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Summary: When I Was Young in the Mountains
Review: This is an excellent book which abounds with lots of wonderful memories from my childhood. Having grown up in the city, I loved to visit my grandparents who lived in the mountains of Pennsylvania. It brought back wonderful memories like the frightening walks to the outhouse at night,snakes in the grass and warm and loving grandparents.
It's a great book to bridge the past with the present with students or your own children. Enjoy!
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Summary: The Relatives Came
Review: Those relatives just hugged for hours and hours. It takes 4 or 5 hugs to get from one room to another.They all slept on the floor. Also, the relatives, fixed all the things that were broken. They ate all the watermelons and strawberries. Then they had to leave. This is a good book for people who like trips.
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Summary: The Difference in Text and Illustrations
Review: Waiting for their grapes to turn purple, the relatives from Virginia load up their rainbow car and head off to visit their other relatives. Once they arrive, the days ahead are filled with hugging, eating, gardening, and helping each other out. Gammell illustartes, using a lot of roundness throughout the book, giving the illustrations a warm, happy feeling. The smooth and cheerful illustrations show the love and enjoyment of the relatives being together as a family. However, throughout the text, the narrator seems to be "making fun" of the relatives from Virginia. While the narrator tells how the relatives from Virginia have wrinkled clothes, the illustrations show that everyone has wrinkled, torn, or mismatched clothes. The narrator talks about these relatives as if they are "outcasts" by the way they dress, drive, and sleep. In the illustrations, Gammell shows all of relatives dressed and sleeping oddly. Unlike Rylant, he does not place emphasis just on the relatives from Virginia. In the article "Metalinguistic Awareness and the Child's Developing Concept of Irony: The Relationship between Pictures and Text in Ironic Picture Books" Bettina Kummerling-Meibauer disscusses how illustrations and texts can depict each other just as those of Rylant and Gammell. Gammell is trying to show the importance of family, while Rylant is focusing on the appearance and actions of the relatives from Virginia. Kummerling-Meibauer tells how children are developing the knowledge to recognize and understand irony. One type of irony which I believe appears in Rylant's book is "contradiction between picture and text"(162). Once again Gammell shows a happy family in his illustrations, while Rylant writes judgmental remarks about the family from Virginia. These remarks are not made in a disgraceful or nasty way, and they do not ruin the book, they add to it. This humorous book exemplifies family closeness. Even though the text and illustrations conflict with each other, the book is interesting to read to see how the relatives bond with each other. Since the text was written and then the illustrations were drawn, maybe Rylant wanted the relatives from Virginia to stand out and look different from the others.Works Cited Kummerling-Meibauer, Bettina. "Metalinguistic Awareness and the Child's Developing Concept of Irony: The Relationship between Pictures and Text in Ironic Picture Books." The Lion and the Unicorn 23.2 (1999):157-183. Rylant, Cynthia. The Relatives Came. Illus. Stephen Gammell. New York: Alladin Paperbacks, 1985.
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Summary: A Great Family Reunion!
Review: We borrowed the book and audiocassette from the library. We fell in love with the story and the relatives. We had to get our own, so that we could experience summertime fun with the relatives all year long! Dasia reports, "This is a funny story about a funny family. They are so happy to see one another. They share everything... even breathing." This is a must read for all families!
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Summary: joyous book that celebrates family time
Review: We will be giving this book to my sister as a "hostess" gift when we visit this Christmas. It is a wonderful, romping book that rejoices in large family visits. I highly recommend it
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