Alice in Wonderland - Written Lewis Carroll

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In the beginning, I only know that Alice in Wonderland is very famous work, and I even saw his video when I was young. I don’t really remember the plots, since it is so complicated. However, I thought it is interesting because there are a lot of unbelievable characters in the story; they are exaggerating and ridiculous.

When I know that I have the chance to see the whole story of Alice in Wonderland in class, I think it is good, since I can truly read the story in words, and I may realize the reason why it is so popular. However, when I first read the book (our group is charge of chapter six – pig and pepper), I think it is BORING, since I can’t really understand the meaning that the author wants to express. I think it is because there are too many proper nouns which I haven’t learned before, and I don’t have the related knowledge background. But after teacher’s explanation, I suddenly feel the book is worthy to be famous.

The author’s writing style is quiet formal, and also tends to be American Style. He used a lot ways of comparison and indication to describe the government and social environment at that time. Also, he mentioned a lot of information of family, adult’s social place, political system, schools by writing the chapter of pig and pepper, a mad tea – party, the queen’s croquet ground, and the mock turtle’s story. I can’t totally realize the meaning of each chapter first, but I understood it when teacher taught us, and I think he is such a good writer with fantastic writing style.

There are many illustrators painted for Alice in Wonderlands, and there are a variety of painting styles, such as realistic, over- realistic, comic, and so on. In my opinion, they all gave this book a different expression. In addition, I like the comic style most, since Alice in Wonderland is totally a fantastic book for me. As a result, the painting style can fit my imagination most. In addition, I think the version that we bought is great because the context is not so easy to understand, and the author put one picture in about every two or three pages. It really helps me to imagine the situation that the author described more easily.

The last thing I want to mention is that the author use a lot of proper nouns which have special meanings, for example, March Hare represents crazy people because hare in March are in their oestrus, and they will act craze; and Cheshire Cat means people laugh very strange. As for me, it is the part which we need teacher or someone to explain it to me, or I will never know what the exactly meaning. Therefore, I think teacher gave a big help and inspired my imagination very much. All above is my reflection about Alice in Wonderland. Actually, I haven’t finished it yet, but I will try to read all of it in this summer vacation, since the book does has more than I think.

No, David. - Written by David Shannon

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I think this book is suitable for three to five years old children to read and comprehend it. The reason why I set this age range for three to five years old is that the picture is big and clear, the way to expression of this book can certainly enlarge of their power, for the description of the content are quite simple and easy to understand. That makes the children have higher motivation to read and understand this book.

Also the children who are naughty may have the same experiences as the main character, David. On the children perspective, they may think it is interesting, because they may see this book as mirror that reflects the behavior of them, such as play the glasses and pretending they are air plane and they can fly to anywhere.
It may give the compensate feeling for the children’s mind, and there is no adult in this book, therefore they can do whatever they want in their imagination world. However, in the end of this book, the mother hung with him. This may make children have the feeling of love, because the parent will love them no matter what kind of situation and bad behavior they done. This will fit the children mind that they always need the love of their family.

I think it is quite smart that the author did not describe parents’ image so that the book can successfully arouse the imagination of the children. As the adult point of view, they can fit it on their daily life. The may think their kids are devil when they are really naughty, as the result, I highly recommend this book because they can not only arouse the interest of the children also the parents.

When it comes to the content, the context “No, David” is kind of ordering sentence and repeat it again and again in this book. When the children hear to the similar sentence, it just like what our textbook said “Against another”, therefore children will feel more exciting and interesting about it.

Willy and Hugh - Written by Anthony Browne

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I think this book is suitable for 4-7 years old children to read, since it mainly talks about the friendship, and children may start to realize the meaning from four years old. It is beginning that people need more friends to accompany them in schools. I had ever mentioned about the author in reflection before; he always use monkey as main characters but not human beings, and he did the same thing in “Willy and Hugh.”

The book describes that a tiny and thin monkey who is not popular in his school life, and there is even no one want to make friends with him. However, one day, he met Hugh who was running and bumped into him by accident. Hugh is strong and big, and the most important is, he is quiet polite, and he said sorry to Willy. Willy was surprised, since everyone in his live won’t treat him like this. By this accident, they became good friends, and they had a lot of fun. Because of Hugh, no one can treat Willy badly anymore. Furthermore, although Hugh is big, there is still something he afraid of, and Willy can help him solve the trouble – a small spider.

I think this book is really sweet and interesting. First, I want to talk about the illustrations. The illustrations always portray the meaning of the context very well, and I like it very much. In this case, children can easily understand the meaning and the expression of this book. Furthermore, the children will like to spend time on this book, since it is easy and attractive at this age group. Second, from the psychoanalytical criticism aspect the content of this book are showing many things. The friendship may be the main point and issue for children to focusing on it and for those tow monkeys, their friendship shows the importance of accompany for everyone. And I certainly believe that, everyone need friend around us, therefore, when the children read this book they may come up with the feeling of agreement and the book will arouse the interest among the children. The characters of this book, they use the way of comparison and ironically comparison on them. They describe the big monkey has a polite and gentle personality, however, the monkey who is small and short are always be treated bad by others, even policeman. What the author trying to tell us is that, this world is the practical society and the children can learn this phenomenon form this book much earlier. And for the bright side of this book, the author are trying to let us realize the friendship around us in everywhere of our daily life. To sum up my opinion, I would highly recommend that the children can learn this real world and realize more about this world. As a result, they can see the bright side of this society as well.

Voices in The Park - Written by Anthony Browne

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I think this book is suitable for children about 6 to 9 years old. First of all, I want to say that I appreciate the author very much, since he not only takes monkeys as main characters to exchange the role between animals and human beings, but his works are all meaningful to me.

I had read three of his works, and I found it’s interesting that the author likes to mock some conditions by using cute pictures. For example, in the same series there’s a book named “Willy and Hugh,” and one of its illustrations is they (two monkeys) decided to go to a zoo, and they saw a family living in a “cage” – human being family!! A father, a mother and a son sit in the cage with unhappy facial expression. The picture shocked me a lot! I think it’s ridiculous but interesting. I like the way that the author used to show his ideas.

Also, the author used monkey to play characters in the book. It mainly talks about four people all have different views and different feeling in a same thing. There’re four characters in the book – mother, father, girl and boy. I think the plot is very close to our daily live that we all have different living pressure which we may show to our family. Everyone worries about their own business, and we may ignore others’ feeling. And even ignore what other thing happened in the world. We only care about what we cared, and then we loss more and more things.

From this book, we can realize everyone has his/her own difficulties, and we may also feel the pressure of adults. Adults are unhappier than children, since they have to worry about more annoying things, and they have more responsibilities to the world. However, children are happy and innocent, what they care are more pure. In children’s world, they also can feel the negative emotions from adults, but they may not understand the reason. They still feel happy when they can go out and have fun, and they are willing to make new friends. I think the book enables me to think about my attitude to the world, and it’s the most important to me. I wonder if I also ignore something happy because of something unhappy. When I meet difficulties, maybe the best way is to make it easy, and consider it by changing a side. It’s not good and unworthy to be unhappier just because we growing up.

In short, I think the meaning is significant, but may also be too hard for children to understand. As a result, I think it’s suitable for 6-9 years old children so that they may old enough to understand. In addition, it’s better that teachers or parents read it with them, and induct them to think about some questions, for examples, why the man and woman unhappy? Why the girl and the boy seem happier than their parents? Do their parents care about their children’s feeling? How will you do to please your parents? Why four people have four feelings? Why the author showed it? I think the relevant questions can help children to think about some deeper ideas, or they may miss the direction of the book, and they may even don’t understand the meaning.

The Red Book - Written by Barbara Lehman

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I think this book is suitable for 5-8 years old children to read, since I think the real meaning can only be understood by elder children. In the beginning, I was attracted by the book after hearing teacher’s briefly introduction, and when I read it I found that its illustrations help the whole book present in a special way. And I will analysis it in the following paragraphs. Now I want to divide the book into two parts. First is their illustration, and second is the content.

When it comes to illustrations, I am fond of the idea that authors used to show the distances; in these pictures, it’s just like taking a photo, and we find some clearer details by changing focal length. It enlarges something we want to see. We can clearly get the idea and the marvelous feeling as if we are the characters in the book. There is no word in the book, and I think it is quiet smart because this kind of plot is hard to describe by words, and it will be much easier to show it by pictures. In addition, the front cover is red and there is only a small girl on it; it’s a very clean design, also the red color enables readers feel happy and full of passion to read it.

