Pick of the Week
Title: The MittenAuthor: Jan Brett
Illustrator: Jan Brett
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons, a division of Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers
Web Links: Jan Brett's Website
She has so many resources on here! It's Great! What you'll find are lots of freebies like coloring pages for kids, cards to print or email, tutorials on drawing/painting, background behind her stories and lots of information on Jan Brett herself. There are also links to buy her books. I have been a fan of her work since I was little. I'm excited to learn more about her, she seems like an interesting lady... and she watercolors!
Summary: A young boy named Nikki wants his grandmother to knit him some white mittens. At first his grandmother does not want to knit them because she thinks he will just loose them in the snow. She ends up knitting the mittens. Nikki goes out to play in the snow and sure enough he drops a mitten. Nikki runs off to explore not knowing what he is missing. The mitten is discovered by animals who one by one climb into the cozy, warm glove. A mouse then jumps up to snuggle on the bear's nose because there is no room left in the mitten. This makes the bear sneeze. The animals and mitten fly through the air. Nikki, who is now on his way home, catches the mitten in the air. When he arrives home his grandmother is pleased he has both his gloves still, but is perplexed at how one got so much larger than the other!
Story Likes: It is a very simple story line that is easy to follow, yet entertaining.
Story Dislikes: Even after looking over this for quite a while I couldn't find anything that stuck out. Well done Jan Brett and editor!
Lessons Taught Through the Story: culture, Ukrainian folktale, noticing a detail of each animal, the grandmother loved her grandson more than she cared about his mittens that she had made
Illustration Likes: Features are well proportioned on Nikki and his grandmother. Her style is to create the animals realistically while giving them human like thoughts or actions and sometimes clothes too (but not in this one.) Its enchanting effect is very distinct. Another thing that I enjoyed about "The Mitten" was that on both sides of the main illustration it has "mitten windows". The windows show the background story of what the Nikki is doing while the animals take over his mitten. There is a lot of detail to discover each time you look over her illustrations.
Illustration Dislikes: The outlines of the boy Nikki and his grandmother are a little dark to me. It makes the detail on their faces look a little washed out.
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