The cloud - a book that shows emotions

Front cover

I saw The Cloud by Hanna Cumming in a catalogue by The Story Bag for workshops that brought together art and literature.  I ordered it to satisfy my curiosity, it was the only picturebook on the list which I didn't know. 

Child's Play the publisher's give a short description of The Cloud on their web site "Everyone has bad days, and children are no exception. When a black cloud descends on a little girl at school, support from a classmate with a great deal of imagination helps to brighten up everyone’s lives. The atmospheric illustrations really tell the story in this delightful picture book from a new author/illustrator."

It is the atmospheric illustrations that I am going to focus on in my blog post.  

What mood or emotion do you associate grey with?  Most of us will go for sad, negative, angry, upset.  Grey is a depressing colour and suitably so it is the background of the front and back covers for The Cloud.  The top part of the child's face we just see under the foreboding scribbled cloud, confirms the negative, sad feeling the background grey gives us.   Those touches of colour coming in from the edges look hopeful though, I wonder why they are there?

Endpapers

I find the endpapers quite shocking in their bright red, with the coloured crayons dispersed among the black squiggles. I'm not sure why Cumming chose red, maybe because the main character has a red t-shirt?  Why do you think she chose red?  What do your children think?

Title page

Though this page appears grey in my photo, it isn't!  It's actually white, with just the oval under the title in grey!  All those arty materials look fun.  Upon rereading this picturebook children will identify with these images and understand that it was through drawing, colouring and painting with a friend that our character was helped. 

Opening 1

Opening 1 shows us the art class.  We are told it's fun, and despite the grey looking classroom (it's raining outside as well!)  it does look like everyone is enjoying themselves... "Well, almost everyone." There's our character in her red t-shirt, with scowling eyes, arms crossed and tightly closed mouth.  "There was one girl, who sat by herself and drew nothing."

Opening 3

The illustration on the verso page is the one we saw on the front cover. Look at those kids chatting and having fun in the recto, but no one talks to the girl with the cloud over her head.  I'm not surprised are you?  She looks very grumpy.  But one little girl in the class is keen to make friends, so off she goes ...

Opening 5

There's a lovely sequence in verso, showing the little girl being engulfed in black cloud ... having a chat didn't seem to work. I wonder what the reply was?  It is a particularly useful activity to ask the children in your class what they think - a way for them to have a go at reading feelings and emotions and sharing these personal readings. 

Opening 7

But this little blond-haired girl was not put off, she looked at her crayons and thought maybe there was a way.  It didn't go too well to begin with, but she kept on trying, kept on drawing and finally ...

Opening 8

Our girl with a cloud over her head was smiling, only a tiny smile, but it's a smile.   Cloud is a bit smaller too!  And look out the classroom window ... it's almost stopped raining ... and the classroom wall is not quite so grey either - everything looks brighter. 

But it doesn't stop there, the children in the classroom liked the idea of creating pictures together, so they all had a go ...

Opening 9

And here they are!  Can you see the blond-haired girl who didn't give up?  And how much smaller that black cloud is! What fun they are all having, and how much brighter that classroom is now!  Look back at opening 1, just to remind yourselves.  They end up doing a huge class drawing, which really does look fun, but best of all ...

Opening 11

"... the cloud was gone. Well sort of!"  And our classroom window is there again, and even if we can still see a tiny cloud in the sky the sun is shining, shining so brightly that the classroom is all yellow and warm.  It matches the big smile across the girl's face.  

There's a small circular illustration before the back endpapers, showing a happily integrated child playing hopscotch with kids in her class.

Opening 12

There's a solitary figure by the gate, I wonder if the children will invite her to join their game? 

The Cloud is a very simple, clear  story.  It's about accepting and not giving up on people, and the illustrations help readers see and feel emotion clearly too.  This little book is excellent for actively working with emotional intelligence, but as mediators we need to give our children pointers, ask them to look and think:  what colours are the pages and what do these colours make us feel? What are the characters feeling, how do they know this?  Can we imitate their postures and facial expressions, what do they feel like? Encourage children to empathise with the dark haired girl whose cloud eventually disappears, what could she be so upset about? By identifying emotions in others and seeing how problems can be resolved, young children can learn strategies of their own, both when they have problems, or to help others overcome their own. 

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.  

