Book Analysis

September 25, 2014

Lit 217

Picture Book Analysis

The books I’m analyzing are Make Way for Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey and Kitten’s First Full Moon, by Kevin Henkes. These books captivated my attention from the moment I saw them because their cover photo/image are unique. In this paper, I’m going to talk about how two completely different Caldecott-award-winning books use color, line, and shape to make a pleasant and satisfactory story to our youngest readers.

Make Way for Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey was about a family of ducks who was looking for a safe, comfortable, and peaceful pond to raise their little ducklings. They flew on and on until they found a pond in Charles River that was perfect. So they started to build their nest and lived there. Until one day they all swim to go live in the Public Garden as a happy family! The color used in this book are white and brown. The author was really clever when choosing these colors because it gives a sense of family and home. Also it furthers the earthy nature of the ducklings and how they made a home. The author uses the first page as a spread, using the colors in a warm and loving way, making the reader to feel as worried as the ducks are when looking for a safe pond, where they can live in.

When it comes to using line, the author was really specific. Since the book was about ducks, he made sure when drawing them and using line to make them seem like real ducks! They look so vivid and real that it was impossible to miss them on every page. The dramatic energy it reflected when being in danger or in action was so realistic, that it made the reader to be in the book. His lines were used with so much detailed that it made the reader to pay attention to every object around each page. Somehow the author used transparent, but thick lines when drawing is illustrations, which grabs the reader’s eye and amuses their imagination to another new level.

Robert McCloskey was really detailed when using shapes in...