Post #1

One Fine Day  by Nonny Hogrogian

Title: One Fine Day
Author: Nonny Hogrogian
Publisher: Aladdin Paperbacks
Copyright 1971

         One Fine Day is a gold medal Caldecott prize winner. I think this book, as well as this author, deserves this gold medal. The pictures are all painted. I can see the strokes of paint in each picture. I like how Hogrogian used paint brushes and made the brush strokes stick out instead of perfectly outlined pictures. It makes it look old and coincides with the setting of the story. The colors Hogrogian used also helps coincide with the setting. The colors aren't very bright, they seem dulled down and they flow into each other. This is an excellent book for children. There are many different literary exercises to use with this story. Every child loves a story with an animal as the main character, especially when the animal can talk, to people and other animals. They like fiction stories and they like knowing that they are reading a fiction story.
         The story is about a fox who is thirsty. The fox sees a woman gathering wood for her fire. The fox steals some milk from her while she is not looking. The woman catches the fox and cuts off his tail. The fox begs her to sew his tail back on so his friends don't make fun of him, but she asks for something in return--some more milk. The fox then goes on a spree asking for milk from the cow for the woman, grass from the field for the cow, water from the stream for the field, a jug from the maiden for the stream, a bead from the peddler for the maiden, an egg from the hen for the peddler, and a grain from the miller for the hen. The miller was a nice man and gave the fox the grain. The fox then went in reverse, giving everyone their wishes, to get his in return.
         One exercise that I would use with the children would be sequencing. Hogrogian uses sequencing very well in this story. The students can see it as the story goes on, as well as the story is finishing--the sequence is in reverse. The children can also repeat the words after hearing them a few time. Every action the fox partakes in is repeated on every page. They start to memorize the things that the fox does, and in the right order. I think that is an important strategy used by an author.
         One thing that caught my attention was on the third page. When the old woman caught the fox she cut off his tail. That shocked me when I first read it. I don't know how children would take that. It may shock them too, but in a way that it may scare them. I don't know if that is a good action to portray to children. Another thing I was sceptical about was the ending. The whole time I was reading the book, I thought the ending was going to involve the fox realizing his friends won't laugh at him, even if he has no tail. I thought a good moral would be, "It doesn't matter what you look like, your friends love you for you", or something along those lines. I guess the moral of the story could be, "Don't take things that aren't yours", or "What you give, you will recieve in return", but I was a little dissapointed.