Fiction Evaluation Form

(Picture Books, Folklore, Modern Fantasy, Contemporary Realistic Fiction, Historical Fiction, Multicultural Books)

Your Name: Jennifer Lopez Romero Book Title: If a bus could talk the story of Rosa Parks.
Author: Faith Ringgold Illustrator: Faith Ringgold

Genre: Historical Fiction Publisher/Year: Simon and Schuster 1999

EVALUATE THE BOOK USING THE FOLLOWING ELEMENTS

STYLE and Language: Using examples from the book, explain the following: word choices, dialogue,
rhythm, rhyme and sentence length. Also, explain unexpected insights or interesting information the reader
learns from the story. Give examples.
 It uses a variety of words. some words may be difficult for children to understand.

CHARACTER – With examples from the book give the following: Who is the main character? Explain the
character’s personality traits.
How can the reader relate to the character, become involved in the story?
Who are the supporting characters?

 Rosa Park
 The bus
 Rosa’s mom and grandmother
 Raymond Parks.
 The driver
 The police officer
 Dr. Martin Luther King

1. PLOT: summarize the major events in the story-

 This morning a strange-looking bus pulled up at my stop. It didn’t look anything like my usual
bus. The door opened and a voice called out, “Step on, young lady” I got to thinking, I’ll ask
the driver which but this is. But the driver was not in his seat. There were lots of passengers,
but their faces weren’t familiar. The door closed and the bus pulled away from the curb, with
no one in the driver’s seat. The sudden start sent me reeling down the aisle and I landed in a
seat, holding on for dear life. None of the other passengers seemed to notice anything was
wrong. “stop this bus and let me off” I shouted. “please don’t take that seat, Marcie”
someone said. “this is a special bus; Marcie and you are sitting in a special seat reserved for a
very special person”. “this used to be the Cleveland avenue bus, but now it’s the Rosa Parks
bus”. Now the voice seemed to be coming from the bus itself. I took a seat across the aisle
and settled down to hear this remarkable story. From Rosa’s earliest childhood she could
remember scary nights when the Ku Klux Klan, a band of hateful white men dressed in white
hooded robes. Rosa was a nice little girl who loved praise, but she hated the disrespectful way
whites often treated black people. One day a white boy threatened to punch her and Rosa
picked up a rock and threatened to hit him back if he did. When Rosa was six years old, she
 went to school. In Pine Level, Alabama, school for black children only went up to the sixth
grade. White children could take a bus to school while the black children often had to walk a
long way. When Rosa was eleven, she went to miss white’s school for girls, several years later
Rosa went on to high school, she had to drop out of school when her grandmother and
mother became ill, later her grandmother died. Rosa went back to school and got her high
school diploma. One day on the way home work the bus driver told Rosa to get off and enter
at the back of the bus after she had paid her fare. The buses were the worst from of
segregation because black people could only sit in the back of the bus. Black people couldn’t
sit in the same row with white, even if there was an empty seat in that row. Rosa married a
very nice man maned Raymond Parks. Raymond parks, a barber by trade, had been longtime
member of the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Mrs.
Parks soon became a member too. Parks was an activist for voter registration and he and
Rosa held regular meeting of the voter’s league in their home. One day the bus driver told
Mrs. Park to get up and give her sit to a white man. She told the driver she would not give up
her seat. The driver called the police and had her arrested and taken to jail for braking the
segregation laws. It is for this singular act of courage that, one day a year, Mrs. Park’s seat has
been reserved said the talking bus. For 381 days black people either walk or arranged their
own car pools instead of taking the buses. But as the result of the boycott dr. martin Luther
king was arrested. many tributes and awards have been given to this gentle, courageous
woman. By the time the talking bus reached my school, my head was crammed full of all the
things that had happened.

2. SETTING – Explain the place and time of the book.

THEME- What is the story’s theme/message?

Setting: In the bus

Theme: To honor this amazing woman that speak out for her rights.

ILLUSTRATION –Analyze the illustrations for the book you selected (see Chapter 4) with the categories
below:
Choose a 2-page spread in the book to answer the following:
What Style (realism, surrealism, expressionism, impressionism, naïve, cartoon art)?
 Cartoon art
Media choices (paints, oils watercolors, pencil, pen, charcoal, crayons, acrylic, chalk) :
 Paint.
Give examples and describe how the following visual elements are used in the illustrations:
Line: horizontal and vertical lines, curve lines.
Shapes: Circles, Squares, rectangles, triangles.
Color: light and dark blue, white, black, light blue, purple, brown, yellow, green, red, yellow.
Texture: a combination of smooth and rough texture.
Explain how illustration and text are combined to tell the story. What do illustrations show that text does not
explain?
 The illustration talks about a bus that the girl has never seen before. The illustration shows
how the girl is standing in front of the bus looking at the bus, and the bus is looking at the girl.
Page design: Summarize the following: placement of illustrations and text; the use of borders and white/dark space; are both
pages designed the same or differently?
 Is the same illustration for both pages, the pages do not have boards. The text is place on top
of only one page.
CHILD DEVELOPMENT THEORIES – CHOOSE 2 of theories below and evaluate the book according to the
developmental theories. (How the book fits the developmental stage and age?)

PIAGET-COGNITIVE-INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT
Name the stage concretional operational __ and the age____7 to 11_________________

Explain the cognitive development from the stage:

 May have difficulties making predictions in stories or seeing the importance
of historical events to the present time.
Give examples from the book show how the book fits the cognitive stage:
 The book talks about the story of Rosa Park, children can learn about her and discuss how
what she did change the story of our nation.
 Children can talk about the things that they admire of Rosa.

ERIKSON – PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Name the stage __________________________________ and the age_____________________

Explain the social development for this stage:

Give examples from the book that support the social development of this stage:

Emotional DEVELOPMENT
Identify the Age ___________7 to 11_______________________
Explain the emotional development for the age:
 Develops ability to consider many sources of information to explain other’s
emotions.
Using examples from the book, explain how the book fits the emotional development of the age:
 Children can discuss about all the emotions that Rosa Park could have from the information
that they got from the book
 They can discuss how will they feel if something similar happened to them

2. Overall Rating of the book (3 highest - 1 lowest) 1 2 3

Comments: (Support your overall rating)
 It is a good story but is too long and small children may stop paying attention to it.