The taming of the wolf

Front cover

Emily Gravett is one of my favourite illustrators. I featured three of her picturebooks in January 2011. She published two titles in 2011, Wolf won't bite and Again. The former is a cracker of a picturebook and I've had lots of fun sharing it with my pre-school groups over the last week.  

"The three little pigs" they all shout as I show the front cover. And what other animal do we associate with the three little pigs?  "A wolf " they faithfully call out ... not reading yet, so they didn't pick up on the title of our story! Open out the book and just as they guessed, we see the wolf on the back cover. 

Back and front covers

The illustration only fits their predictions in the sense that we see the three little pigs and the big bad wolf.  Several children point out that things aren't quite right, as the pigs have the wolf on a chain; he doesn't look very fierce and ... what are the pigs wearing? There's a good deal of giggling as they begin to notice that the pigs are wearing clothes, one's in a tutu.  I wonder what kind of story it will be, maybe the title will help us? They all agreed that the wolf did look rather tame, so maybe he doesn't bite any more. 

With one group I asked if any of them had been to the circus, very few hands went up.  Maybe visiting the circus just isn't part of being a kid anymore?  But several knew what could be seen at the circus, wild animals did tricks, tigers jumped through flaming hoops, dogs stood on their hind legs, danced or stood on stools. Clowns told jokes and did silly things, horses pranced around the ring with ballerinas on their backs and there were acrobats who jumped and did somersaults. 

Let's open the book and see if these pigs take the wolf to the circus.

Front endpapers

Typical of Emily Gravett her endpapers play a part in the narrative, and the front endpapers show the three pigs chasing a wolf and pulling a circus cage on wheels.  

Dedication, copyright and title page

This spread is cleverly uses the idea of circus posters, the title page is a poster advertising the performance we are able to see. The copyright information can be read (with a magnifying glass) on the two rolled up posters!  Once you've read this picturebook to a group of children remember to go back to these pages and talk about them. 

Opening 1

Be ready as you turn the page to call out loudly, "Roll up!"  And there we have it, the wolf, a wild wolf, in a cage.  Note the gold leaf pigs decorating the outside.  And so upon each page turn we are shown what the little pigs are able to do to the wild wolf.  Their feats go in threes, each little pig declares , "I can ..." trying to improve on what the first one was able to do.   This is the first little pig's trick...

Opening 2

Then, the second little pig ...

Opening 3

She's a girl pig, so she does girlie things to the poor wolf!  The third little pig ...

Opening 4

... he can ride him like a horse. The verbal text is salient through out. You will have noticed that the words on each page are large, using different fonts. But here we are also confronted with a chunk of text in capitals "WOLF WON'T BITE!" This repeated pattern occurs three times, the frightened looking wolf is put through his paces, the little pigs proudly showing what they are able to do with him and to him. Their flat snouts turned up in triumph,  the wolf's eyes always open wide in fright.  
The final set of three tricks show the poor wolf having knives thrown at him, being shot from a canon (my favourite spread!)

Opening 9

... and even being cut in half. But then, the three little pigs together get super brave. 

Opening 11

"We can even place our heads between his mighty jaws but wolf won't ..."  now look at our wolf, he's not got that tamed look about him, and those little piggies look so confident.  Can you guess what the next spread shows and tells us?  

Opening 12

Finally the wolf gets his own back.  But that's not the end, we've still got the back endpapers to go!  

Back endpapers

"Ahh ha ha ha ha!"  Those pre-school kids just loved it and we had to read it again.  They had even more fun joining in with the refrain, "Wolf won't bite!" the second time round. A brilliant picturebook, and what fun I had sharing it.  You will too!

There was an old lady

A favourite traditional song, known and loved by most English speakers is I know an old woman who swallowed a fly.  It's said to have an unknown author, but Copyright has been given to  Alan Mills and Rose Bonne (1952). Children love anything that makes the impossible possible, and this traditional song does just that! An old lady swallows a fly, a spider, a bird, a cat, a dog, a cow and finally a horse!  

The picturebook I'm featuring today is the award winning version of this song by Simms Taback, There was an old lady who swallowed a fly.

Dust jacket front cover

The picturebook is a visual delight, the artwork is mixed media and collage on craft paper, using bright colours often against a black background, there is loads to look at and muse over.  

