Fiction Evaluation Form

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

Your Name: Alexxis Agurcia Book Title: Kindergarten Diary

Author: Atoinette Portis Illustrator: Atoinette Portis

Genre: Realistic Fiction Publisher/Year: Harper Collins/ 2010

EVALUATE THE BOOK USING THE FOLLOWING ELEMENTS

STYLE and Language: Explain the language used word choices, sentence length, dialogue, rhythm, rhyme.
Explain unexpected insights or interesting information the reader learns from the story. Give examples form
the book

The language used throughout the book is that of a kindergarten aged girl describing her days at
School. The only dialogue used is that of the Teacher talking to the students and to Anna Ex: Thank
You Anna, now lets give someone else a turn.
There was no rhyming or rhythm in the text.
The readers learn a lot about Anna through the text and her side comments throughout the story.
Ex: Then I tried and fell off and the Alligators almost got me ( The Pretend Alligators)
The text and illustrations go together to give the reader insight EX. Its harder to cut hair than
thought. Picture shows Anna with her hair all cut off.

CHARACTER Who is the main character? Explain the characters personality traits. How can the reader
relate to the character, become involved in the story?
Who are the supporting characters? Give examples of both.
The main character of the story is Anna
Anna is a kindergartner and she is writing a diary about what it is like in kindergarten.
Anna is smart, tough, brave and friendly. She loved to play on the monkey bars and is competitive and
sports. Anna enjoys school and has two friends.
-David is Annas best friend David is competitive, likes the monkey bars and can whistle. David is a
poor sport and does not like to lose. EX: David would not play Big Red Ball anymore because Anna
always won.
-Zoe is Annas second best friend Zoey loves pink, likes to share and likes socks. Zoe does not like
snails.
-Mrs. Duffy is the teacher- The teacher is un scary and very friendly.

1. PLOT: (Explains the major events in the story.) Summarize the plot

This book is of Anna talking about every day of kindergarten. She talks about how she does not want
to go, she talks about how she is afraid. Gradually Anna starts to like school. She likes her teacher, she
likes playing with her new friends David and Zoe, she love show and tell. Anna faces a few problems
with having to share and cutting her hair all on her own and about how the older kids tried to bully
her. Anna talks about all the games they play at school (space monkey bars). Anna decides to shorten
her name because writing her full name out is too hard. Anna tells how she is happy that they got a
class pet and she was able to name him. After almost a month Anna loves Kindergarten .
 2. SETTING Explain the place and time of the book.
THEME- What is the storys theme or lesson?
Setting: First day/ month of Kindergarten/ In the class and on the playground.
Theme: The theme is the first day of school and how school is no so scary.
ILLUSTRATION Analyze the illustrations in the book (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, nave, cartoon art)?
-Cartoon art
Media (paints, oils watercolors, pencil, pen, charcoal, crayons, acrylic, chalk) :
- Colored pencil/ crayon and some clip art.

Visual elements:
Line: Thick black outlines
Shapes: Simple shapes
Color: Warm and dark colors, bright and light except one dark page where Anna is pretending to be in space, mostly white
backgrounds ( written on lined paper in a journal)
Texture: The illustrations are smooth lines mixed with clip art. The illustrations can be mostly all drawing and some clip art
addes, such as Anna showing what she is going to wear on the first day. It is a mix of drawings and then an actual sparkly
tutu clip art added over.

Explain how illustration and text are combined to tell the story. What do illustrations show that text does not
explain?
The text explains what Anna is doing each day in school and the pictures describe it more in detail.
The texts also leaves the reader looking at the pictures to answer questions.
EX: We have a pet tourtist in room 2K, guess who got to name her?
Pictures shows the tourtist with a little drawing that shows the name Lucy Izzie Chunky-ola and that it
was named by Anna.
Describe the Page design: the borders, use of white/dark space, text placement & size, font, placement of illustrations:
The pages are on a composition book with lines. The book is made to look like a diary that a young
giel is keeping. The date is on every page at the top. The text is on every page and has illustrations on
every page to enhance the text. The font is typed out and double spaced in one or two sentences.

3. 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: Preoperational____ and the age: 2-7 years old

Explain the cognitive development from the stage:

1. -Language and vocabulary are developing rapidly
2. -Development of concepts friendship/ sharing/ good to share
3. -Fantasy and imaginative play
Give examples from the book show how the book fits the cognitive stage:
1. Anna is learning how to write her name and decides that she wants to shorten her name in
order to write easier.
2. -Anna is learning how to make new friends.
2b.-Anna is learning the concept of having to share and learning it is a good thing to share.
3. -Anna, David and Zoe play on the monkey bars and pretend they are in a jungle about to fall
into alligators and that they are in space.
ERIKSON PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Name the stage:4. Industry Vs. Inferiority and the age: School age

Explain the social development for this stage:

-Learn to master new skills such as reading, writing, physical skills and sports.
-Complete tasks successfully and receive praise
-Working in groups and working together

Give examples from the book that support the social development of this stage:
-Anna learns how to write her name, how to share, how to make it all the way across the monkey
bars, how to jump rope and how to be the best and Big Red Ball.
-Anna was afraid to do show and tell but then by the time she knew it it was her turn and she loved it.
The teacher told her good job and reminded her about taking turns and letting someone else go.
-Anna learns how to share, instead of having all the toy cows to herself she shared with David and
together they make a huge tower of cows.
4. Overall Rating of the book (3 highest - 1 lowest) 1 2 (3 )
Comments: (Support your overall rating)
I think this is a great book that can definitely be reread many times. The book is entertaining and
funny, the illustrations go hand in hand with the text and make you laugh. This book did a good job
and teaching lessons about trying something new, sharing, playing, taking turns and just that school is
not so scary as she thought. I thought it was really unique how the illustrations were mixed with real
pictures and clip art (real denim jeans on the scary big kid). This book is very relatable to children who
may be afraid to go to school. It can be read on the first day of school by the teacher or even the night
before the first day of school by the childs parent. This was a great book and it will definitely be in my
classroom library.