Children’s Literature Evaluation Form

Your Name: ​Montserrat Navarro

Book Title: ​Alexander, Who’s Not (Do You Hear Me? I Mean It.) Going to
Move

Author: ​Judith Viorst

Genre: ​Contemporary Realistic Fiction

Illustrator: ​Robin Preiss

Publisher/Year:​ Atheneum Books for Young Readers / 1998

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: Immature, lonesome, “speshally”. puke-face- shows how

young the author is because of his spelling and is relatable to the reader,

Dialogue: “Finish packing up, it’s time for us to get going,” (the mother)
this piece of dialogue is important because it shows her still waiting on
Alexander to pack up so they can move.

Rhythm: none

Sentence Length: about three-five sentences every page.

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?

Main character: Alexander - he’s very set in his way and has a lot of
emotional attachment to his memories and friends.

The reader can relate because the main character is young and doesn’t
want to move because of his babysitter and friends and memories which
at the age of 7-9 can be very relatable.

Supporting characters: mom, dad, brothers

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

Alexander is very upset that he has to move. Throughout the book he

explains why he doesn’t want to move. In the end, he packs his stuff to
move but promises that next time they move, he won’t move!

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

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

This book takes place at home in the morning.

The theme of this story is about how children can relate to moving away
from where they are used to and sometimes it’s hard to let go.

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

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

art)? (2 points)

Naive

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:​ net, hair

Shapes: ​circles for doorknobs, jellybeans, fruits

Color: ​black and white

Texture: ​hair texture, box, sweater

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

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

Picture takes up the entire page.

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

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

Identify the age: ​8-11 years old

Explain the social development for this age and how the book relates

to the emotional level you chose:

At this age, children face self-conscious emotions that become part of

their inner standards for right actions. Alexander faces the emotions of
having to let go of his friends and memories because he has to move
houses.

1 would not recommend 2 average 3 highly recommended

Your rating of the book: _______​2​______

Why?

This picture book has a lot of relatable detail and it;s a book that is meant
to enjoy with an adult and child. I give this a 2 because I would love to
see color on the inner pages especially with all the beautiful detail the
illustrator drew, but other than that, it’s a great book to read that captures
realistic emotion.