Voices in the Park

Product Information

This is also probably a joke directed at himself, since the author/illustrator has a decorative ‘e’ at the end of Brown.) CHARLES SMYTHE

paint pictures of an everyday scene in the local park or playground but change a few objects into something else (a tree might become a face); Whilst I teach in an Australian context, these books are not linked to specific Australian content and would be well-suited to any English speaking classroom. Spelling and grammar are UK/Australian. Of course, books mean different things to different people. However, it is interesting to list the varying ideas the children have. One Y6 class I worked with recently listed the following ideas: happiness; relationships; money doesn’t make you happy; making friends; the dogs are the happiest; posh people and snobs; things are not what they seem. Anthony Browne is a highly acclaimed and multi award winning author and illustrator whose books are known and enjoyed for their surreal illustrations and thought-provoking themes.Re the story, I think the different perspectives of the characters could lead to some interesting discussions and introspective mulling. But I thought some of the choices were a bit odd if the audience here is young children, such as the despondent man looking at the job ads despite feeling hopeless.

PLEASE NOTE: These resources were all genuinely created in real-time for my classes over the last two years. As a result, the units of work differ in content and structure. Please use the individual prices as an indication of the resources included (or simply look at the individual products). For example, Voices in the Park is a very comprehensive unit as we used this book for several weeks. It contains mini-lessons, literature circle task cards, printables, assessments and shared reading lessons. The "Piggybook" resource, on the other hand, is very simple because we only used this for shared reading without integrated resources. What is the reason for a parallactic plot structure? In literary parallax, the message is implicitly this: The truth does not exist. A person’s version of the truth depends on their perspective. This is a defining characteristic of the literary Impressionists. That said, I think Anthony Browne has used parallax to a different end in this instance. I believe he conveys an unambiguous message: Repression of children is bad; playing is good; friendship across socioeconomic boundaries is good. He uses parallax to avoid hitting readers over the head with this ‘message’. A strong message like that could easily seem didactic. When readers put pieces of a puzzle together for themselves, they are more likely to agree with the storyteller’s message, regarding it as self-evident.The illustrations are vivid and differentiate between the chapters, for each character. It could be useful to look at this with children and to begin to think about how illustrations can help the reader to understand more about the characters' thoughts, feelings and to try and dig a bit deeper to uncover what the author/ illustrator is trying to tell us through the images. This links to the idea of 'Visual Literacy' and encouraging children to look at all forms of print and communication.

Write some instructions to teach someone how to make their Dad a nice cup of tea, ?like the girl in the story. Did you learn more about each character as you read the book? How did your opinion of each character change? Voices In The Park was awarded the Kurt Maschler Award (1982-1999), which specifically rewarded British picture books demonstrating excellent integration between words and pictures. The prize covered picture books and an illustrated book for a wide variety of ages, and Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland appears to be a particularly satisfying text to illustrate because it was won twice, by two different illustrators. This is the equivalent to WEEKS of literacy teaching and learning - we spent ten weeks in total looking at the work of Anthony Browne using these resources. A walk in the park can bring joy and peacefulness to your day. Join four different perspectives of voices that take a stroll through their local park as they reflect on the lives.

I have used this book over two weeks in my classroom. This bundle contains an in-depth guide to the text, including: