Come Along, Daisy. -- Written by Jane Simmons

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

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

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

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.

Eat Your Peas - Written by Kes Grag & Nick Sharratt

-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
I think this book is suitable for children from four to six. We can see the cover of the book is quiet colorful, and it is obvious to know the main content by looking the picture. It is a story talking about that a mother wants her child to eat peas which the child hates it very much. The mother tries to persuade the child to eat peas by giving more and more presents, but it doesn’t work at all since the child insists not to eat it. Finally, the child thinks of a good way to make her mother giving up.

From the perspective of psychoanalytical criticism, the book shows the human nature of being treated fairly. We deeply hope other people can treat us in a way what we like, and we will be angry if we are forced to do something. In this book, the child refuses to eat the hateful peas, no matter how the mother allures her. Finally, the child agrees to eat the hateful peas only if her mother also eats something she hates. It is very funny to me since it just like a sort of revenge. And also, I think children will like this book very much because they will feel good then they realize that it may be the way to refuse something what adults ask them to do in the future!

Furthermore, the illustrations of the book are plentiful and cute. The colorful pictures attract children to read the book. In addition, we can see more and more same stuff appear in the book when the mother allures her child. In this way, child may be willing to read the book since they can keep accounting how many the same things is. I believe children will feel exciting when they see something which also attract them appear in the book more and more time. As a result, I think the book is very successful. Also, the names of different stuffs repeat several times in the book, and it can teach children a lot of vocabularies. Therefore, I think it is a good book for children to read.

Silly Billy - Written by Anthony Browne

This book is suitable for three to five years old, the reason for this age are since it is did not use many words and simple as well. Also the illustrations are colorful; we can see the cover of this book is active, and I believed the arrangement of the color of the book will attract children a lot. In addition, the book of “Silly Billy” is rhymed that motivate the reader to get attention on this book.


I personally think this book is full of entertainment for kids. This story’s main character are over worry about the things that is unnecessary, when his grandma knew this situation, she make worry dolls for him, told him that every single worry can tell those worry dolls. However, the little boy thought that the worry dolls have their own feeling too. Therefore, he makes other dolls for those worry dolls. This is quite interesting.


The first point here is that, the kids has lots of feeling and worries that parents cannot understood. They may have great imagination for this world which includes pure and true feeling of this society. Second, the book describe children’s mind are kind, and it is adorable. Billy even makes worry dolls for those worry dolls, we may think that does not make any sense. However, it is really show that kids are innocent and pure to this world and the people around them.


From the perspective of feminist criticism, I think grandma play an important role for Billy. At first, Billy’s parents try to comfort him by telling the truth, but it does not work at all. While grandma can comfort him in the different way, she does not think it is ridiculous but use the child way to solve his problem. I think the author use the grandma as a symbol of women’s tender. In the traditional impression, women are soft, kind and tender especially for children.
And I think it also related to historical criticism. Actually, worry dolls are a custom from the ancient western culture. Compared to Billy’s parents, the grandma uses the widely wisdom to comfort Billy and it is more effective, since it does not work. I think this book did not teach us many educational stuffs but lovely.

Allison - Written by Allen Say

-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

This book is chiefly for the age range from five to seven for the English native speaker. In this book, the author uses the simple vocabulary and simple grammatical systems to present for the children. First of all, the author uses many dialogues to make this story more dynamic for the children, which will make the children and also the readers from any ages more easily to feel the meaning of the text.

Secondly, the surface and the content of the book are clean designed which will make the readers more easily to catch the key point. Every single page includes only one big picture which shows the characters’ facial expression very well. The author chooses the bright color as its background, so that the readers are getting more higher motivated to read this book.
Next, the pictures in this book are quite big and colorful. The picture style are presented in the realistic way which are more related to our daily life and we may not felt it is just a story. The plot is really close to human nature emotion, it is sufficiently presented the emotions such as happiness, sorrow and revenge.

In my personal particular opinion, this story is quite interesting and also touched by people because the experiences that happened to us regularly. I believed that every one has the same situation in childhood and that reflect our memory out. When we mad at something, we may simply show out our upset feeling by destroy something. Personally I like the facial expression very much of Allison. Her expression shows multiple feelings. And we can also felt the pain of her parents by looking the pictures. We can simply felt that this story is a mirror for our life and it is still happens now when we are growing up, sometimes we felt frustrated our angry, we will unconsciously hurt other people. In addition, we always ignore the original principle of goodness. Take this little girl as an example, she destroyed the favorite stuffs that belong to her parents, but she felt sorry when she realized her parents love her so much. I think the book is significant not only for the children but adult.

In conclusion, the books design the words, illustration and the color all presented very clearly and the content of this book are giving us the moral lesson. Therefore, I strongly recommended this book for the readers who loves to read.