A Ball for Daisy

By Chris Raschka

Published by Schwartz & Wade Books

Kylie Imlay

Style & MediaO Chris Raschka uses

impressionism in the book, A Ball for Daisy. This is because he emphasizes light, movement, and color over detail (Tunnell, M., Jacobs, James, Young, T. & Bryan, G., 2011, pg. 33).

O Ink, watercolor, and gouache are used in this book.

LinesO Horizontal lines are

used which are supposed to portray order and tranquility. The horizontal lines act as barriers to separate the different scenes in the book. Usually, each scene depicts the emotion that Daisy is feeling.

O There are many types of lines in this book. The majority of them are thick and curvy. There are some lines that are more thin that make up the background. I think they are more thin to establish that they are the background and not the main focus. The main focus is on Daisy throughout the whole book. She is drawn with thick and curvy lines.

ShapesO The shapes used in

the illustrations are very simple. In our textbook, it explains that curved shapes are used for objects formed by nature and angular shapes are used to show objects formed by humans. I found this to be true throughout the book.

O The shapes of the dogs, the people, and the backgrounds were mostly curvy. I did find that the trashcan and fence were angular. Those are man-made objects.

ColorO The use of color in this

book express the emotion being portrayed by Daisy. In the beginning, she is very happy and the colors are bright. The book uses cool colors in the beginning (blue, purple) but the ball that Daisy loves is in a warm color, red. I believe this is to make it stand out so that the reader knows how important the ball is to Daisy.

O When Daisy’s ball gets popped, the colors suddenly start to dull. This shows that Daisy’s emotions have changed and that she has gone from happy and excited to sad. For older kids, it could show that she is feeling that she has lost something.

You can see in this picture how Chris Raschka started using darker colors to show how upset Daisy is about

her ball.

O When Daisy gets to play with a new, blue ball, the colors start to brighten again. This signifies that Daisy is once again happy.

TextureO The texture of the

pictures are soft and smooth. They are also 2 Dimensional.

O The shapes are layered upon each other as well as colors. In some pictures, you can see the bottom layers of color through the new shapes or color on top of them.

CompostionO On every page, the pictures were

symmetrical except for one. The scenes were broke up into different layouts but they always ended up being symmetrical.

O However, there was one page that was asymmetrical. I think this is because the author wanted the focus to be on Daisy and the popped ball, but wanted the readers to know that her owner was running to her and the dog that popped the ball had gone away.

ResourcesO Tunnell, M., Jacobs, James, Young, T.

& Bryan, G. (2011).O www.Childrensbooks.about.com/od/p

roductreviews/fr/A-Ball-For-Daisy.htm