I love my white shoes

Front cover

I'm not sure where I first saw Pete the cat being reviewed, but I came across him more than once.  I ummed and ahhed but didn't buy the bright yellow book (my photo does not do it justice). Then Zoe from Playing by the book, wrote about Pete the cat on her blog.  I followed the links to the creators telling their story to a group of pre-schoolers and I was hooked.  Pete the cat: I love my white shoes was waiting for me in my pile of holiday post when I got back!  I've been humming his song ever since!   I've also been watching Youtube films of children retelling the story.  I am well geared to sharing it with the first pre-school group I can get my hands on!   There is nothing better than real children interacting with a picturebook to convince me that a picturebook will work. 

So, Pete the cat: I love my white shoes is written by Eric Litwin and illustrated by James Dean.  A dark blue cat in bright white sneakers. He is a cool dude.  

End papers

The endpapers show us Pete staring up at four pairs of sneakers, no white pairs there, maybe that's because he's wearing them?  Here's Pete walking down the road...

Title page

And so that's how we start, walking down the street...

Opening 1

That great big foot striding on, it's almost as though Pete is going to step on the reader!  And watch that yellow bird, she gradually gets more involved with Pete's story.  "Pete the cat was walking down the street in his brand-new white shoes.  Pete loved his white shoes so much, he sang this song:"

Opening 2

"I love my white shoes, I love my white shoes, I love my white shoes."  I can't say this without bursting into song, which is from watching the Youtube film and hearing the Harpercollins song download, and Pete's very cool dude stance is all the funnier for knowing the wacky tune.  The rebus-like message in his speech bubble will attract the children's attention and so will the way the word for "white" has been highlighted in the recto page. 

Opening 3

But wait, "Oh no! Pete stepped in a large pile of ... strawberries! What colour did it turn his shoes?"  How he could have missed that VERY large pile of red fruit is beyond me, but he looks great right on the top of that pile of strawberries!  And of course we all know the answer to the question, don't we?

Opening 4

You got it!  RED!  And there's one red shoe and lots of red all over the place.  "Did Pete cry? Goodness, no! He kept walking along singing his song." Can you remember how the song goes?

Opening 5

And so it continues.  Pete steps in a pile of blueberries, even bigger than the strawberry pile.   In fact there are two piles now, one for Pete and one for the yellow bird. What colour did they turn his shoes?  BLUE! There are two blue shoes in this illustration. (Many of us adults will wonder at this trasformation into plain old blue, for when blue and red come together we normaly get purple.  But hey!  No problem, it's all part of Pete's wild walk.  And "Did Pete cry?  Goodness, no! He kept walking along and singing his song."  You may have noticed that Pete says "Everything is cool" in opening 4, and he has something different to say on each of these spreads... his blue shoes are "Awesome!"   We see Pete sharing his umbrella with the yellow bird as he sings his song, lots of blue rain cascading around them. 

You'll have picked up the visual rhythm and structure for sure, and it's repeated with brown, as Pete steps into a muddy puddle.  Brown shoes, we see three brown feet and Pete is fine about it all, in fact he even thinks it's "Groovy!"  He sings his song and drinks some coffee, which is also brown.   But then he steps in a bucket of water... "and all the brown, and all the blue and all the red were washed away".  The bird looks very worried!

Opening 12

Oh dear, what colour are his shoes now? You guessed it! WHITE! But now they are WET!"  And we see four white sneakers again.  "Rock and roll!" says Pete, and he sings his song ...

Opening 14

"I love my wet shoes, I love my wet shoes, I love my wet shoes." There's no stopping Pete!  And... "the moral of this story is: No matter what you step in, keep walking along and singing your song ..." 

Bach verso

"... because it's all good."   

What a moral!  Good for you Pete, a great way to help children to take it easy and look on the bright side of life.  Love it! 

"AGAIN!"  The children call out... you'll be so tired of telling, and retelling this picturebook, I guarantee!

Watch the YouTube film and see just how much fun the storyteller and the kids are having.  Watch and take notes, and use some of the ideas for your own storytelling techniques.  Really, the pauses, the sound effects and the gestures are all excellent ways to get your students, and you, super motivated and enjoying the experience.  

HarperCollins have a collection of printables for some of their books, and there's one for Pete the cat.  If you want to see their other printables click here.

And if you haven't already, check out the link to Zoe's blog, where she shares the fun coloured playdough she made with her two girls, following on from the idea of fruit dyes.  A great followup activity.  

Emily Gravett's bear

And on we go with my very favourite of Emily Gravett's  books, Orange Pear Apple Bear.  This little book is a gem. It's difficult to talk about the illustrations alone, for the pictures and words are truely united. Emily Gravett uses just five words, 'orange' 'pear' 'apple' 'bear' 'there', and with them she creates a beautifully illustrated, delightfully visual, word play.  Superb.

In a skillful "done-in-a-sec" look, she uses watercolour and crayon, against a clear, white background. Her illustartions ooze volumn, leaving you wanting to eat the fruit and hug the bear.   In fact the whole thing is delicious!  The whole thing, from cover, through the front matter, the endpapers,  the copywrite page and the title page, all carefully thought out to bring a whole visual experience. So how does she manage a whole book with just five words? By combining the visual and the verbal to imply a subtle humour in the simple placement of two words. 

