Fiction Evaluation Form

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

Your Name: Pamela Becerra

Book Title: “Pancakes, Pancakes!”

Author: Eric Carle

Illustrator: Little Simon

Genre: Fiction

Publisher/Year: 1970

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 reade

learns from the story. Give examples.

“Kee-Ke-Ri-Kee!” crowed the rooster. Jack woke up, looked out the window and thought, “I’d like to

big pancake for breakfast.

- The sentence length is pretty normal. The word choices are simple and really narrative. There’s a

lot of dialogue between the characters, which is what catches the reader’s attention.

There isn’t a lot of rhythm or rhyme. The end shows step by step how to make a pancake.

CHARACTER – With examples from the book give the following:

Who is the main character? Explain the character’s personality traits.

- The main character is Jack and Jack’s mother. Jack is a farmer boy who enjoys pancakes, so he

goes on the look out for ingredients to make a big pancake. He helps his mother with a lot of the chores

around the farm.

How can the reader relate to the character, become involved in the story?

- The reader can relate to the story if they like pancakes, have made pancakes, or live or been

around farm animals before.

Who are the supporting characters?

- The supporting characters would be the miller and the farm animals.

1. PLOT:

Summarize the major events in the story-

- Jack wakes up and wants to make a big pancake.

- Jack goes around the farm looking for ingredients (egg, milk, wheat)
- Jack and his mother start making a pancake.
- Jack now knows what to do when he wants a pancake.

2.SETTING

Explain the place and time of the book:

- The place is a farmland, and the time can’t be certain but it’s definitely day time, probably

1970’s.

THEME-

What is the story’s theme/message?

- The theme is how to make a pancake, and learning how to make a pancake with the ingredients
 needed.

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)?

- The art is between naive art and realism. The illustrations are not realistic to human characteristics but still resemble

real life details.

Media choices

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

It looks like it would be drawn by using paint. The colors aren’t exact across the illustrations

and look pretty messy. The drawings are cropped out to a shape, that’s why there’s no exact outlin

to the drawings.
Give examples and describe how the following visual elements are used in the illustrations :

Line: There aren’t really much lines used, unless it’s a brush stroke.

Shapes: The shapes seem to be cut out from the painting to make a shape.

Color: The colors are very vivid. There’s a lot of color layering with paint to create shadows and effects. There’s hardly

any drawings that have a single color of paint.

Texture: The texture looks pretty soft and the drawings are all 2D.

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

- The illustration and text are combined to tell the story by the dialogue being connected and showing in

the illustrations. There isn’t a lot of rhyme in this story, but there’s a lot of dialogue and narrating. The illustrations

show Jack doing farm chores to gather ingredients to make his pancake.

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?
All pages have the text on the white background for the illustrations. There’s no borders and there’s no specific placement for the dialogu

The illustrations take up most of the page space, while the text is usually on a top corner. Most of the pages have the text on the top

right corner.

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___Concrete ____Operational______________________

and the age__7-11___________________

Explain the cognitive development from the stage: they are able to recognize sizes and weights,

Placement of objects, how to differentiate objects, and logical thinking.

Give examples from the book show how the book fits the cognitive stage:

The book at the end has Jack learning how to make a pancake and what ingredients he needs.
At this age, kids will be able to know that milk comes from cows, eggs come from chickens and

wheat comes from the ground. They’ll be able to see and learn how Jack makes a pancake and

apply that to their life and experience.

ERIKSON – PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Name the stage ______Industry vs. Inferiority____________________________

and the age___5-13__________________

Explain the social development for this stage:

They start to feel more independent to do things on their own and feel pleasure from succeeding

and cooperating.

Give examples from the book that support the social development of this stage:

Jack goes on his own to get the ingredients he needs to make a pancake. He helps the miller

grind the wheat, he milks the cow, gets the eggs for his pancake, etc. He then learns how to

mix those all together and make himself a pancake!

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

1 2 3

Comments: (Support your overall rating)

I really like how Jack shows how he gets the ingredients and then shows the reader how the

pancake was made and how Jack’s mother taught him so. Young readers will connect with how

they have learned to make something for themselves in the past.