Angella Hart's Early Childhood Studies Blog: September 2011

Personal Childhood Web

The 4 people who nurtured and cared about me as a child were:
My Mother, Father, Older Brother and Younger Brother.

Sharon, my mother has always been there to show unconditional love regardless of the stress that children can bring to you. This has helped me in raising my own children.

Bill, my father has always been there to show me the importance of takin care of responsibilities. This has impacted my life as an adult and single parent.

Ron, my older brother has always been there to watch out for me as his little sister. There are only 15 months in age between us. We have been close since childhood and remain close now.

Tim, my little brother was always there to look up to me as his older sister. I enjoyed teaching him things and often pretended he was my student. I belieive that I helped him to be ready for Kindergarten! We had 3 years between us, and unfortunately, Tim was killed in a car accident at the age of 24, so our adult life together was cut short way too soon.

There is not a 5th person for me to name specifically, because as a child, we moved quite a bit until I was in 5th grade. So my "early childhood yers" were basically influenced directly by our immediate family. I do feel that I was close to our extended family members and friends, however none of these have really impacted my adult life because I too have moved around alot since graduating high school.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

"Where the Wild Things Are", by Maurice Sendak

http://www.amazon.com/Maurice-Sendak/e/B000AQ1O5O/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0One of my favorite children's books is, "Where the Wild Things Are", by Maurice Sendak. The artwork that is used in this story is the use of a line technique called cross-hatching which gives the impression of energy or intensity. The relationship between art and text in this book fully captures the intensity and spirit of the story. The illustrations are vibrant and captivating and help the reader to completely feel as if they are in the story with Max. This book has been awarded the Caldecott Medal because the text and illustrations are captivating, energetic, and suspending and is noted on the American Library Association website (www.ala.org) because of its execution in the artistic technique, its pictorial interpretation of story, theme, or concept, the appropriateness of style of illustration, the delineation of plot, theme, characters, setting, mood and information through the pictures, and through the excellence of presentation in recognizing the child audience. In my opinion, this book definitely represents quality children’s literature and is by far one of my favorite books to read to children because it is very easy to animate the character in the story which also helps to hold the children’s attention while reading aloud to them.