The cover presents our four objects, a clever bear, balancing three pieces of fruit on his head.  He has a querky sort of look, his eyes dots of cheeky black, his eyebrows raised.  

The front endpapers, show us a neat row of the three pieces of fruit again, and if you take a peek at the back endpapers you'll see that time has passed and the same pieces fruit are shown nibbled, munched or as  piles of peel.  This row of fruit follows us as we turn to the copyright and title pages.  Publishing info is in a neat pear shape, the Macmillan Children's Book logo makes a great flag-like leaf.  And the title page brings our bear back, peeking from the fold, the three fruit now balancing on his paw.  He is good!

And so we start, (as if we hadn't already!).  Object and label, visual mirrors the words, as though presenting each performer before the play begins.  But even with just four words and four illustrations, we are already rhyming.  "Orange" "Pear" (pause as you turn the page) "Apple" "Bear".  

And the bear is doing a sort of "Ta, ta!"  pose! His arms stretched out, "Here I am" kind of thing.  Yeah! 

"Apple, pear" (pause as you glance across the spread) "Orange bear".  

Simple change of word order, lack of punctuation and orange has become an adjective, and our modest bear looks like he's trying to hide his privates!  Then it happens again.  "Orange pear" "Apple bear", and our bear's round bottom is apple-like, round and juicy, pinky green.  What a surprise!  

Can you guess what happens next? Of course you can, like all good stories it's predictable.  A coy bear is sitting with his back to us, and he's a lovely pear shape, a green pear shape.  "Apple, orange, pear bear."  

Then a change of rhythm, "Orange, pear, apple, bear".  Punctuation appears, big time, and some children will notice this, and over re-reads they may even associate the way you read this page, and the next, with the appearance of these commas.   

"Apple, bear, orange, pear".  The words are falling diagonally from top to bottom on the recto page, visually reflecting the fruit the bear has thrown.  Then "Orange, bear" and the orange is gone.  

The way we read this phrase could imply a query, maybe even suprise.  And each fruit now gets eaten - the bear's large mouth, open wide, catching the fruit; biting the fruit. "Pear, bear" "Apple, bear" ... And he's gone! "There!"  

The endpapers show us the remains of our story ... cores and peel.   

Now wasn't that amazing?  So simple, so clever.  Great illustrations, rhyme, rhythm and repetition, fun with punctuation, and a silly end. What more could you wish for from a picturebook?

Younger children will love "Orange Pear Apple Bear",  and request it again and again.  They'll pick up the rhythmic words quickly and help you tell the story over re-reads.  They'll pause when you do, run when you do, be flamboyant when you are, imitating and learning as they go. And you never know they might start drawing their own fruit and animal mixtures and bring you some delightful drawings.  

Petr Horácek and pre-school books: part 1

Screen shot from Petr Horácek's website 

I'm going to talk about  Petr Horácek in all my December posts.  I've been using his books with my pre-school children since 2003.  He has a very characteristic style, using bright colours and bold shapes, which are perfect for the under 5's.  His vibrant backgrounds painted with visible brush work or spoldgy splashes of water-colour incorporate a technique we often see in early years classrooms, which is water colour paint over wax crayon.  His first books, mostly board books, do this very simply, but effectively.

In What is black and white? you can see his blackbird is outlined in blue wax crayon, a great contrast to the bright yellow background, but also evoking the blue hints one gets when something is really shiny and black (I have a black Labrador, who shines blue in the sun!) 

Here's his black cat, with the outline and features in wax crayon.  I love her nose and bottom in light pink!  
And what is white, can you guess? The children are good at guessing and usually get snow and milk, but not goose, a bird which appears regularly in his work. 

In Strawberries are red he uses different shades  of the same colour to create the outlines of the piles of fruit.  

Here are his blueberries, a dark blue against a light blue background. They really do look good enough to eat don't they?   In Portugal blueberries aren't found in the wild, so we think about other fruit which can be blue.  They have some very blue coloured plums and even very dark grapes have a blue tinge. 
In both these books you can see that the pages are different widths; they're cut into shapes, and get gradually narrower, culminating in the creation of a superimposed double spread. 

In What is black and white?, the black and white pages come together to create the zebra's stripes, and  in Strawberries are red all the fruits come together to make a bowl of fruit salad.  Children love this surprise, and they want the story again and again, so that they can see that magical ending, and only on retells do they actually notice the pages are getting narrower! 
In their simplicity these books actually provide children with lots to look and think about.  The creation of different hues of colour, the wax crayon and water colour technique and the montage effect. In one of my classes children made a black and white book of their own.  And many a class have had fun making fruit salad after seeing Strawberries are red, and they love talking about the fruit they put in it, describing the colours and saying if the fruit is sweet or sour. 
There's a whole collection of board books so check out Petr's website and have a look. 
And also take  a peek at his gallery.  His work as an artist is interesting.  
Part 2, my next post, is about his recurring goose.