Recommendation nº 4: We're going on a bear hunt

Front cover

We're going on a bear hunt is a classic, one my own children grew up with, as it was first published in paperback in the early 90's.  It's also a picturebook  I use over and over in my pre-school English classes. It's been recommended by Caroline Swettenham, an English teacher from the British Council in Italy.  A great recommendation! 

We're going on a bear hunt is a traditional campfire chant, and has been adapted and rewritten by the magical Michael Rosen; The illustrations are by Helen Oxenbury, wonderful illustrations alternating between spreads of watercolour  and black and white sketches.  Helen Oxenbury doesn't have a web site, but there's a nice little film on www.guardian.co.uk, which gives you a taste of her work, and shows you what she looks and sounds like.  She's a wonderful watercolourist and looking closely at her illustrations again for this post has been a delight. I'm learning how to use watercolour and so I appreciate her skill, I've got a long way to go! I love her water and grass ...

So, the picturebook.  The front cover shows us four of the six protagonists, a father figure and three children.  There's an older girl (or possibly the mother?) and a black and white boarder collie on the back cover.  The covers create a whole image and it's the same as the title page illustration.  The characters are joyfully leading us into the picturebook, skipping and smiling, off we go. 

Front endpapers

My paperback edition, now nearly 20 years old, is battered and the corners are worn but it has the endpapers, and they are really very special.  The front and back ones are different, depicting a passing of time.  The front endpapers show a sandy beach, with rocks and seagulls and the sea and sky meeting in a hazy horizon.  This illustration has always puzzled me, as the sea itself does not feature in the story, except very briefly across the muddy flats that the family have to cross as they look for their bear.  Intriguing! 

Copyright and title page

Here are those front and back cover characters, they are skipping along, eager to find their bear.   The illustrations that follow come in pairs, first a black and white illustration, then a colour one. The first presents the physical problem, the second shows how it is overcome. 

Opening 1

The first black and white spread, begins the alternating sequence. These sketches are completely delicious, so enjoy them as you read the rhythmic words: take in those careful outlines, contours and smudges. I love the way the dog is almost lost in the grass.  The rhyming text is repeated through out the book and goes like this: 

"We're going on a bear hunt.

We're going to catch a big one.

What a beautiful day!

We're not scared.

Uh-uh! Grass!

Long wavy grass.

We can't go over it.

We can't go under it. 

Oh no!

We've got to go through it! "

Opening 2

And turn the page to bright colour and a sumptuously grassy hill. What fun they are having! The text is two onomatopoeic words representing the grass as we move through it.  "Swishy swashy!"  

The next geographical hurdle is a river, possibly an estuary if we are near the sea. The characters are studying the water, we see their backs only, but it's clear they are contemplating what to do.  Same rhyming text ...

Opening 3

Opening 4

And "Splash splosh!" as they go through the water. 

So you've seen the grass and the water I like so much!  Pretty brilliant don't you think?

The family keep going through mud, "Squelch squerch!"; through a forest, "Stumble trip!"; through a snowstorm, "Hoooo woooo!" and then they find a cave.  

Opening 11

The dog looks a bit worried and the baby definitely doesn't want to go in. But they do ...

Opening 12

Brilliantly visual emotions shown here: this family is frightened.  The font on the text on recto gets bigger, and kids love to chorus loudly, "WHAT'S THAT?"  Gulp ... 

Opening 13

The words are on the verso, and we read them first, but we've already seen the illustration, we know it's a bear and the suspense as we describe his nose, his ears and his eyes, makes the discovery even more exciting and we can all chorus together ... "IT'S A BEAR!!!!"  

And then the previous pages are re-traced, in rapid succession, the bear is seen following the family as they race home, super quickly. 

Opening 14

And we have to say it all very quickly too, out of breath and panting as we get to the swishy swashy grass, but the bear's still there. Oh no! The family get into the house, through the front door, which they forget to close, so they have to go back and close it, just as the bear is coming up the path.  Oh my!  "Back upstairs. Into the bedroom. Into bed. Under the covers."

Opening 16

"We're not going on a bear hunt again." A big pink eiderdown covers them all, even the dog.  The baby seems quite happy, holding his bear, perhaps he wasn't so frightened after all.  

Don't forget to turn the page and show the back endpapers ...

