Style & tone in children’s
BooksElaine Cardenas
Library 732July 9, 2011
IMAGERYAll the Places to Love
by Patricia Maclachlan
Maclachlan describes beautifully everyone’s favorite spot on the farm.
“My grandmother loved the river best of all the places to love. That sound, like a whisper, she said;Gathering in poolsWhere trout flashed like jewels in the sunlight.Grandmother sailed little bark boats downriver to meWith messagesI love you Eli, one said.
Figurative language
Personification
Diary of a Wormby Doreen Cronin
Duck for Presidentby Doreen Cronin
Click, Clack, MooCows that Type
by Doreen Cronin
In all of the above stories Doreen Cronin uses personification. The humor in her
stories comes from animals who are personified. They all do things humans
would normally do such writing diaries or typing on a typewriter.
Figurative language
Similie
A Long Way from Chicagoby Richard Peck
Peck’s writing is liberally sprinkled with similies for comparison purposes:
bald as an egg (p. 50)we’d been working like a whole pack of bird
dogs (p. 52)he smelled like a polecat (p. 6)
ugly as sin, calls herself Wilcox? (p. 9)
Figurative language
metaphor
The Runaway Bunny
by Margaret Wise Brown
Margaret Wise Brown uses metaphors for
comparison purposes in The Runaway Bunny.
“If you are a gardner and find me,” said the
little bunny, “I will be a bird and fly away from you.” If you become a bird and fly away from me,” said his mother, “I will be a tree that you
come home to.”
Hyperbole
Chicks and Salsa
by Aaron Reynolds
Reynolds uses hyperbole to create humor in Chicks and
Salsa.In this story the chickens are tired of eating chicken feed. While watching TV through the open farm window, the
rooster discovers the solution to the food problem. He helps
organize the chickens to gather ingredients and then
make salsa. The story continues with the ducks
making guacamole, the pigs making nachos and the bull
dancing the Mexican hat dance.
Allusion
Porkensteinby Kathryn Lasky
In order to understand Porkenstein, one must be
familiar with the story of Frankenstein. Like Frankenstein, Porkenstein is a mistake. Dr. Pig is lonely because the wolf ate his brothers. He is trying to create a pig friend to keep him company. His experiment goes awry, and
he creates Porkenstein,the biggest pig he had ever seen! When Porkenstein has eaten
everything in the house including the trash and trash can, Dr. Pig
realizes, “I’ve-I’ve-created a monster!”
AlliterationAnimaliaby Graeme Base
Animalia is alliteration. Base goes through each
letter of the alphabet using alliteration.
“Diabolical Dragons Daintily Devouring
Delicious Delicacies. “
“Eight Enormous Elephants Expertly Eating
Easter Eggs”.
AssonancePick a Pup
by Marshal Chall
Chall uses assonance in Pick a Pup for a playful tone. Sam is going to the shelter to pick a pup for his very own. He’s wondering what kind of a pup he’ll get.
“Eeny, meeny, miney, pup,which teeny-weeny, tiny pup?”
Will his pup be like:“Mrs. Well’s sit-in-your-lap
dog,likes to take-a-nap dog,
hardly makes-a-peep dog,mostly-sound-asleep dog.”
consonanceThe Grim
Grottoby Lemony Snicket
In The Grim Grotto the unfortunate
Baudelaire children find themselves floating down a
river on a toboggan. Snicket uses consonance to give the
impression of a current moving downstream and occasionally
getting hung up on an obstacle.“Rushing water” and “stricken
stream”
rhythm
Rattlebone Rock by Sylvia Andrews
There’s no way to avoid toe-tapping with Sylvia Jones Rattlebone Rock. The rhythm is what makes the story.
“Skeletons danced “Ghosts swayed in lineAnd pranced around. To the beat of the bonesThey rattled their bones And jazzed up the soundWith a rhythmic sound. With musical moans.Clacka-clack! Ooooa-ooo!Clacka-clack!” Boooa-boo!
Tone
The BFGby Roald Dahl
The light-hearted, fun tone of the BFG is created by Dahl’s usage and choice of words. Dahl plays with language creating a whimsical story that makes us smile. The BFG eats disgusting snozcumbers to survive. He drinks frobscottle and suffers fromwhizzpoppers. The giants that aren’t friendly have names like “The Childchewer, The Fleshlumpeater, and the Gizzardgulper” Dahl explains how each giant has a favorite hunting ground, because all humans taste different. According to the giants people from Wales taste like fish (as in whale), people from Sweden taste sweet and sour, and people from Greece taste greasy. Not only is Dahl’s sense of humor readily apparent in The BFG, it’s contagious!
tonehumor
A Year Down Yonderby Richard Peck
“Shotgun Cheatham’s Last Night Above Ground” is a terrific example of Peck’s ability to engage his readers with humor. In this story Grandma Dowdel blatantly lies to a nosey reporter regarding Shotgun Cheatham’s life just because she hates people poking into other people’s business. She tells the reporter that Shotgun was given
his name by U.S. Grant. She invites the reporter to come to her house because Shotgun will be buried from her house with honors. Sometime during the night while
they are all sitting watch during the wake, something surprising happens.“The gauze that hung down over the open coffin moved. Twitched. . .Then the gauze
rippled as if a hand had passed across it from the other side, and in one place it wrinkled into a wad as if somebody had snagged it. As if a feeble hand had reached up from the coffin depths in one last desperate attempt to live before the dirt was shoveled in. “ Grandma grabbed her shotgun and shot at the gauze. The reporter jumped out the side window. “He went out a side window, headfirst leaving his hat
and his notepad behind. Which he feared more, the living dead or Grandma’s aim, he didn’t tarry to tell. Mrs. Wilcox was on her feet, hollering, “The dead is walking, and Mrs. Dowdel’s gunning for me!”. . .”A burned-powder haze hung int he room, butting the smell of Shotgun Cheatham. The white gauze was black rags now, and Grandma had blown the lid clear off the coffin. She’d have blown out all three windows in the bay, except they were open. As it was, she’d pitted her woodwork bad and topped
the snowball bushes outside.”