Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by cris_bookreader
The Lion & the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney
5.0
Assignment: Picture Book Project
Category: Caldecott
Recommending Source: Caldecott Medal 2010
Review: In the African Serengeti, a mouse accidentally encounters a sleeping lion while trying to escape being prey to an owl. The lion examines the mouse and decides to set the mouse free. Later that day, poachers set out a trap and the lion gets caught. The lion lets out a troubled roar that the mouse hears, so the mouse comes to the rescue, bites through the ropes, and releases the lion from the entrapment. Thus, begins a peculiar friendship between the lion and the mouse.
Pencil, watercolors, and colored pencils bring the animals in the African Serengeti to life in this book. On the dustcover, a close-up view of a lion’s face encompasses the whole page. There is no text at all other than on the spine of the book. The back cover has a close-up view of a mouse staring back at the lion. Underneath the dustcover, the mouse and lion share the front cover, while the back cover showcases all the animals that live there. Pinkney uses only onomatopoeia in addition to his illustrations throughout the book. The watercolors blend nicely together in every scene and they add detail and movement to the natural setting. At the end of the story is an author’s note about his inspiration and experiences that helped shape the book.
A good activity for this book would be to give the children an opportunity to narrate the scene themselves. It would be interesting to hear and share their versions of the story. Another good lesson to teach the children is that they can learn to be friends with other children despite their differences and learn to accept and respect each other for their unique qualities. A discussion about acts of kindness would be another good lesson. The students could then be assigned to perform at least one random act of kindness per week. Creating illustrations and writing about their experiences in journals would allow them to document them. Finally, another activity would be to construct a comparison chart identifying the similarities and differences between the lion and the mouse. Creating their own lion or mouse puppets with paper bags or faces using paper plates would be a good extension to the activity.
After reading this book, it instantly became a favorite for me. I enjoyed spending a good amount of time examining each scene among all the pages. I agree with Jerry Pinkney about how the behavior and relationship between these two characters is strong enough to provide deep meaning to the nearly wordless book. With as much detail that Pinkney put into the illustrations of the setting and characters, it's evident that he cares deeply for their well-being by preserving them so beautifully in this book.
Category: Caldecott
Recommending Source: Caldecott Medal 2010
Review: In the African Serengeti, a mouse accidentally encounters a sleeping lion while trying to escape being prey to an owl. The lion examines the mouse and decides to set the mouse free. Later that day, poachers set out a trap and the lion gets caught. The lion lets out a troubled roar that the mouse hears, so the mouse comes to the rescue, bites through the ropes, and releases the lion from the entrapment. Thus, begins a peculiar friendship between the lion and the mouse.
Pencil, watercolors, and colored pencils bring the animals in the African Serengeti to life in this book. On the dustcover, a close-up view of a lion’s face encompasses the whole page. There is no text at all other than on the spine of the book. The back cover has a close-up view of a mouse staring back at the lion. Underneath the dustcover, the mouse and lion share the front cover, while the back cover showcases all the animals that live there. Pinkney uses only onomatopoeia in addition to his illustrations throughout the book. The watercolors blend nicely together in every scene and they add detail and movement to the natural setting. At the end of the story is an author’s note about his inspiration and experiences that helped shape the book.
A good activity for this book would be to give the children an opportunity to narrate the scene themselves. It would be interesting to hear and share their versions of the story. Another good lesson to teach the children is that they can learn to be friends with other children despite their differences and learn to accept and respect each other for their unique qualities. A discussion about acts of kindness would be another good lesson. The students could then be assigned to perform at least one random act of kindness per week. Creating illustrations and writing about their experiences in journals would allow them to document them. Finally, another activity would be to construct a comparison chart identifying the similarities and differences between the lion and the mouse. Creating their own lion or mouse puppets with paper bags or faces using paper plates would be a good extension to the activity.
After reading this book, it instantly became a favorite for me. I enjoyed spending a good amount of time examining each scene among all the pages. I agree with Jerry Pinkney about how the behavior and relationship between these two characters is strong enough to provide deep meaning to the nearly wordless book. With as much detail that Pinkney put into the illustrations of the setting and characters, it's evident that he cares deeply for their well-being by preserving them so beautifully in this book.