Walter Was Worried

Title: Walter Was Worried
Author: Laura Vaccaro Seeger
Age Group: Early Readers

Summary: This story involves many characters that are all experiencing different emotions due to the weather. At the beginning of the story the characters are experiencing negative emotions to the weather, but at the end of the story the negative emotions turn positive and they are all happy as the clouds clear and the sun finally comes out. The story has great text along with extremely powerful illistrations.

       Walk Was Worried is extremely beautiful story where the pictures are absolutely necessary. The wonderful part about the pictures is that the adjective that describes the character is written out on their face. I love the way the story has no title on the front cover it just has a picture of walter's face. If you look closely you can see the word "worried" written in Walter's facial features. Another great feature is found in the text. The adjective that describes the character has the same font and coloring of the letters that are found in the facial features of the character. This makes it easier for the reader to see where the letters are in the face. The story also deals with alliteration. The character's names have the same first letter as the adjective that describes them such as worried Walter, puzzled Priscilla, etc. This brings up a great lesson for the students in alliteration. The students could play with alliteration with their own names, and they could draw pictures with the adjective written in their facial features.
      I think this is a great way to get students involved in the pictures. If I were to use this story in a class I would like to read the story through the first time without giving any hints away. Maybe I would show the class the cover and ask them to come up with a possible title, before actually revealing it to them. After I read the story the first time, I could ask my students if they noticed anything when they were looking at the pictures. We could then use this time to look at the alliteration found in the text. I think a great way to get the class involved would be to make a story like this throughout our own classroom. The students could draw their own pictures with adjectives in their facial features and we could hang them up throughout the classroom.