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Blog #2: The Adventues of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend

    For this week's blog post, I chose to read The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend by Dan Santat. It won the Caldecott Medal in 2015. I chose this book on a library trip with my students. I read the book aloud to them, and the seemingly took interest. I also took it home and read it to my daughter. She was amazed with the pictures. Each page, she felt like she had touch or make her own version of what was happening.  The book was about an imaginary friend waiting to be chosen by an owner so they can have that sense of belonging.

    The illustrations in this book were extremely colorful and full of life. The pictures complimented the words in the book. The quality of the pictures matched the quality of the words in the book, which makes this the perfect candidate for the Caldecott Medal, according to our textbook. One difference with this book is the pictures were not drawn by hand. There were instead produced by digital images. This means the illustrator used computer software to construct the images for the book. In this book, the author distinctly gives the main character a specific color, white, which allowed him to stand out in the crowd of the images.

    Overall, illustrations are important because they can have an effect on how a child views reading. To keep the reader's attention, it is important the author uses images that accompany the words inside the book. Otherwise, the book could two different stories that can potentially alter the reader's  comprehension of the story. 

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