Rainbow Fish

Title: The Rainbow Fish
Author: Marcus Pfister
Publisher: North-South Books

Summary: The Rainbow Fish is a story about a fish with beautiful shiny, sparkly scales.  He would swim around all day and the other fish would admire his scales.  Then one day a little fish asked the Rainbow fish for just one of his shiny scales, but the Rainbow fish yelled at the little blue fish and told him "NO, get away!"  The little blue fish went and told all the other fish, because of this all the other fish decided to stay away from the Rainbow fish.  The Rainbow fish didn't know what to do, without all the other fish admiring his shiny scales he just was not that happy.  He went to the starfish and then to the octopus in the cave.  That was when the octopus in the cave told Rainbow fish to give one of his beautiful scales to all the other fish, at first Rainbow fish said no because he did not think he could be happy.  Then little blue fish showed up and asked for just one shiny scale, and the Rainbow fish decided to give him one!  He felt so happy and then began giving all the other fish some of his shiny scales, until he only had one left.  Rainbow fish found out that even though he didn't have all his shiny scales that he was happier than ever because he had his fish friends and shared his scales.  

I love this book because it can be used in so many different ways.  The journey that Rainbow fish goes on is a real one that many children can make a personal connection to in one way or another.  To me The Rainbow Fish is a great story because it uses such an abstract idea (a fish giving away shiny scales, such a silly idea!) to communicate such an everyday lesson to the reader.  By doing it in this manner it allows the reader to make their own personal connection without feeling boxed into what they had already read in the story.  The dilemma of giving up something that you really love to another person is hard, but to experience the joy of sharing is an important lesson.  Of course The Rainbow Fish also has beautiful illustrations, that make the story that much more enjoyable.   

Eloise In Hollywood

Title: Eloise In Hollywood
Author: Kay Thompson
Illustrator: Ted Enik
Based on the art of: Hilary Knight
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Summary: Eloise In Hollywood is a book about a young girl named Eloise who dreams of going to Hollywood.  Eloise's mother calls and says that she and her grandmother must come and visit, and so the journey begins.  The story then begins to revolve around all of her activities once she is there, what she does, who she sees, and all of the crazy hijinks that she gets into.  Eloise begins her journey by telling us about how she will be getting to Beverly Hills, where she will be staying and how fabulous it all is.  The story follows Eloise on her journey through Hollywood until she finally gets her big break and is allowed onto a movie set, auditions for a director, and becomes a big star.  It all comes to an end at the end of the story when she is going down what looks to be a red carpet and says that what she really dreams to do is, "direct". 

I enjoy the Eloise books, however I did think this book would be a bit hard for a young reader to follow and read.  The word choice that the author chose within the book at times seemed awkward while reading and often times I found myself stumbling while reading this children's book.  I think the book is a great book for a fun read, and to ignite the imagination but I would not necessarily use it as part of a lesson.  I also thought the story was a bit hard to follow in the sense that the text was all over the place on the pages.  There were times when I missed text and had to go back and read it because it blended into the picture so much.

Something that I did really like about this book were the illustrations.  I really liked the pencil drawing look to the illustrations and the low amount of colors within the story.  The times when there was color on the pages it made it "pop" that much more and didn't box me into looking at the illustrations in one manner.  My favorite part of the book was the pullout illustration of the backlot that was done all in color, it was such a pleasant and unexpected surprised.  

Clemente!

Title: Clemente!
Author: Willie Perdomo
Illustrator: Bryan Collier
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company, New York

Summary: Clemente! is the story about how a young boy got his name Clemente from famous baseball player Roberto Clemente.  The story has different family members tell the young boy about Roberto, his baseball stats, what a great player he was, and how he was a great father.  The young boys mother also shares with the boy about how Roberto had died in a plane crash, and how everyone had hoped and wished for his safe return but the plane crash had taken his life.  At the end of the story his mother tells the boy that while Roberto was a great baseball player, that he also was a man who knew what respect, faith, hope and belief in yourself were.  Roberto was able to fight for what he knew was right and to believe in himself even when others were trying to bring him down, and that was why they named him Clemente.  

The story is great because at first you are thinking that the young boy was named after this great baseball player because of his amazing batting average, all of his golden gloves, and his great winning record but in the end it was because of his morals, and the person that he was with and without baseball.  It allowed the reader the chance to look at Roberto Clemente from another angle, the angle of being a real person and not just this famous athlete. 

The story had amazing illustrations! The way the illustrations were able to get the emotion of the story across was fantastic.  As I was reading the story I found myself reading the story out loud and reading in the tone that went along with the colors and the feelings that the illustrations were making me feel.  

I also really liked how the book had both Spanish and English within the book, but what I liked most was that it was intertwined so effortlessly.  As a person who does not speak Spanish I was able to read along with the book, and could tell from the pictures and the other context clues what I was reading in Spanish.