Fiction Evaluation Form

(Picture Books, Folklore, Modern Fantasy, Contemporary Realistic Fiction, Historical Fiction, Multicultural Books)

Your Name: Jade Faye Whitehurst Book Title: Queen Vashti’s Comfy Pants
Author: Leah Rachel Illustrator: Ruth Bennett

Genre: Historical Fiction Publisher/Year:Behrman House Publisher

EVALUATE THE BOOK USING THE FOLLOWING ELEMENTS

STYLE and Language: Explain the language used – word choices, sentence length, dialogue, rhythm, rhyme.
Explain unexpected insights or interesting information the reader learns from the story. Give examples form
the book for each one:

Word choice: Preschool vocabulary, small words like show, call, eight, woman

Sentence length: The sentences are quite long actually, they’re are little paragraphs on the pages because of
the font but about 14 or more words per sentence.

Dialogue: the whole story is based in dialogue between the king, his friend and the queen and hers, and the
servants.

Rhythm:the rhythm is fast like a Song, the story is upbeat and interesting.

Rhyme: they do use rhyme throughout the whole book, examples: me and see, one and fun, fume and room,
hall and wall

Insights/interesting information: this story is a historical fiction which means it is based off of real characters
and I think it’s interesting to consider how that might affect the story and or characters. These are also people
from the Bible that makes it extremely interesting, how does the social hierarchy of the Christian religion
connect with the themes shared in the story?

CHARACTER – Who is the main character? Explain the character’s personality traits. How can the reader
relate to the character, become involved in the story?
Who are the supporting characters? Give examples of each from the book.

Main character: Queen Vashti

Personality traits: strong, brave, smart, calm, respectful, feisty

How readers can relate to the main character: I think young girls can relate to this character because she is a
colored woman and she wants to enjoy being with her friend and being comfortable. Not all girls like to dress
up in dresses; this highlights that idea as well.

Supporting characters: the king, the messenger, the queens friends, the king's friends

1. PLOT: (Explains the major events in the story.) Summarize the plot

In the story the queen and the king are entertaining friends at the castle at the same time. The king
gets bored and demands for Vashti’s to come and dance and serve him and his friends. She refuses
multiple times through the messenger king becomes upset and tells her himself. He threatens her
and her friends to do it. And then the Queen has had enough and she leaves.

The end.

2. SETTING – Explain the place and time of the book.

THEME- What is the story’s theme or lesson?

Setting: The Setting is the castle. In a room and outside it is during the day time.

Theme: The major theme in this story is that it is important to stand up for yourself and your needs
and wants.

ILLUSTRATION –Analyze the illustrations in the book (see Chapter 4 for details on the categories below.)
Choose a 2-page spread in the book to answer the following:

What Style (realism, surrealism, expressionism, impressionism, naïve, cartoon art)?

The illustrations were a realism style of art but they are very expressive as well. The illustrator
plugs lots of details in individuals' facial expressions.

Illustration and Text: explain how illustration and text combined to tell the story.

In pages 20 and 21 where the king storms into Queen Vashti’s party we can see how angry he is and how it affects their
guests. And the main character's Response. The text says he pounded down Queen Vashti’s door and stomped across the
marble floor. The tea cups trembled on their tray but Vashti calmly looked away.

Then, explain what illustrations show that text does not explain?

Their illustration shows how situations like this can really look. And it’s not pretty. The illustrations
show how the king's outburst really destroys the party.

Page design --Describe:

The Borders, the book doesn’t have borders.

Use of white/dark space: the page is filled with colored not a lot of blank space is left.

Text placement: the text is mostly at the tip and bottom of the pages, this seems purposeful so that readers can focus on the highlighted
objects in the illustrations

Font size: the font is normal/ medium sized. In black and white so it can be seen better.

Placement of illustrations: the illustrations cover the whole pages and some of them stretch across more than one page. They are colorful
as well.

3. CHILD DEVELOPMENT THEORIES – CHOOSE 2 of theories below and evaluate the book according to the
developmental theories. (How the book fits the developmental stage and age?)

PIAGET-COGNITIVE-INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT

The stage is the preoperative age and the ages are both through age 2.

Explain ONE cognitive development trait from the stage: one cognitive development trait from this
stage is children's increased use of the symbolic function. This is when they start to connect a word
or object and make it stand for something else.
Give examples from the book show how the book fits that trait and cognitive stage:

Using the book as an example the children will be able to connect the king's actions and words to
the idea of disrespect. Through classroom discussion children will remember how important it is to
keep our bodies and our friends' bodies/ belongings nicely.

ERIKSON – PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Name the stage autonomy be dout and the ages of 18 months and around the age of 2-3.

Explain ONE social development trait for this stage: One social development trait connected to this
activity is this is the stage where children develop a greater sense of self control and
independence . Students might want to dress themselves, this is the start of them building self
esteem.

Give examples from the book that support that social development trait and of this stage:

In that book the main character and her friends don’t want to wear dresses as well. they want to
wear comfy pants, they want to relax not perform for the king. They stood up for themselves.

EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Identify the Age __________________________________

Explain ONE emotional development trait for this age:

Give examples from the book to illustrate that emotional development trait and this age: