Children’s Literature Evaluation Form

Your Name: Daisy Azpeitia

Book Title: Snowflake Bentley
Author: Jacqueline Briggs Martin
Genre: Biography
Illustrator: Mary Azarian
Publisher/Year: 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)
The style that is used in the book “Snowflake Bentley” is that it uses a lot of big
vocabulary words like microscope, foolishness, negatives, magnify, evaporate and
technique. The sentence length found in this book are very long, for example, “He
wrote about snow and published his pictures in magazines. He gave speeches about
snow to faraway scholars and neighborhood sky watchers. These are just some
examples that show that this book has long sentence length in each page, the
sentences are long.

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 characters of the book “Snowflake Bentley” is a little boy named willie
Bentley.
The supporting character of the book “Snowflake Bentley are his parents, his mom
and his dad. The reader can relate to the characters in the story because they can
understand the story of what is happening, and they can relate to the situation that is
happening in the book very well.

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

Some of the major events in the story are outside in the farm fields during the
wintertime. Another major event is inside of the Willie’s house, in the living room of
his house and in the kitchen. Another major event is outside his house. Another
major event is inside a cabin. Another major event is inside of a college and during a
blizzard.

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

I think that the book “Snowflake Bentley” takes place in the late 1800’s in Jericho,
Vermont and in a small town between Lake Champlain and Mountain Mansfield
during the wintertime.

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

I think that the main message of the book “Snowflake Bentley” is about a scientist
named Wilson Bentley who photographed thousands of snowflakes that he found for
him to study their unique formations.

Illustration: Analyze the book you selected with the following categories
Style (realism, surrealism, expressionism, impressionism, naïve, cartoon art)? (2
points)
Based on the book, I think that the illustrations are drawn like realism and as cartoon
art. I think that it is realism because in some of the illustrations in the book make the
snowflakes look realistic. The book is also cartoon art because in the book the
characters and the other things like the houses or animals are all drawn as cartoons.

Media Choice (paints, oils watercolors, pencils, pen, charcoal, crayons, acrylic, chalk):
(2 points)
I think that the book “Snowflake Bentley” uses a lot of watercolor and pen.