I have a hardback edition, not sure there is a paperback one, at least I couldn't find it.  The dust jacket cover has a hole cut into the paper where the old lady's mouth is, and we can see a fly wiggling around in the blackness. If you take the dust jacket off, there's another illustration:

Front cover

The mad looking lady is surrounded by flies, and if you look at the back covers, you will see a masterful collection of flies, all labelled and in neat rows. I was doubtful there really was such a thing as a robber fly or a sawfly - but Taback really does know his flies - they exist, though not as attractively decorated as they are in these illustrations! Before moving inside, I just want to draw your attention to the spine, which gives us the title, the author and the publisher names, all beautifully written on ripped pieces of coloured paper.

Spine

This ripped collage technique flows through the illustrations and is quite delightful. 

Front endpapers

The endpapers are covered in tiny pieces of ripped paper - they look like multicoloured snow flakes in the very dark of night. 

Copyright and title page

The copyright and title pages are a sudden contrast in bright orange, with all but one of the animals featured in the story, busily moving around in the illustrations.  The fly from the front cover has buzzed across the spread and circled the old lady, who is seen as calm and relaxed in this cameo illustration - the only time she is ever seen looking normal and old lady-like!  In the dedication to Peter Newell, Taback is openly acknowledging the contribution of illustrators at the beginning of the last century, who through their work paved the way for picturebooks as they are today.  Peter Newell's book can seen in its entirety here if you are interested. 

So let's get going with the song!

Opening 1

In wonderful picturebook fashion the spreads and illustrations follow a visual structure, which begins in opening 1, and works in sets of pairs. The verso page is a busy illustration full of all sorts of images, flowers and flying creatures all buzzing around together.  Some are painted, some are collages - this page presents the creature the old lady will swallow and to help us there's a newspaper with telling headlines "Old lady swallows fly".  The recto shows us the old lady, quite barmy, waving her umbrella and there's a smallish hole in the page, in the middle of her tummy, can you make it out?   Notice also the words, on different coloured rectangles, even the full stop is on a separate bit of paper.  "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly."

Turn the page and ...

Opening 2

We can see the fly in the lady's tummy, through the hole.  "I don't know why she swallowed a fly."   On the recto page, in that multicoloured snow we saw on the endpapers, "Perhaps she'll die" and some of the other animals in the story are commenting, all in rhyme. "I think I'll cry..."; "She gulped it out of the sky."; "But it's only a fly."; "Oh, my!" 

And if we continue this pattern is repeated with the spider and so on ...

Opening 3

Opening 4

Can you see the recipe for Spider's Soup in the verso of opening 3? Notice also how whole sentences are featured on strips of coloured paper in recto.  This is a feature which reappears on this recto page each time. 

Each time we turn the page, the hole in her tummy gets bigger as it fills up ... here she is with the spider and the fly...

Opening 5

And here with the fly, spider, bird, cat and dog ...

Opening 11

I especially like the verso in opening 11, where we are shown the cow surrounded by flowers and packets from food made with milk, and of course the newspaper headlines, "Whole cow devoured".  

Opening 12

Here's the second spread in this pair, opening 12.  Look how the parts of the song are shown on different pieces of coloured paper, and for the first time we see the horse, he's remained incognito till now! So, "There was an old lady who swallowed a horse." 

We know how the story ends don't we? 

Opening 14

"She died of course!"  And all the other animals lament, "I'm filled with remorse."; "It was the last course." etc... and right at the bottom of the recto page, a small self portrait by Taback, "Even the artist is crying ..."

Back verso

And here's the moral, "Never swallow a horse."

What a visual delight and so much there to go on and use in the classroom.  The collage illustration begs to be imitated and played with by the children.  Pages of ripped up paper, or mixing of paint and collage.  Different colours on black is visually very striking, and the children's work would make a wonderful display. 

Then there's the words and sentences on separate coloured paper, ideal for playing around with.  Words can be made into sentences, also using punctuation.  Sentences can be ordered to make the song.  A great activity for primary children who are coming to grips with reading and writing in English.  And lots of fun can be had with the rhyming words.  

And as ever youtube has the film of the book, which is really well put together. It's followed by the song, so you can sing along, though it's a bit fast! 

