Book Report on "Mitten by Jan Brett"

Book Report 4 pages (1444 words) Sources: 5

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Mitten by Jan Brett

Jan Brett is the illustrator of well-known folktales, fairy tales, and poems, These include the Owl and the Pussycat, by Edward Lear and Goldilocks and the Three Bears. She continues in this vein in 1989 in the Mitten.

Short Overview and Summary of Book

In the Mitten, a Ukrainian boy named Nicki wants his grandmother Baba to knit some white mittens for him. Baba warns Nicki that a white mitten will be harder to find if he loses it in the snow. The typical boy, Nicki promptly loses the mitten in the snow. What happens next seemingly borrows from a National Geographic special as a mole takes refuge in the lost mitten, followed by a rabbit, then a hedgehog, an owl, a badger, a fox, a bear and finally a mouse. The mouse then tickles the bear's nose. He sneezes, thereby dislodging all of the mitten's inhabitants all at once. Nicki the finds his mitten and takes it home. Baba is puzzled about how it has become so stretched out (Brett, 1989) .

Format of the Mitten

Stylistically, Brett's paintings feature her own stock array of folk details. However, this time one will notice that in this book she also includes elaborate knitting tracks,, ornate embroidery and birch bark borders and the plush details of the room's in Baba's comfortable dwelling. Brett gives the children hints at which animal is arriving next in her autobiography borders that are inspired by her favorite Ukrainian folk art pieces. In the book, Brett makes use of the page frames to allow a simultaneous view of two scenes at once. The mitten shaped frames in the borders remind us of the fact that the mitten is the important theme here. First, one sees Baba rolling and spinning and rolling her yarn. The main illustrations show a mitten less Nicki while he is playing in the snow. When they join on the second page main picture, Baba starts to knit the white mittens and the scene in the frame transforms to an outdoor scene. As the boy's playtime interferes with the animals in their natural habitat, all of the creatures are forced to move. That's when each creature invades the mitten.

Impact of the Book and Strengths and Weaknesses

In the opinion of this author, the book has more impact in the larger, eleven inch edition than it does in the smaller board book format. The author found this out testing it on their niece who was given both editions. Certainly, the size of the illustrations in the larger editions of the book are a strength and in the smaller edition a weakness.

The smaller board book did not have as much effect as the larger eleven inch by eleven inch version. The description in the smaller edition is that the text in the board book is abridged. The story has a simplified story line that is a bare minimum of text. It really does not connect the illustrations together that well. Certainly, the Achilles heel of the smaller edition (as well as the strength of the larger eleven by eleven inch version) are the size of the illustrations. Size here definitely matters if the niece's reactions are any indications. A teacher might want to test them out on a small group of children first to check which edition is better to use in their class.

What the above details of text and illustrations points up a baseline issue that ties everything together which is relevance to their lives ("The full-day early," 2010, 6-7). For this reason, it might be necessary to prepare the children in the class for the reading by showing them a short nature film, preferably one that they have seen on television, in particular on PBS where such images are recurring. Also, it might be good to use the book as the follow-up to a field trip to a nature park or zoo. The teacher could make connections to animals seen in the zoo that are shown in the book. These animals could be highlighted in the field trip visit and then reviewed during the learning session.

Also, the literature that came in the book wrapping indicated that there was Jan Brett illustrated an animal quiz that became available in 1996.

This author could not find the product on… READ MORE

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