#11- In The Wild

In the Wild

Written by David Elliott

Illustrated by Holly Meade

Candlewick Press, 2010

29 Pages

Poetry

     This book describes different wild animals through the use of poetry. Each animal has it's own poem and each poem is written in a different format. None of the poems have the same format. This book contains both rhyming and non-rhyming poems so it is a great way to show students that not all poetry has to rhyme.

     Meade used woodblock prints and watercolor to create the beautiful illustrations for this book. The colors are very bold and vibrant in this book. The colors match the mood that each animal reflects. Also Meade used a lot of jagged, wavy lines to represent movement and horizontal lines to represent tranquility and calmness. For instances with the Zebra there are lots of wavy lines under the feet of the Zebra to help represent it running fast through the plains of Africa. The illustration for the sloth, on the other hand, contain more horizontal lines to help portray it's laid back approach to life in the trees.

     This book has several different ways it could be used in the classroom. I think it could be used in almost any grade level. It would be a good book to use when doing a unit on animals. It could also be used to show that there are different types of poetry. Also if students were learning about animals in certain habitats like African animals, the teacher could read the poems about those particular animals and not have to read the whole book since each animal has its own poem and it would not take away from the book as a whole. Also only reading a few of the poems may encourage the students to go read the rest of the book.