Back endpapers

It's the beach we saw earlier, the sun is going down, but the dark snow storm clouds are still visible.  The bear is walking away from us, back to his cave - back into the story.  Ask the children how they think he feels.  

Caroline highlights the children's joy in joining in with the repetition as she tells the story and their "smiles, laughter and surprise.  And of course 'Again!'" Oh yes!  "Again!" All children chorus this as you close the book.  I haven't come across a pre-school group who haven't wanted this wonderful picturebook again, and again, and again! Caroline says she encourages the children to act out the story, which is an excellent way of supporting their memory of the sequence followed in the narrative.  

A collection of activities can be found here, including this link to Michael Rosen telling the story on Youtube. Well worth watching.  He's such a great performer, and it'll give you ideas for how to use the story for a storytelling session! 

A big thanks to Caroline for recommending this classic.  BRILLIANT! 

Recommendation 2: The smartest giant in town

Front cover

A research colleague and fellow picturebook lover, Annett Schaefer prompted me to talk about The smartest giant in town, by Julia Donaldson and Axel Shaeffler.  Annett lives and works in Germany and she has used this picturebook with primary students there.  It's opportune that a book by Julia Donaldson be featured this month, as a couple of weeks ago she was nominated as Children's Laureate, and will be very busy promoting all sorts of book related happenings around the UK between now and June 2013. Congratulations to Julia and may she do many wonderful things over the next two years. 

Back to picturebook of this post!  The smartest giant in town... does outward appearance really matter?  George thought so!  He was a scruffy giant, the scruffiest in town, "He always wore the same pair of old brown sandals and the same old patched up gown."  This is the story of George and his smart new clothes.    Julia Donaldson almost always writes in rhyme, though in this picturebook she's mixed prose with rhyme.  I often wonder how writers and illustrators work together and whose ideas belong to who - who decides what will be in the illustrations? I found an article in the Guardian which answered my question: Julia readily admits that  all the illustrative ideas belong to Axel Scheffler, "He adds so many little witty touches to the books."  In this picturebook there are loads of other things to notice,  dozens of references to other stories, often traditional ones, which children will recognize almost immediately. 

Let's start with the covers, the front and back.  A great big spread showing us the characters that appear in the story, dwarfed by a giant pair of legs wearing smart black shoes.   

Title page

The title page gives us a cameo illustration of the giant, he's looking forlorn, in old clothes and sandals.  It's a contrast to the the title sitting above the illustration, announcing that the giant is smart and we've also just been shown smart looking giant legs on the cover, so it gets our curiosity going and already we are wondering whether this is the smart giant we are going to read about. 

Opening 1

The opening spread shows us a busy street scene: it's a land of make believe, filled with normal sized people, giants and creatures wearing clothes, some taken right out of well known traditional stories.   Do you recognize any of the characters in this illustration? Could the two children by the fountain be Hansel and Gretel? There's Puss in Boots and a dwarf from Snow White for sure, and the fountain is reminiscent of The little Mermaid.  Can you see the sign right on the edge of the recto page? "NEW! GIANT SIZES", a clue for what might come next!

Opening 2

And sure enough! This is just what our giant happens upon, a shop selling smart clothes, and they have his giant size!  He buys a whole set of new clothes, and becomes "... the smartest giant in town".  I love his socks, "with diamonds down the sides".  A sign of true smartness!

George the giant leaves his old clothes in the shop and off he goes looking terribly smart.  But of course something has to happen, he meets a sad giraffe, whose long neck is terribly cold. 

Opening 4

And in true kindness, George gives the giraffe his tie, and as he walks away he begins a song, which continues through the book: 

"My tie is a scarf for a cold giraffe, 

But look me up and down - 

I'm the smartest giant in town."

Look at the illustrations on this spread.  A lovely looking giantess quite fancies our George; there's one of the pigs from Three little pigs; another dwarf; a studious rabbit is peering at a "MIssing Giraffe" poster; a man carrying a chicken; there's a rabbit using a mobile phone.  Children will notice and want to comment on these features. There is so much going on. George of course continues oblivious to the activity around him!  