Give examples of describe how the following visual elements are used in the
illustrations: (3)
Line: In the book there are different illustrations, some of the illustrations uses
straight, vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines and curvy lines as well. For example,
in the book there are houses and barns that uses vertical lines for the windows and
the outside of the house. The roof of the barn uses diagonal lines that are drawn
together to form a triangle. Some of the barns in the illustrations have doors and the
doors are made using vertical and horizontal lines. The field that is found in front of
the barns are and the field is drawn using very thin and small vertical lines and
horizontal lines, the lines are also straight lines. In one of the illustrations, you can
see that there is snow, and the snow is drawn using several curvy lines. Some are
used to draw like a hill of snow in the book. In one of the illustrations, you can see a
sled and the sled is drawn using curvy lines as the outline of the sled and the inside of
the sled is drawn with vertical lines. In one of the illustrations, you can see a little boy
and the little boy is wearing gloves and those gloves are drawn using curvy lines, the
boy also has a hat and the hat he is wearing is drawn with curvy lines as well. The
little boy’s jacket is made with vertical lines and the pants are drawn with curvy lines
to show that his legs are folded. The bushes and the trees in the book are all drawn
with curvy lines to make the design of the bushes and the trees. In one of the
illustrations, you can see that the mom’s hair and the little girl’s hair is drawn with
curvy lines. In one of the illustrations, you can see a mom has an apron on and her
apron has stripes that uses vertical and horizontal lines, and the outline of her apron
uses vertical lines, the top part of the apron is drawn with curvy line. The net that is
found in the picture is also made using curvy lines. The collars of the girl’s shirt and
the lady’s shirt is drawn with curvy lines. In one of the illustrations found in the book
there is papers drawn in the picture and those pieces of paper are drawn using
vertical and horizontal line lines. The telescope is also made using vertical and
straight lines and the pencil is drawn using vertical lines as well. In one of the
pictures, you can see a chair and it is drawn using vertical and horizontal lines. at the
bottom of the chair, it uses curvy lines. and the dresser in the picture is also using
vertical, straight horizontal lines. The microwave in the picture is using vertical and
horizontal lines as well. The bowls, plates and cups are all using curvy lines. The
camera in the picture and the desk holding the camera is drawn with vertical and
horizontal lines. The grass hill is drawn with curvy lines. The ears of the cow’s ad the
face is drawn with curvy lines, the people’s eyebrows, and nose as well. The door on
the cabin, the bucket and the picture are all drawn using vertical and straight lines.
The lantern and the top part of the bucket is drawn with curvy lines. The tree
branches are drawn with diagonal lines and the leg of the desk has a design in the
middle that uses diagonal lines too. The flowers in one of the pictures are drawn
with curvy lines for the pedals of the flowers and the leaves found on the stem as
well. The man’s suspenders are drawn with vertical lines. The clothesline and the
sheet is drawn with vertical straight and horizontal lines.
Shapes: In the book, there is rectangles and triangles being used in the book. For
example, the windows and the doors of the barns are all shaped as rectangles. The
roof of the barn is shaped as a big triangle. There are circles being used in one of the
illustrations, for example, in one of the illustrations you can see a net is being used
and the top part or the opening of the net is shaped as a circle. There are also
squares being used in the illustrations like the mom’s apron has stripes on them and
the stripes create small squares. In one of the illustrations, you can see that the
children are making a fort out of snow and the fort is made of rectangles. Also, the
little boys jacket also has squares drawn on it. In one of the illustrations, you can see
pieces of paper that are drawn as rectangles and square. The little boy’s jacket has
buttons, and those buttons are drawn as tiny circles. The lens of the telescope is
drawn as a circle. In one of the pictures there is a big dresser, and the dressers is
drawn as a rectangle with drawls that are shaped as rectangles. The shelfs that are
found on the top of the wall are shaped as rectangles. The bowls, plates and teacups
are all shaped as circles. The microwave found in one of the drawings is drawn as a
rectangle and the table also is shaped as a rectangle. The camera is shaped as a big
rectangle with several small rectangles. The bucket is shaped as a circle and the
picture on the boy’s hand is shaped as square. The middle part of the flowers is
shaped as a circle. The clothesline is shaped as a rectangle and the sheet is shaped as
a square. The book that is found in one of the illustrations and the desk to sustain the
camera is shaped as a square and rectangle.
Color: Many of the illustrations in the book uses neutral colors. For example, they use
blue and white to create the snow in the book. The sled and one of the barns are
drawn using brown. The barns are colored with a cream color. The plants and the
bushes are colored gray. There are some bright colors used in the book like the boy’s
jacket is colored red and the scarf is colored yellow. The mom’s dress is also colored
yellow. The grass in one of the pictures is colored green mixed with yellow. There is
also light blue being used in the people’s clothing. There is black used for the net and
the boy’s jacket. There is orange being used for the outside of the windows and some
people have gloves that are red too. The table is colored a tan color and the dresser is
colored a light brown mixed with yellow to create a tan color. The hair of the people
is colored cream. The grass in one of the pictures is using a light green mixed with
yellow to create a yellow green color. The bushes in the back are dark green and the
sky is colored with a blue mixed with white to create and ombre effect. The cabin is
colored a dark brown color with black. The horse is mixed with a light brown and
orange color with white too. Some of the flower’s pedals are colored as ombre with
yellow and orange color. Some people are wearing navy blue suits and gray suits.
Texture: Some of the illustrations in the book are covered with blue and white color
as the background and most of the illustration is colored with blue and white to
create a snow effect. Some of the illustrations are smoothly colored and you can see
that some of the illustrations are using a lot of color and some of the other
illustrations you can see that they barely used any color. They also included an ombre
effect on some of the illustrations like some of the illustrations look like the colors are
layered. Some of the colors are colored to make it look light washed. Some are lightly
colored with tan and white. Some of the colors create a dark effect to show that
there is shadows on them.
Page design (placement of the illustrations, use of borders, white and dark space and
all pages the same or different). (3)
Some of the illustrations in the book are colorful. In some of the illustrations there is
white and dark spaces being use. For example, some pictures use the white to show it
is snow and they also use white to brighten up some parts of the illustrations. There
is a lot of illustrations in the book that use borders and some of the illustrations in the
book are mostly found in the middle of the book, there is some illustrations in the
book that are found in the top of the pages or the bottom of the pages. Most of the
illustrations in the book are drawn to fill up the whole page.

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 _________Preoperational____________ and the age _______2-7
years________________
Explain the cognitive development from this stage and provide an example from the
book to support your choice:
The book demonstrates preoperational stage ages 2-7 years because the book is
biography and there is a lot of realistic illustrations that make the book look like It is
realistic and the book also has a lot vocabulary and a nice story as well.

Erickson:
Name the stage_____________________ and the age_______________________
Explain the cognitive development from this stage and provide an example from the
book to support your choice:
Emotional Development:
Identify the age: _________________________
Explain the social development for this age and how the book relates
to the emotional level you chose:

1 would not recommend 2 average 3 highly recommended

Your rating of the book: ____2_____

Why?
I recommend this book because it has very nice illustrations, some of the illustrations
in the book look very realistic and have a lot of color in them. Also, the book has a very
nice story about snowflakes.