Gobble You Up! by Gita Wolf, illustrated by Sunita, Tara Books, 2013. India. In this tale, a wily jackal swallows more than he can hold. For those familiar with the story of the Old Lady Who Swallowed a fly, this book follows a similar pattern. The tale incorporates a song that grows as jackal's stomach fills with animals. With pages that are reminiscent of brown craft paper and illustrations in black and white this picture book straddles the divide between the familiar and the unknown. The illustrations are Mandna, a form of painting from Rajasthan. A few pages at the end of the book provide information on the artist, the painting style, and the making of the book. |
The cast of animals should be mostly familiar to young readers: jackal, crane, fish, turtle, squirrel, cat, peacock, elephant, and a tailor bird. The text inside the story provides excellent vocabulary-enriching opportunities.
The illustrations are large enough to make this book work for storytime. It is flexible enough to work for a variety of themes: eating, books with singing, new twists on old tales, and stories from India to name a few. With this book you could also incorporate making predictions, clapping to the song, waving scarves to the song, and readers could read the sound effects which are in white text. Extension activities can be art-based (you knew I was going to go there, right?) For older children, you can show them how the illustrations were made and then provide them black paper and white paint to create their own animals. For younger children, you could show them how the artist uses patterns to decorate the animals and have them draw and decorate animals. Both of these activities will allow them to use their pencil-holding muscles and encourage them to make text-to-self connections.
The illustrations are large enough to make this book work for storytime. It is flexible enough to work for a variety of themes: eating, books with singing, new twists on old tales, and stories from India to name a few. With this book you could also incorporate making predictions, clapping to the song, waving scarves to the song, and readers could read the sound effects which are in white text. Extension activities can be art-based (you knew I was going to go there, right?) For older children, you can show them how the illustrations were made and then provide them black paper and white paint to create their own animals. For younger children, you could show them how the artist uses patterns to decorate the animals and have them draw and decorate animals. Both of these activities will allow them to use their pencil-holding muscles and encourage them to make text-to-self connections.