He comes to a river and a goat who was "bleating loudly", on a boat of all things (it rhymes with goat as we will see in a bit!).  The poor goat has lost his sail, and so George donates his very smart shirt. This is the visual sequence we see on the two spreads: 

Opening 5

Opening 6

And it's repeated three more times: Left verso shows George meeting an animal in distress, facing right recto with three cameo illustrations describing the animal's distress, followed by a new page showing George resolving the problem by donating an item of clothing and finally walking away, singing his little ditty, which gets gradually longer as you can see here:

"My tie is a scarf for a cold giraffe, 

My shirt's on a boat as a sail for a goat,

But look me up and down - 

I'm the smartest giant in town."

And so George meets a family of mice, whose house had burned down. He gives them his ... shoe of course!  It's reminiscent of "There was an old lady who lived in a shoe"! He then met a fox, who was crying next to his tent because his sleeping bag was wet. So George gave him his very smart yellow sock with diamonds down the side. Then he met a dog who was stuck in a muddy bog, so George gave him his belt to cross the bog. And of course as you look at  these different spreads look out for more of the three little pigs and a princess and a frog!

And here is George, very pleased with himself, skipping happily along with one shoe and sock,  and a pair of belt-less trousers ...

Opening 12

... and his song has got quite a bit longer! 

"My tie is a scarf for a cold giraffe, 

My shirt's on a boat as a sail for a goat,

My shoe is a house for a little white mouse,

One of my socks is a bed fro a fox,

My belt helped a dog who was crossing a bog ..."

But oh dear, what happens?

Opening 13

With no belt, his trousers fall down!  And now he's cold and "not at all smart".  Poor George! So he decides to go back to the town and find his old clothes.   Lucky for him they were outside the shop in a very large plastic bag.  Once he had his old clothes back on he felt like "the cosiest giant in town!" and was quite content.  But that's not the end!  Waiting for him back at home were the five animals he had helped. 

Opening 14

They had made him a very special crown and written a thank you letter.  And so George became the kindest giant in town!  

The illustrations in The smartest giant in town support the words very closely, but the additional mini-stories that appear via the ad hoc appearance of other story characters leave lots of space for chattering and wondering. Annett describes observing a teacher in Germany who let the children talk about the illustrations in German before she read the words on the page.  She did this with 6-7 year olds and 8-9 year olds, who have 50 minutes of English once a week.  She described the process like this: " The teacher being [very] experienced and knowing the children very well gave them a lot of time to speak about the pictures in the mother tongue just supplying individual words in English here and there such as animal names (frog, squirrel) for example before reading out the text on one page in English." I really like this idea, and it's something I do a lot when sharing picturebooks with children and upon rereading picturebooks children begin to describe and label illustrations in English.  
Annett presented at a conference about this picturebook and a section of her presentation was summarised thus:  "Although the children’s initial responses prompted by the pictures in the book were exclusively in their mother tongue, Annett argued that they are nonetheless facilitating L2 learning. By reading the pictures and talking about them, she stated that children construct a framework of possible meanings that may become more elaborate and more precise as they decode visual images and language structures during repeated storytelling sessions. The pictures act as a form of scaffolding device in the same way as recurrent language structures in the literary text provide an ‘entry point or way into the story’ (Cameron 2001: 163). Annett stated that the children’s first language was an invaluable aid in that process as individual words used by the children in their L1 can be taken up by the teacher to introduce new language items in the L2."  
Rereading a picturebook is essential in enabling the L1 to support the L2, I can't emphasise enough the importance of sharing a picturebook at least three times with a group of children, not only does it help them move from L1 to L2, but it also gives children time to look and listen and understand, each time they'll pick up something new and different. As EFL teachers we focus on children's imitation of the words on a picturebook page, but in fact the illustrations also have significance, and words are needed to describe them. I've been saying this at conferences,  but I'l say it again, picturebooks are pictures and words and both can be used to promote language use. 
Annett described some follow up activities which are nice to feature here too.  She used a handout from the British Council in Hong Kong, which can be down loaded here.  Here's a scan of the mix and match activity the older children did.  As you can see, the song is an excellent way to focus on language, as it's repetitious and cumulative. 

They also looked at thank you cards, which they wrote in German, though a similar activity could be done in English with children who are more confident in their writing skills. 


I'd like to thank Annett for sharing some of her thoughts and ideas around this picturebook, and for allowing me to share some of the children's work.  Here's the reference she used:
Cameron, L. 2001. Teaching Languages to Young Learners. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.