Fiction Evaluation Form

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

Your Name: Jade Faye Whithurst Book Title: Seven Blind Mice
Author and Illustrator : Ed Young Genre:fiction

Publisher/Year:Philomel Books Publication dateApril 29, 1992

EVALUATE THE BOOK USING THE FOLLOWING ELEMENTS

STYLE and Language: Explain the language used – word choices, sentence length, dialogue, rhythm, rhyme.
Explain unexpected insights or interesting information the reader learns from the story. Give examples form
the book for each one:

Word choice: Preschool vocabulary

Sentence length: a sentence or two per page.

Dialogue: indirect dialogue between mice. They say things they said but not the reply back. ( ex. Red mouse
said …they didn’t believe him)

Rhythm:fast rhythm

Rhyme:no rhyme.

Insights/interesting information: mice staying together in packs, blind animals working together

CHARACTER – 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? Give examples of each from the book.

Main character: Seven mice.

Personality traits: being brave they were brave go leaving the other mouse but they had to.

How readers can relate to the main character: they make mistakes.

Supporting characters: elephant, snack

 1. PLOT: (Explains the major events in the story.) Summarize the plot

Each mouse leaves one at a time to see what’s there and they find different parts any they come
back and tell the other mouse what they think they found.

2. SETTING – Explain the place and time of the book.

THEME- What is the story’s theme or lesson?

Setting: the book is dark. We can't see the setting or the time of the book because the mice are
blind they can’t see.

Theme: the theme is teaching kids to be accepting and their views.

ILLUSTRATION –Analyze the illustrations in the book (see Chapter 4 for details on 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 style of the illustrations is called collage. It’s illustrated by Lon Po Po. I’ve never seen this type
of art in any other book.

Illustration and Text: explain how illustration and text combined to tell the story.

Then, explain what illustrations show that text does not explain?

The text and the images work together to help form the same connections as the mouse. The
illustrations show the elephant the whole time enough where I think preschoolers could identify it.

Page design --Describe:

The Borders. Cream color like paper color border around all the pages of the book. Black border on cover page.
Use of white/dark space: a lot of dark spaces commuting to blind mice not seeing ( important ideas to discuss with children)

Text placement: text is at the top of left hand page

Font size: Big font, white, easy to read

Placement of illustrations: parts of elephant are on the right and mice are on the left.

3. 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_____________________________ and the age_____________________

Concrete Operational

7 to 11

Explain ONE cognitive development trait from the stage:

Reasoning includes two-way thinking (more than one point of view).

Give examples from the book show how the book fits that trait and cognitive stage:

Students will start to consider their interaction with others. An example from the book are the mice
worked together to see the elephant.

ERIKSON – PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

Name the stage __________________________________ and the age_____________________

Age - Preschool

Stage - INITIATIVE verses GUILT

Explain ONE social development trait for this stage:

Child learns to do, to plan, to work at a task, to be active and on the move

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

The mouse didn’t give up even when scared

EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Identify the Age __________________________________

Explain ONE emotional development trait for this age:

Give examples from the book to illustrate that emotional development trait and this age: