Children’s Folklore Literature Evaluation Form

Your Name: Breanna Holden

Book Title: Monkey: A Trickster Tale from India
Author: Gerald McDermott
Genre: Folklore
Illustrator: Gerald McDermott & Judyth Sieck
Publisher/Year: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2011
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)
The book was very cleverly written. There was a narrator and dialogue between the
two characters, monkey and crocodile. Sentence length varied page to page. There
was light rhyme and word repetition throughout the book.

I thought it had a good variation for word choice. Many new words could be
introduced in this book. Scampered, chattering, grunted, island, scaly, just to name a
few of the words that may be new for the readers.

At first the reader may believe that the crocodile is going to get the monkey.
However, the reader will find that the monkey’s smarts will be better than the
crocodiles’ sharp teeth and strength.

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 in this story is Monkey.
The reader can relate to the monkey because the monkey had human traits.
The supporting character is the Crocodile.
Plot: Summarize the major events of the story (6 points)

In this story a monkey first trusts a crocodile to take him to the middle of the river to
get mangoes. The monkey soon realizes the crocodile wants to eat his heart and
tricks the crocodile by telling him a crazy lie to get the crocodile to take him back to
shore. The crocodile tries to trick the monkey to jump on his back by acting like a
rock. However, monkey knows better and outsmarts the crocodile again. In the end
the monkey gets his mangoes, and the crocodile doesn’t get monkeys’ heart.

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

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

Setting of this book is on a riverbank in India over a span of a couple days.

The message of the book is just because someone is bigger and stronger than you,
doesn’t mean they are smarter than you. The monkey was small; however, the big
strong crocodile wasn’t clever. In the end because the monkey was smart, he got
what he wanted, while the crocodile was left without.

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

The book is illustrated with cartoon art.

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

The illustrations were created on textured papers with fabric paint and ink.

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

Line: Lines were used to create movement and add texture and dimension.
Shapes: Curved natural shapes in the illustrations. No man-made shapes seen.
Color: Main colors were red, green, brown, and blue. Other colors were used but
these were the main colors used. The sky was always red.
Texture: Texture was used to provide unique detail to the monkey and crocodile. Also
to provide a contrast in above the river and below the river.
Page design (placement of the illustrations, use of borders, white and dark space and all pages
the same or different). (3)

Illustrations are stretched across each page. Each page had a top section that I call
the sky. There were no borders, the writing was written in the red space. There is
little to no light/ white spaces in the illustrations, more of a dark feel.

Child Development Theory: Choose either Piaget, Erickson or Social Emotional to

describe the connection to the book Choose 1 only (5 points)

Emotional Development:
Identify the age: 3-6 years old
Explain the social development for this age and how the book relates
to the emotional level you chose: More accuracy and complexity in understanding
consequences, causes, and behavior signs. Increased language creates more automatic
responses to empathy.

This book relates to this emotional level because the reader needs to have an
understanding of what empathy is and causes and consequences of emotions. The
reader having these skills will help understand why the crocodile and monkey behave
the way they do.

1 would not recommend 2 average 3 highly recommended

Your rating of the book: 3 highly recommend

Why?

I recommend this book because it is a short easy read that has a good moral of the
story to it. The lesson isn’t pushed, and it comes naturally. It is exciting to read and
leaves the reader guessing about what is going to happen next. The illustrations go
perfectly with the text and enhance the story. This story is perfect to have a teacher
read, or the students read on their own. Plenty of open-ended questions and new
vocabulary words are also able to be used with this book.