them about cicadas via the text. Even when their anatomy is explained, the drawings of them are just simple enough for a newcomer to understand, but detailed enough to allow for accuracy in presentation.

Language: This book employs two styles of narration, both poetic and explanative. There are single-stanza poems that complement informative paragraphs one could easily presume to find in a textbook. In this way, the lyrical explanations can ease much younger readers into the concepts, while allowing older readers to engage more readily. As it's a children's book, the language is not overly scientific so that it's readers may be confused.

Plot: Now I'm sure you're wondering what a plot analysis is doing in the context of a non-fiction book, but it's not so much the 'plot' that's important, but the nature of the plot itself. As I mentioned, this book details the life cycle of a cicada, and it does so from beginning to end. And that's just the thing! From cover to cover, we are shown, in order, the beginning of a nymph cicada's life, to their middle stages, to their adulthood, all the while being shown what happens in between. The very subject matter of the book was cleverly drawn from so that it could be explained in a structure similar to a plotted narrative, which is a stupendous feat of writing.

Reference:

Fliess, S. & Lucas, G. (2023). Cicada Symphony. Albert Whitman & Co.

Book #3

 

 Caves

By: Nell Cross Beckerman & Kalen Chock

Genre and Category: This is Texas Bluebonnet Awarded non-fiction book.

Target Audience: PreK-6 children.

Summary: It's a book about (gasp) caves.

Why I Chose This Book: I picked up both this and Cicada Symphony at the same time, seeing as they're both award-winners. I thought it'd be interesting to see how such mysterious territory as caves are explained to children.

Evaluation: I'll be evaluating this book on: Illustrations, Language, and Setting.

Illustrations: This book's illustrations are solidly drawn with an impressive sense of depth, which is especially fitting with the subject matter being deep caves. Objects in the drawings don't have as definitive a form as they could, but I think it's because the focus is more so on color and shading to set the atmosphere, which we'll cover. One page in particular features a child character holding his arms out in a T-pose with his shadow being cast onto a rock in front of him; I wondered if this was a subtle reference to Plato's Allegory of the Cave.

Language: As with the previous award-winning non-fiction book, this one employs both poetic exploration and narrative explanation. It even uses imagery that correlates with what one might experience in a cave, such as the dripping sound of water off a stalactite- this is the kind of obvious imagery that younger kids have an easy time understanding. It even taught me a new word: speleology, the study of caves.

Setting: As stated above, the illustrations focus of color and shading of objects, rather than shape, to set the atmosphere of exploring dark and mysterious caves. I think this is important, as while the authors may want to educate kids on exploring caves to make it exciting, spelunking is undeniably dangerous and thus creating an air of danger to simulate that notion ideally instills a hint of caution in young would-be cave explorers.

Reference:

 Beckerman, N.C. & Chock, K. (2022) Caves. Orchard Books.

Book #4

 Bill Clinton

By: BreAnn Rumsch

Genre and Category: This is a biography.

Target Audience: PreK-6 children

Summary: This is a small biography about the life and career of former US president, Bill Clinton.

Why I Chose This Book: With American society having become so alarmingly volatile due to extreme politics, I wondered how a modern children's book about a former president would present to them.

Evaluation: I'll be evaluating this book based on: Cover, Accuracy, and Language.

Cover: The cover of this book is simply a portrait of Clinton with a loud and proud "No. 42" beside him, obviously denoting that he was the 42nd POTUS. I think this simplicity is important so as not to glamorize him, but still show that he was a man of great importance. This lack of bias is especially important when discussing politicians, much less introducing them to kids.

Accuracy: After some quick fact checking, the information in this bio is true, just not as detailed seeing as it's an introductory resource for children. One thing I did appreciate, and was surprised to learn myself, was that it mentioned how the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan started with Clinton, conflicts for which many people erroneously pin the blame on his successor, George W. Bush.

Language: To my utter relief, this book's language is not politically charged or biased. It certainly celebrates good things Clinton did, such the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, but also acknowledged his impeachment following the Whitewater Affair. After all, politicians are humans that can and will make objectively bad decisions, and it's important for kids to understand that. Throughout the book are bolded words that are covered in glossary that help young readers better understand the context of what is being fed to them.

Reference: Rumsch, B. (2021). Bill Clinton. Abdo Books.

Book #5

 

 The Doll in the Hall and Other Scary Stories

By: Max Brallier and Letizia Rubegni

Genre and Category: This is a horror fiction book.

Target Audience: PreK-6 children.

Summary: This is a small collection of 5 disconnected short horror stories.

Why I Chose This Book: Horror in children's fiction has always been contentious, for better or for worse. Some kids find it to their tastes while others don't, just like adults; but there are always vocal, self-righteous adults who think they know what children should and shouldn't be afraid of without actually understanding them as a group. So I took it upon myself to search for a children's horror book in my library and happened upon this.

Evaluation: I will be evaluating this book on: Illustrations, Content/Themes, and Characters.

Illustrations: The artwork for this book has a haunting style, fitting for the genre, and uses shading that evokes a grimdark atmosphere. Characters and set pieces are drawn around this shading to evoke a sense of unease around what should be familiar, unhostile images, a time-honored strategy in horror-based storytelling. Sometimes, characters wear exaggerated expressions to further this dread.

Content/Themes: These 5 short stories collectively do a better job of teaching a hard lesson than the first book on this list, mostly because the child characters take the reins of protagonist and thus allow child readers to engage. The titular first story in this collection is really just there to whet the reader's appetite, as it doesn't have the most involved plot. The theme of horror is used to showcase children the consequences of things such as hubris or anger, such as boy who is a pathological cheater who has all his teeth stolen by the tooth fairy after trying to trick her with a popcorn kernel, or a girl who gets eaten by angry rabbits after she'd eaten all their carrots.

However, the lessons and themes don't extend solely to the kids, as parents reading this to their kids can learn some things about consequences they can face from how they parent their kids. The carrot girl, for example, starts her story reluctant to eat carrots, as she, like many kids, don't like eating vegetables. Her parents get her to eat them by telling her that she'd be able to see in the dark like rabbits, an obvious allusion to carrots high Vitamin A count; but what her parents didn't foresee was that she would take this literally and go out into their farm in the dead of night and eat all the carrots growing there, angering the rabbits to the point that they just eat her. This reminds me of when I attended an Intro to Psych class where our professor explained cases of small children from religious families have killed themselves, innocently believing they could return from heaven after visiting deceased loved one. 

Characters: The misfortunate children characterized in these stories are meant to embody immature emotions and the consequences portrayed as horrific circumstances, but some of the kids' parents are punished for not taking their child or their parenting more seriously.

Reference: Brallier, M. & Rubegni, L. (2021). The Doll in the Hall and Other Scary Stories. Scholastic.