Today's Perfect Picture Book Friday pick
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| David Macaulay's Shortcut |
Shortcut
Written and illustrated by David Macaulay
Houghton Mifflin, a Walter Lorraine Book, 1995, Fiction, ages 5 and up
Note: This book is actually 64 pages, but only about 450 words. It is classified as a picture book by the publisher and most book sites.
Themes:
Humor, Cause and Effect
Opening:
"Albert and June are up early. It is market day.
Once a week they take their ripest melons into town. As they cross the bridge, Albert and June always make a wish."
Synopsis:
This book is a comedy of errors told through the eyes of no less than 7 characters. It is a humorous blend of spare, straight-forward wording and comic illustrations. Albert travels to town to sell watermelons with his horse, June. Patty must find her best friend Pearl the pig, who has mysteriously disappeared. Professor Tweet has a mishap while bird-watching. The elderly Sybil motors through the countryside wreaking havoc. Poor Bob is just trying to take a nap. Characters unwittingly twist in and out of each others' lives shaping the course of events throughout the day. It is business as usual for some and blissful happy endings for others.
What I Love:
This book is unusual in its format. At 64 pages, some might consider it a chapter book, but it reads like a picture book, with the illustrations carrying most of the story and all of the humor. Multiple storylines are easily managed and gradually revealed as Macaulay carefully lays clues in every page to what lies ahead. Readers will feel giddy and triumphant by turns as they learn the principles of cause and effect, foreshadowing, and the subtleties of dry humor. The pacing of the illustrations gives the book a comic book feel. It is thoroughly fun the first or the twentieth time.
Bonus:
1. Have readers create their own mash-ups of existing picture books, inventing ways the stories could affect each other, like the characters in
Shortcut. For example, what if Fancy Nancy traveled with Max to the Wild things Island? Or what would happen if the Pigeon (who wants to drive a bus) wanted to drive the vehicles in
Goodnight, Goodnight Construction Site? You get the idea.
2. You can find a teachers' guide for Shortcut at
TeachingBooks.net.
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| Courtesy CraftsUnLeashed |
3. Explore David Macaulay's book,
Cathedral, which gives details about the history and methods of construction
for a cathedral town like the one featured in
Shortcut. Or engage your class with the excellent PBS
video version.
4. Craft a
hot air balloon, grow a
watermelon, go for a
picnic, take up
bird-watching, just like the characters in the book.
Check out all the recommended titles for Perfect Picture Book Friday for
November 8, 2013, available on the
Susanna Leonard Hill's excellent blog.
