Children’s Literature Evaluation Form

Your Name: Jun Wu

Book Title: The Tortoise and the Hare

Author: Jerry Pinkney

Genre: Children’s Literature/Folk Literature/Picture Books

Illustrator: Jerry Pinkney

Publisher/Year: Little, Brown/2013

Evaluate the Book for the following elements

Style and Language: Using examples for the book, explain the following: Word

choices, dialogue, rhythm, rhyme and sentence length. Share unexpected insights

or interesting information the reader learns from this story. (5 points)

More than a half of the pages in this picture book do not have written texts and

dialogue between characters. The written texts are simple words and short

sentences like “On your marks, get set...”, “Go!”, and “SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE

RACES!” This book allows children to do role play game and read aloud. Though

quite many pages in this book are wordless, children can understand the storyline

easily by looking at the images presented in a comic book style.

Character: With examples from the book, provide the following- (5 points) Who is

the main character?

How can the reader relate to the character?

Who are the supporting characters?

The main charaters are the tortoise and the hare, and the supporting characters are

other animals that participate in the race, such as snake, alligator, boar, deer, fox,
and etc.

The story is relatable to young children since all the characters are animals. Many

young children love animals and talking about animals, and they would like to read

this book as it provides the chance for children to engage in role play and use

imagination to analyze the characters’ personalities and then act out the race.

Plot: Summarize the major events of the story (6 points)

Various animal participated in a race in the forest. The Hare was fast and was

winning in the beginning, but he fell asleep on the way thinking he could still win

because of his physical advantages. The Tortoise was slow but very hardworking and

just focused on running forward without resting. He eventually defeated the Hare

and won the race.

Setting: Explain the place and time of this book. (2 points)

Theme: What is the main message of this book? (2 points)

Setting: One day when various animals hold a contest in the forest

Theme: Determination, diligence, and persistence make final success.

Illustration: Analyze the book you selected with the following categories

Style (realism, surrealism, expressionism, impressionism, naïve, cartoon art)? (2

points) Cartoon Art

Media Choice (paints, oils watercolors, pencils, pen, charcoal, crayons, acrylic,

chalk): (2 points) Pencils and watercolors paint on paper

Give examples of describe how the following visual elements are used in the

illustrations: (3)

Line: Solid curved, rounded, and flowing

Shapes: Simple, curved, and identifiable

Color: Both warm (yellow, brown, red, burgundy, purple) and cool (blue, green)

colors

Texture: Soft with a two-dimensional quality

Page design (placement of the illustrations, use of borders, white and dark space

and all pages the same or different). (3)

Page design is clear and simple, and some pages are displayed in different scenes in

a comic book form with the use of borders.

Child Development Theory: Choose either Piaget, Erickson or Social Emotional to

describe the connection to the book Chose 1 only (5 points)

Piaget:

Name the stage and the age

Explain the cognitive development from this stage and provide an example from the

book to support your choice:

Erickson:

Name the stage and the age

Explain the cognitive development from this stage and provide an example from the

book to support your choice:

Emotional Development:

Identify the age: 3-6 years old

Explain the social development for this age and how the book relates

to the emotional level you chose:

Children between 3-6 years old develop more accuracy and complexity in

understanding consequences, causes, and behavior signs, and the increased

language skills allow more dialogues about the causes and consequences of

emotions. This wordless book allows young readers to understand and predict the

storyline by looking at the images and behaviors of the characters. For the Hare in

this story, because he is overconfident in his physical ability and strength, he

underestimates his rival and misses the chance of winning the race by falling asleep

in the middle of the race. The children will understand this outcome is regrettable,

because the Hare could have won if he didn’t stop and take a rest in the middle of

the race. The children can also understand that the characteristics of the Tortoise,

diligence and persistence, are valuable and praised.

1 would not recommend 2 average 3 highly recommended

Your rating of the book: 3

Why? This book can be a good practice book for children who like role play of animal

figures and creating their own storyline by “Fill in the blanks”.