Children’s Literature Evaluation Form

Your Name: Carmen Chavez

Book Title: Isabel and Her Colores Go to School
Author: Alexandra Alessandri
Genre: Multicultural
Illustrator: Courtney Dawson
Publisher/Year: Sleeping Bear Press 2021
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 uses words in Spanish such as corazones, caritas, culebras, and
carritos. Most of the dialogue consists of Isabel trying to communicate with
Sarah so that they can be friends. There is some occasional rhyme in the book.
An example would be “Isabel’s lips wibbled and wobbled, and her face tumbled
down into a tight, worried frown” (Alessandri). There is also use of figurative
language throughout the story. One of them being when the author compared
Mami’s voice to a ripened mango. “Mami’s voice was soft and amber like a
ripened mango” (Alessandri).

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 the story is Isabel.

- The reader can relate to the character when Isabel feels as though she cannot
be friends with any of her classmates because they do not understand each
other. Ex. When it was Storytime and Sarah invited Isabel to sit next to her and
asked Isabel if she wanted to be friends. Isabel did not know what the word
friend meant due to language barrier, so she shut down and kept to herself.
- Supporting characters in the book are classmates, Sarah, Mami, and Miss Page.

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

 - When Isabel tried being friends with Sarah during Storytime, it was shut down
because she did not understand English. When it was coloring time, Isabel was
happy because she knew what it meant and she was allowed to do something
she enjoyed. Isabel took coloring time as an opportunity to become friends
with Sarah and drew a picture of both Isabel and Sarah together. She showed
the drawing to Sarah and translated the word amigas to friends with just a
drawing.

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

Theme: What is the main message of this book? (2 points)
- The setting is school on the first day of school.
- The message of the book is that beyond first impressions and barriers, one can
make new friends by finding other ways to communicate.

Illustration: Analyze the book you selected with the following categories
Style (realism, surrealism, expressionism, impressionism, naïve, cartoon art)? (2
points)
- The illustration style of this book is cartoon art. There are so many different
colors included in the pictures.

Media Choice (paints, oils watercolors, pencils, pen, charcoal, crayons, acrylic, chalk):
(2 points)
- Mixed mediums (charcoal and acrylic).

Give examples of describe how the following visual elements are used in the
illustrations: (3)
Line: curved lines ex. Lines of colors that are shown I the pages.
Shapes: angular shapes ex. Tables, desks, bookshelf
Color: This book is based around books and the difference between warms and cool
colors. Throughout the story, there are many warm colors because those are the
ones that Isabel associates with Spanish (her main language), but there are also cool
colors which represent the English language.
Texture: The texture of these illustrations are smooth.
Page design (placement of the illustrations, use of borders, white and dark space and
all pages the same or different). (3)
- Page designs are all different. Some pages consist of warm colors with a happy
joyful feel while others consist of cool colors with a feel of sadness. Some
pages include the presence of doodles and curved text.

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:
- “Understands world through language and mental images”. Throughout the
entire book, Isabel sees colors and associates them with language. Warm colors
for Spanish and cool colors for English. This is how she understands things. Since
she is very familiar to the Spanish language, warm colors are a sense of warmth
and familiarity as opposed to the unfamiliar cool colors for the English language.

Erickson:
Name the stage: Stage 3: Initiative vs Guilt and the age: Preschool age
Explain the cognitive development from this stage and provide an example from the
book to support your choice:
- “By providing tasks and activities where children experience success, passing
out materials, picking up toys, watering plants with a small cup.” In the book,
the turning point was when it was coloring time. Isabel was so excited for
coloring time because she knew and understood it. Isabel was able to use this
activity to break down the communication barrier between her and Sarah.

Emotional Development:
Identify the age: 3-6 years
Explain the social development for this age and how the book relates
to the emotional level you chose:
- “Language improvement, behavior and cognitive strategies help create
emotional self-regulation.” In the book, Isabel is scared to start school because
she doesn’t know anybody and also does not understand English. By the end of
 the book, she understands more English words and she can become friends
with somebody because of the picture she drew.

1 would not recommend 2 average 3 highly recommended

Your rating of the book: _3 highly recommend_

Why? I would highly recommend this book because it is a very cute book. The
illustrations in the book are beautiful with all of the different colors. I also really like
this book because it is based around colors and it is very well represented in the
illustrations. The main plus of this book is that it is a multicultural book. The difference
of the Spanish language and the English language being portrayed is a huge factor that
I absolutely love about it.