Next, I would like to talk about its content. As what I said before, the real meaning may not be easily understood if the readers are too young. I think the plot is very interesting that you find someone who you are looking at may also look at you! It’s exciting to know this feeling of pry. Moreover, the content also shows the experience that two people meet each others and then become good friends. I t will be good for children to see this part because children may feel happy when meet someone new. However, the following plot describes that the two people SEEM to loss each other, and one of them is very sad. I like the illustration which talks about the sad feeling of the little boy very much, and I think it really touch me. When I looked at this picture, I felt so bad, and familiar with it. It’s just like kind of human natures, you can feel it, and you must have the similar experience that you feel sad and helpless, but there’s nothing you can do. I think this is my favorite part of the book. You can feel it exactly by looking at the illustrations. The book shows the part of apartness, and the inner feeling of unhappiness very realistic. In my personal opinion, children may only get the pictures of this if they are old enough. That is to say, children may be unable to taste the feeling when they are too young. However, the book also ends in a happy ending so that children won’t feel so frustrating after reading it. I think the real meaning is worthy to think over and over again. If we loss someone in life without any reason or awareness? By the way, it’s better that someone reads the story for you with looking at pictures because readers can be easier to understand what the author want to express. (Since I introduce this book to many of my family and friends, and they seem can’t feel it by simply looking at the pictures. After I reading it with them, they all think it’s more interesting and significant.)

Come Along, Daisy. -- Written by Jane Simmons

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In my opinion, the book is suitable for 2~4-year-old children since it is simple and lovely. The book has only few words but big pictures which enable children focus on the details of the illustrations. I would like analyze the book from three aspects which are the style of illustrations, the design of the book, and the content.

The first is the design of the book. Form the front cover, we can realize the book uses colorful illustrations to make the book lively. Furthermore, the main character is painted in bright-colored so that we can se it clearly and sassily. There are also a dragonfly which attracts the little duck very much, and a Mama duck who is always accompanying with her baby. We can almost know the content from the whole cover. People will like to read it because its peaceful illustrations which we can also feel the happiness by seeing the facial expressions of characters. Moreover, two pages formed one complete illustrations so that our seeing view is broaden, and I think it also gives me a feeling of freedom. The last point is that something special always shoed up on the right page, such as fish, lily pads, Mama Duck, and butterflies, and it matches our textbook’s theory. However, sometimes the baby duck seems showed up everywhere so that it shows readers that he is childlike and naughty.

The second point is the style of illustrations. The most obvious feature is that the author is good at showing the space and importance by changing the size of characters. For example, when the little duck met danger (angle), the size of angle becomes very huge and the shape of the duck gets small so that we will simply feel the sense of danger and the helpless of the little duck.

The third point is about the content, and I think it’s also related to the perspective of Archetypal Criticism. In most pages of the book, the little duck was alone, and he met a lot of different things but he was afraid of being alone when he found that his mother was not close to him. It also describes the feeling that we all want to be accompanied, and we don’t want to be alone. We are afraid of being deserted. I think it’s very important for children when they read it since company is very important in childhood. Children can feel the happiness when they eventually see that the baby duck find his mother, and they may also feel good that they also have a good mother who always stays near to them. For children, parents are just like their worlds, and they can feel the security with parents’ company.

As a result, I think the book – Come Along, Daisy can totally attracts children to read it again and again because of that they can find the belongingness in this book.

Zen Shorts - written by Jon J Muth

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This book is very meaning to me. When I first time saw the cover design of the book, I was curious that why a panda showed up on it with an umbrella, and why there were some flowering cheery. The whole cover seemed peaceful and lovely, and it attracts me to read it.

The main idea of the story is to describe a process that a panda built friendships with three different children by telling them some significant stories. The three children are siblings, and we can see that no matter how old they are, there is still something they should learn. The first story which is teaching people the lesson of giving was told to the elder sister. Next story teaches people not to judge a book by its cover, there are no definitely right and wrong thing in the world, and always be hopeful to the future. The last story was told to the youngest brother, which teaches people not to always focus on unhappy things but to cherish what you have now, and focus on the pleasant part. I think the last story also teaches people a lesson of forgiveness. All of the three lessons are important to not only children but also adults. As for me, it’s good to teach children these lessons earlier since they are always important in life.

The book chose to use a panda s the teaching role since this kind of lesson may be serious and hard to be told directly. Panda is cute animals which children always love it, and if the teaching character is attractive, the story will be more interesting and persuasive to children. In addition, the author just told these conceptions by telling stories with lovely illustrations and simple words, and it can make the book more funny and vivid. In the story, there are also many dialogues which enable children to have a role-play with others.

The illustrations are pretty colorful and lovely. The characters in the book are all cute and realistic, and the whole pictures all seemed mild and big, so you will feel very comfortable when you look at them. I am really fond of these clear illustrations, since they are so so so relaxative, and they are just like fantasy! I believe that children will love it extremely, too.

To sum up, I think the book is suitable for 4-8 years old children to read, and it will be better that they read it with parents or teachers. The real meaning of the book may be a little hard for children to appreciate by their own, but it won’t be a big problem if there are adults to induce the children to think of it. Finally, I have to say the book is worthy to read both for children and adults.