CCBC-Net Archives
When Sophie Gets Angry - Really, Really Angry...
- Contemporary messages sorted: [ by date ] [ by subject ] [ by author ]
From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 14:05:12 -0600
Sophie's "red red roar" is one very few children will forget. So are Bang's other expressive combinations of anger where words and emotions become part of the page design. A few months ago Professor Phil Hamilton (Art Dept., UW-Madison) told us that when the type looks like what's being said it's called "pible." I still can't bring myself to use this new word about the technique Bang used so effectively, because I can't remember how to pronounce it.
Bang's decisions about the uses of page spaces, forms, and pure colors are brilliant. I use the word "pure" intentionally. Bang's colors do not seem garish to my eye.
There's much we might say about this bold book. Sophie's internal journey and its resolution offer much to consider. Earlier this month I spent an afternoon with 37 children (gr. 2-5) who had chosen to be part of an ongoing "Caldecott" discussion group. They had spent several weeks becoming acquainted with some of the picture books published during 1999. At a final discussion, I heard many intelligent observations about these books. Curiously, no one talked about what most adults had debated in discussion all year, i.e., does Sophie really go outside and does she really climb a tree, etc? At the end of their "Sophie" discussion, I decided to mention that some adults are worried about Sophie, they're afraid she's too little to go so far from home by herself, etc. The children were astonished and then appalled. It was the kind of collective moment when everyone seemed to be thinking something to the effect of "adults worry about the most peculiar things." No one there had worried about that. Finally a boy said, "Well, it's only a book. Sophie's IN the book! She's perfectly safe." He's right, she is. She's in an imaginative book empowering imagination. And she's perfectly safe.
Ginny Moore Kruse (gmkruse at ccbc.education.wisc.edu)
Cooperative Children's Book Center (www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/) A Library of the School of Education, University of Wisconsin Madison
Received on Thu 20 Jan 2000 02:05:12 PM CST
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 14:05:12 -0600
Sophie's "red red roar" is one very few children will forget. So are Bang's other expressive combinations of anger where words and emotions become part of the page design. A few months ago Professor Phil Hamilton (Art Dept., UW-Madison) told us that when the type looks like what's being said it's called "pible." I still can't bring myself to use this new word about the technique Bang used so effectively, because I can't remember how to pronounce it.
Bang's decisions about the uses of page spaces, forms, and pure colors are brilliant. I use the word "pure" intentionally. Bang's colors do not seem garish to my eye.
There's much we might say about this bold book. Sophie's internal journey and its resolution offer much to consider. Earlier this month I spent an afternoon with 37 children (gr. 2-5) who had chosen to be part of an ongoing "Caldecott" discussion group. They had spent several weeks becoming acquainted with some of the picture books published during 1999. At a final discussion, I heard many intelligent observations about these books. Curiously, no one talked about what most adults had debated in discussion all year, i.e., does Sophie really go outside and does she really climb a tree, etc? At the end of their "Sophie" discussion, I decided to mention that some adults are worried about Sophie, they're afraid she's too little to go so far from home by herself, etc. The children were astonished and then appalled. It was the kind of collective moment when everyone seemed to be thinking something to the effect of "adults worry about the most peculiar things." No one there had worried about that. Finally a boy said, "Well, it's only a book. Sophie's IN the book! She's perfectly safe." He's right, she is. She's in an imaginative book empowering imagination. And she's perfectly safe.
Ginny Moore Kruse (gmkruse at ccbc.education.wisc.edu)
Cooperative Children's Book Center (www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/) A Library of the School of Education, University of Wisconsin Madison
Received on Thu 20 Jan 2000 02:05:12 PM CST
