Children’s Literature Evaluation Form

Your Name: Sequoia Lansky

Book Title: Who Was Walt Disney?
Author: Whitney Stewart
Genre: Children’s literature
Illustrator: Nancy Harrison
Publisher/Year: Grosset & Dunlap. 2009
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)
Word choice and sentence length is prolonged. It would be perfect for a child in the
second grade. The story of who Walt is as a person is told to those who are in the
younger generation, of the age of 7 so that they are able to understand.

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 character is Walt Disney.
The reader is able to relate because we should be told by the age of 7 that anything is
possible if we set our mind to it.
The supporting characters are Walt’s neighbors and friends.

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

Trouble hit the studio and Walt wanted control of Mickey Mouse.
The studio began to sell cartoons on a regular basis.

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

Theme: What is the main message of this book? (2 points)
Setting: Walt’s home, in the past.
Theme: This book lets us in on the story of how Disney came to life.

Illustration: Analyze the book you selected with the following categories
Style (realism, surrealism, expressionism, impressionism, naïve, cartoon art)? (2
points)

Realism
Media Choice (paints, oils watercolors, pencils, pen, charcoal, crayons, acrylic, chalk):
(2 points)

Painterly media (pencil)

Give examples of describe how the following visual elements are used in the
illustrations: (3)
Line: There are many curved lines throughout the story, depicting movement with
the characters.
Shapes: On page 63, there are squares that the mother is carrying into her daughter.
We can’t see exactly what they represent, but we are to assume that the squares are
cupcakes.
Color: Achromatic, as the photos are in black and white.
Texture: Collage, as it is three-dimensional.
Page design (placement of the illustrations, use of borders, white and dark space and
all pages the same or different). (3)

There is no use of borders. The illustrations are placed on the bottom of the pages,
as a background to the words.

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 concrete operational and the age 7-12 years
Explain the cognitive development from this stage and provide an example from the
book to support your choice:

The reader is able to understand the information/biography that is provided

throughout this book to further knowledge themselves.

1 would not recommend 2 average 3 highly recommended

Your rating of the book: 3

Why? This book provides adequate information on how Walt Disney came to be. This
is very useful today because most children know who Walk Disney is, so it captures
their mind.