Old MacDonald with a twist

Front cover

Traditional stories portrayed in picturebooks have been recommended by several colleagues, so I thought I'd do a month of posts on the theme of Traditional stories or songs in picturebooks and include at least two recommendations. 

To start I'm going to feature one of my all time favourites, introduced to me by Opal Dunn, years ago!  

Old MacDonald had a farm, is one of those songs that everybody, who is 'doing' farm animals, sings in ELT classes!  But I was never really a great fan: the repeated refrain "With a bow wow here and a bow wow there. Here and bow, there a bow everywhere a bow wow..." etc was just too much for many of the early years' language learners I was working with and "EIEIO" was always rendered in a Portuguese pronunciation, as the song exists in translation in Portugal.  But when I began using this picturebook, Old MacDonald, by Jessica Souhami, all that changed! Hearing the words clearly and slowly, in association with the pictures and fun font placement, enabled the children I was working with to imitate the English sounding "EIEIO" and to pick up that tricky refrain.   But most of all it was such a fun experience as there's a wonderful, unexpected twist at the end, not to mention all the different ways the animals like to travel! It's brilliant!

If you take a look at the front cover, shown above, you can predict which animals will appear, can't you? Or can you?  I like Old MacDonald's eye brows, I have a uncle who is a farmer and they are just like that!  As a reading adult you will also notice that it's a "Lift the flaps!" book.  

Title page

No exciting peritext, except if you look at the title page, which looks like the words are being trumpeted out of the page  gutter.  Notice how the designer has been included there: that's unusual on the title page, isn't it?

Opening 1

Here's the first spread, with the words of the song and a long-legged farmer striding across the page.  It's interesting that he is moving right to left, normally movement is depicted from left to right.  He's pulling something, but we can't quite make out what it is.  Can you guess? Let's open the flap, can you see it?  It's covering half the recto page. 

Opening 1 + flap

It's "... a duck, EIEIO" Let's turn the page again... 

Opening 2

And the song continues! 

There's lots of interesting things to notice about these spreads.  The illustrations are big and bold, collages of cut out shapes with simple line drawings.  The font does some exciting things visually.  In opening 2 the words flow out of duck's beak, rather like the title did on the title page. Then the font changes for the EIEIO and children notice this immediately.  They are drawn to the visual letter shapes and like to point at each one as we say them together as the book progresses.  

So, we've seen two spreads, or rather two and a half! They come in pairs like this through out.   First spread shows the farmer and an animal in some sort of transportation, but we can only see a bit of the animal until we turn the flap; and the second spread depicts the creature visibly making its animal noises. 

The pig arrives in a pram, here he is oinking ...

Opening 4

The children notice that the font represents a piggy tail immediately!  

The sheep arrives in the back of a truck and the cow is travelling in a plane.

Opening 7 + flap

And children get such a kick of seeing the next opening with all the words in the cow's belly:

Opening 8

Many of them question how it was possible for the cow to fit into the plane.  Clever children!

So what else do we have on farms?  Horses, chickens, I wonder what's next, and it's in a rocket, WOW!

Opening 9 + flap

Of course it's a rocket, Martian's don't travel in any old truck!  What a fun surprise!  But what sound do Martians make? 

Opening 10

"Beep!" Of course! 

And the song comes to it's finale ... "Oh ..."  Quick turn the page: 

Opening 11

"EIEI ... " what's under the flap? 

Opening 11 + flap

Nice!  The farmer and his animals!  Duck in a bath, pig in bed, sheep doing her knitting and the farmer and the cow having tea, with milk (of course!)  And the silly Martian is up the chimney! What a groovy version of Old MacDonald ... and it just has to be read "Again!" 

Print-salience 

I just want to make a point about the different ways of showing the words in this picturebook. It's considered a "print-salient" picturebook, because the print attracts the children's attention.  It doesn't mean that they will ignore the illustrations, far from it, they still focus on those almost exclusively especially if they aren't officially reading yet.  But in a picturebook like this children do look at the words far more because they are part of the visual design of the picturebook.  Some children will be affected by this design more than others, and will begin to associate the written word and its sound.  Don't ignore this if you see or hear it happening, encourage children to make connections, and if possible leave the picturebook in the classroom, so children can browse through the pages, studying what interests them.