Fiction Evaluation Form

(Picture Books, Folklore, Modern Fantasy, Contemporary Realistic Fiction, Historical Fiction, Multicultural Books)

Your Name: Pamela Becerra Book Title: Tops & Bottoms

Author: Janet Stevens Illustrator: Janet Stevens

Genre: Fiction Publisher/Year: 1995

EVALUATE THE BOOK USING THE FOLLOWING ELEMENTS

STYLE and Language: Using examples from the book, explain the following: word choices, dialogue,
rhythm, rhyme and sentence length. Also, explain unexpected insights or interesting information the reader
learns from the story. Give examples.

This story in particular didn't have a lot of rhyming which is a characteristic that's really
common in children books. It contained a lot of repeated dialogue and details about the
characters and illustrations. When it has dialogue it really attracts children to the book
especially if the reader can impersonate the character who is speaking in the book.

CHARACTER – With examples from the book give the following: Who is the main character? Explain the
character’s personality traits.
How can the reader relate to the character, become involved in the story?
Who are the supporting characters?

The two main characters would be the Hare and the Bear. The supporting characters
would be Mrs. Hare and the children. The protagonist is the Hare who is trying to
help his family from starvation and poverty. The antagonist is the Bear, since he had
so much money and would not share or work in the field. Although it can be
debatable whether the Hare was actually a good character since he tricked the bear
multiple times.
1. PLOT: summarize the major events in the story-

Hare and his family lost their land due to losing a bet and lived next to Bear who was rich and
owned a land. Hare created a deal with Bear, to do all the work and choose between "tops and
bottoms" of the harvest. Depending on what was harvested, Hare would trick Bear to pick the
weakest side of the harvest each season. In the end, Hare was able to save enough money to buy
back his land and open a vegetable stand. It concluded with them not making business deals ever
again.
 2. SETTING – Explain the place and time of the book.
THEME- What is the story’s theme/message?

Setting:
Theme:
The story takes place in a big farm land where it was Bear's field for planting and harvesting. I
believe that the story gives out a message of working hard and to not be lazy. There's two
characters of both extremes here. Hare who is hard-working and will do whatever it takes to
get him and his family back up. Then there's Bear who doesn't work at all and sleeps all the
time when he should be working. There's also a lesson of being tricked and taken advantage of.
Bear isn't aware of what exactly Hare is harvesting. Therefore, Bear thinks he won't be tricked
again next time. Even so, Hare was able to trick Bear four times for not being aware of his
surroundings and only sleeping.

ILLUSTRATION –Analyze the illustrations for the book you selected (see Chapter 4) with the categories
below:
Choose a 2-page spread in the book to answer the following:

What Style (realism, surrealism, expressionism, impressionism, naïve, cartoon art)?

Media choices (paints, oils watercolors, pencil, pen, charcoal, crayons, acrylic, chalk) :

Give examples and describe how the following visual elements are used in the illustrations:
Line:
Shapes
Color
Texture

Explain how illustration and text are combined to tell the story. What do illustrations show that text does not
explain?

Page design: Summarize the following: placement of illustrations and text; the use of borders and white/dark space; are both
pages designed the same or differently?

= The style of the illustrations are pretty realistic and cartoon-like. The colors and shades of the
characters are exactly what they would look like in real-life. Except for the clothing items and the
human-like activities such as planting and walking on two-feet.
The illustrator seems to have used paint and pencil. The drawings aren’t sharp but they are really
shaded with different levels of color. Shapes and textures are soft and very blended. The colors are
not that bright but very realistic. Some pages had the text box in the middle of the page, and other
pages had the text box underneath the illustration in wider open space.
Illustrations are very important in a children’s book to add in emotion and visual description.
Children are able to see what the text is describing, the characters facial expressions and the
settings/backgrounds throughout the story. Text will never go detail by detail explaining corner to
corner about the illustration. Illustrations offer color, texture and shape.
CHILD DEVELOPMENT THEORIES – CHOOSE 2 of theories below and evaluate the book according to the
developmental theories. (How the book fits the developmental stage and age?)

PIAGET-COGNITIVE-INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT
Name the stage_____Preoperational________________________ and the age_______2-
7______________

Explain the cognitive development from the stage:

Fantasy and Imaginative Play
Give examples from the book show how the book fits the cognitive stage:
The animals are all living like humans and doing activities that they don’t normally do in real life.
They are also talking and dealing with problems such as poverty, which they do not deal with since
they’re animals.
ERIKSON – PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Name the stage __________Pre-operational________________________ and the
age___________2-7__________

Explain the social development for this stage:

Begin to think of objects and people outside of their environment
Give examples from the book that support the social development of this stage:
This book shows two animals planting and harvesting on farm land. Children will learn more about
where vegetables come from and how they grow. How business deals work and how trickery works
as well. It also contains a lot of dialogue and vocabulary that makes the children think about what is
being said.
Emotional DEVELOPMENT
Identify the Age ________2-7__________________________
Explain the emotional development for the age: Children will be able to feel disappointed at the
characters or conflicted with how the protagonist is tricking the Bear.Children will probably feel
upset that the Hare was tricking the Bear. Or they might be rooting for the Hare since the Hare is the
one who’s working hard and Bear isn’t.

2. Overall Rating of the book (3 highest - 1 lowest) 1 2 3

Comments: (Support your overall rating)
I believe the book is a solid 3. The art is great and the detail is captivating and definitely brings in
attention. The story isn’t typical, it’s not black and white. I consider it to be different since the
Children have to decide whether the protagonist is a good character or not and what the overall
lesson of the story is.