Blog #18

Granite Baby

Written by: Lynne Bertrand

Illustrated by: Kevin Hawkes

Douglas and McIntyre, Ltd.

2005

33 pages

Modern Fantasy

            I chose this book from the shelves of the library because it is extremely exaggerated and quite humorous.  Granite Baby is a tall tale about five gigantic sisters with unbelievable talents who live in New Hampshire.  Jade could twist a river ‘like a rag in her hands’, Em whittled wood, Golda was ‘handy with string.’ Ruby was very strong and Beryl was the best stonecutter in the state. One day Beryl got very confident in her ability to cut stone and she decided to carve a real live baby out of stone.  When she did, the baby was normal-sized and they called him Lil Fella.  But then the baby started crying.  He cries so loud that people can hear him crying in the states nearby!  The entire book is about how the five sisters learn to care for the baby using their talents in the right way.

The illustrations in this book were created by Kevin Hawkes.  Hawkes used the double page spread layout and used formal text placement throughout the book.  It appears to be created using acrylic paints.  The lines are very soft, without much delineation between objects in the pictures.  The illustrator paid great attention to proportion.  The five sisters are giants compared to the baby and normal townspeople in the book.  Through the pages you can see how he painted the sisters humungous compared to everything else on the pages.  I especially liked how Hawkes depicted the text’s description of crying looking like a bunch of capital letters coming from the baby’s mouth.  When the baby is pictured crying, it has a ton of capital letters coming from its mouth to form a huge cloud to represent its cries.

This book is appropriate for students in third to sixth grade.  Younger students will not be able to sit through such a long book or read the vocabulary.  I would use this book during a history lesson on the different states, especially in the area of New Hampshire.  The author included many references to other states as well as many places in New Hampshire, which is the setting of the story.  The book could also be a lesson on exaggeration and realism.  There is also a character education lesson inside the book.  Students can learn that you do not have to be qualified to be good at something.  It only takes a little knowledge and a lot of will power to be successful.  I like this book because of the language and references to geographical places in the United States.  This book has won no awards.