Nancy Paulsen Books (2016)
The book, I Hear a Pickle: and Smell, See, Touch, & Taste It, Too! Written and illustrated by Rachel Isadora is a picture book for young children that allows the reader to gain and understand the difference between the five senses. In this story, the author goes through the five senses and gives a lot of examples of each type to distinguish between all of them. For each sentence about each sense there is a corresponding picture that goes along with it also. For example, the first sense that the book goes over is hearing and a sentence reads, "I hear the ocean, in the shell." Corresponding with this is picture of a young girl in a bathing suit at the beach holding a conch shell up to her ear listening to the ocean. A similar example is when the book begins to talk about the sense of smell and a sentence reads, "I smell the flowers." And has a picture of a young boy in a field of flowers bending down and smelling a flower. This book is very simple but very long. It takes about ten minutes to finish the whole book and would be a great addition to a classroom especially those going over the five senses. The illustrations in this book are very soft and use light colors to make the reader feel safe and they use smooth and flat shapes to make the pictures even calmer. This book's use of picture book conventions and connection to the text does an amazing job at pushing the reader through the book and informer the reader about the different aspects of senses while keeping it understandable for a young reader.
The use of light colors in this book keeps the illustrations soft and easy to view for the eyes. Every picture in the book uses pastels that make the colors soft and work together well. This convention is important because these light colors allow the reader or viewer of the illustrations to feel safe while reading this book. The use of light colors and pastels keeps the tone of the book and the illustrations soft and easy to read through all the way which gives the reader more of a reason to focus and relate to the text helping them understand the content better.
Another convention of the illustrations in this book that makes it an exceptional read is the use of flat, smooth, and horizontal lines. The use of these conventions can be seen in every illustration in the book like the picture corresponding to the text that reads, "I smell the rain." And has a picture of a person in a rain coat walking through the rain but still does not look aggressive in any way. This illustration uses horizontal lines and remains flat to soften the idea of a rain that could be much more intense. Keeping the illustrations in this this book this style, using flat, smooth, and horizontal lines keeps the reader interested in the light read and allows them to further understand and relate to the content in the text while enjoying what they're reading at the same time.
In conclusion, I Hear a Pickle: and Smell, See, Touch, & Taste It, Too! is a story that uses a good amount of calm and soft illustrations to maintain the readers interest in the story line. The conventions seen are the use of light colors and flat, smooth, and horizontal lines in the illustrations. This story is very simple and goes over a lot of examples that may be hard for an adult to read but it is simple enough for a student to be able to read by themselves, especially early on. I would use this story as a resource in my class but would not read it aloud. Many young students will be able to read this and gain a better understanding of the senses and enjoy it while reading too. Overall, I enjoyed this book as a resource for students in an educational and entertaining standpoint but it may be too simple for a teacher to read all of and enjoy the whole time.
Review by Jack Thomas Frischen
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