Friday, October 31, 2008

Stories and animals





Animals are one of the typical themes treated by Children’s Literature. If we choose any ten Children’s Literature books, we can see that four of them are related to animals. Authors use stories about insects, fishes, elephants, monkeys, giraffes and the rest of animals, to approach to “little” public. I think that most of us, when we were children, sometimes have felt the need of ride a horse, walk beside a camel or play with mice. These kinds of feelings are used for authors and illustrators to bring nearer children to literature and books.
One of these illustrators is Eric Carle. With his collages (his colourist and living illustrations are good samples of this kind of illustration techniques), Carle introduce to us into animal’s world with a bit of humour and simple concepts. I already remember the first time I tell one of his tales to a children group. It was Mister Seahorse, a sea story that tells the life of Mr Seahorse and his eggs. Twenty-three pairs of stunned eyes were looking, twenty-three open ears were listening and twenty-three mouths were opened… It was incredible! All of them were expecting, waiting for the end, smiling.There are two other Eric Carle’s books that have the same effects: The mixed-up chameleon and The very quiet cricket… It could be a good idea to read them, couldn’t it?

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