Children’s Literature Evaluation Form

Your Name: ​Montserrat Navarro

Book Title: ​A Light in the Attic, poem: ​Homework Machine

Author: ​Shel Silverstein

Genre: ​Fiction

Illustrator: ​Shell Silverstein

Publisher/Year:​ 1981 / HarperCollins

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: ​“Contraption”​ - another word for machine so it’s not

repeated again. ​“Clean”​ - free of any error.

Dialogue: “nine plus four?” and the answer is “three” - the only represents
the error of the machine.

Rhythm: Machine, seen. Dime, Time. Be, three, me.

Sentence Length: small paragraph, short sentences about four.

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 no name main character is in first person POV and the main object is
the Homework Machine.

The reader can relate to this poem because sometimes students want an
easy way out with their homework but it can backfire.

There are no supporting characters.

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

The no name character inserts his/her homework into the machine and
the machine gets the answers wrong.

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

Theme:​ What is the main message of this book? (2 points)

The book takes place at a Homework Machine with an unknown time.

The theme of this book is to do your homework yourself because if you

have something or someone else do it, it could be wrong. Better safe than
sorry!

Illustration​: Analyze the book you selected with the following categories

Style (realism, surrealism, expressionism, impressionism, naïve, cartoon

art)? (2 points)

cartoon art.

Media Choice (paints, oils watercolors, pencils, pen, charcoal, crayons,

acrylic, chalk): (2 points)

Pen

Give examples of describe how the following visual elements are used in
the illustrations: (3)

Line: ​Hair

Shapes: ​circles for rotating engine in machine and rectangle for lever.

Color: ​black and white

Texture: ​wrinkles on shirt and straight hair texture

Page design (placement of the illustrations, use of borders, white and

dark space and all pages the same or different). (3)

​White borders with the picture in the middle in black pen.

Child Development Theory​: Choose either Piaget, Erickson or Social

Emotional to describe the connection to the book Chose 1 only (5 points)
Erickson:

Name the stage: ​Industry vs. Inferiority ​ and the age: ​5-6 years old.

Explain the cognitive development from this stage and provide an

example from the book to support your choice:

School children learn to master skills and complete tasks and

successfully persevere. They develop inferiority when they are not
successful with tasks. In this case, the student didn’t do his/her own
homework and ended up with the wrong answers.

1 would not recommend 2 average 3 highly recommended

Your rating of the book: _______​3​_______

Why?

I have all of Shel Silverstein's books, I absolutely love how funny and
easy to read his books are. The images are very unique and his sense of
humor in his witty poems are easy to remember and understand.