The Red Book

Author: Barbara Lehman

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin 

Publication Date: 2004

Genre: Wordless Picture Book

Audience: Gr. K-3

Awards: 2005 Caldecott Honor Book

Overview: Wordless picture book about a little girl who finds a red book in the snow on her way to school. She puts the book in her book bag, staring at it and wanting to open it.  She picks it up and opens it to find a map of an island.  On the island is a boy who is reading a red book!  His book has a picture of the city and of a girl reading the same book. When school is over, the little girl rushes out for a great adventure.  What adventure does she have when she leaves school?  Open your own red book to see!  Illustrations are done in watercolor, gouache and ink.  There is much  detail in the background scenes.

Activity: Have students make their own picture book that tells a story.

Reviewer's Name: Paula Pavon

Flotsam

Author: David Wiesner

Publisher: Clarion Books

Publication Date: 2006

Genre: Wordless Picture Book

Audience: Gr. Pre-K-2

Awards: Caldecott Medal Award (2007)

Overview: This book is about a boy at the beach who stumbles upon an underwater camera. This camera contains pictures that have stories within each one of them. The book is filled with elaborate and very creative pictures. There are even some unexpected twists that come together in the end.

Activity: Have the students draw what they imagine to be underwater.

Reviewer’s Name: Alex Corbutt

Re-zoom

Author: Istvan Banyai

Publisher: Viking

Publication date: 1995

Genre: Wordless picture book

Audience: Gr. 1, 2, 3

Overview:  This type of book is a series of scenes.  Each one is farther from the first.  In this particular book it starts with a boat which becomes a magazine, which is held in a hand, which belongs to a boy and so on.  It’s a great book that shows its own story without words and you know what it is talking about based on the pictures.

Activity:  Think of 5 pictures that you could somehow connect into a story.  Then on big poster paper draw the 5 pictures.

Reviewer's Name: Erin Mazzatta

Alphabet City

Author/Illustrator: Stephen T. Johnson
Publisher: Viking
Publication Date: 1995
Awards: Caldecott Honor Book
Genre: Wordless Picture Book
Audience: Gr. Pre-K+

Overview: This wordless picture book has incredibly unique, creative pictures. Each page has a picture of a typical city scene, but a letter of the alphabet is somehow included in this picture. It is a fun book to share with children and have them get excited about letters and the alphabet. Children will love going on a letter hunt and trying to find the letter that is on each page. This book is a winner in every way! It will challenge the way kids see the world around them, increasing visual literacy!

Activity: This book can be used in a name game or getting to know you game. Teachers can have their students raise their hands when the class gets to the page of the letter that begins the child’s first name or they can raise their hand every time the class reaches the page of a letter that is included in their first or last name. Children will enjoy having their own special page, or spelling out their name by using the pages.

Reviewer’s Name: Sarah DeVan

Sector 7

Author: David Wiesner
Publisher: Clarion Books
Publication Date: 1999
Age: Gr. K-3
Genre: Wordless Picture book
Awards: Caldecott Honor

Overview: A boy visits the Empire State building on a cloudy day. He makes friends with one of the clouds and is whisked off to Sector 7, a cloud making factory. The boy and the clouds design an aquarium of fish shapes. The Sector 7 officials send the boy back to land and destroy the designs. When the boy gets back on land, he finds that the clouds have morphed themselves into the fish designs.

Activity: Draw your own wordless story. Be sure to make each picture clear and easy to follow.

Reviewers Name: Sarah Bademan

The Red Book

Author: Barbara Lehman
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Publication Date: 2004
Awards: Caldecott Honor Book
Genre: Wordless picture book
Audience: Gr. Pre-K+

Overview: I thought this wordless picture book was a really nice allegory for books in general. In it, a girl finds a red book — just like the one the reader is holding — on her way to school. Its pictures show a boy on a beach finding another red book, and this one shows the girl at school. They see each other. They wave. And I'm not going to tell you what happens next.

Reviewer's Name: Preety Sidhu

Flotsam

Author/Illustrator: David Wiesner
Publisher: Clarion Books
Publication Date: 2006
Awards: Caldecott Medal
Genre: Fiction wordless picture
Audience: Gr. K+

Overview: While digging for crabs, a wave sweeps the boy off his feet and deposits an underwater camera on the sand in front of him. He then has the film developed and is captivated by what he finds. The most intriguing is a picture of a girl holding a picture of a boy holding a picture of another child and so on. Ultimately, he tosses the camera back into the sea, where it's carried away by various creatures until it again washes ashore for a new child to find.

Activity: After reading the book, the teacher can walk the children through a story map. This will be significant because the teacher can emphasize the fact that this activity can still be accomplished even though there are no words in the story at all. Children could identify characters plot, problem, attempts, solution and conclusion. Another activity could be to assign the children to create words for this wordless picture book- this can be done alone as a project, or together as group work.

Reviewer’s Name: Laura Rickus

Tuesday

Author/Illustrator: David Weisner
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
Publication Date: 1991
Awards: Caldecott Medal
Genre: wordless picture book
Audience: Gr. K-4

Overview: This wordless picture book is dependent upon the illustrations to tell the story. It begins on a Tuesday and the very creative and detailed pictures show a group of frogs on their lily pads that rise up and float through the air. Throughout the night, the frogs explore nearby houses while their inhabitants sleep. The next day, the townspeople can’t figure out why there are lily pads all over the streets. No one saw the frogs flying, because it happened during the late hours of the night. The next Tuesday night, pigs begin to fly and take on a similar journey.

Activity: After reading the book, children can get into groups and come up with their own version of the story and make words for what is happening throughout. The stories can be shared with the entire class to see the different ideas groups came up with.

Reviewer’s Name: Laura Rickus