Children's Literature Author Term Paper

David Wiesner's Body Of Work In Children's Literature

This is an essay discussing children's author and illustrator David Wiesner's body of work as a whole. Four books, Tuesday, Free Fall, June 29,1999, and The Three Pigs are examined for plots, settings, themes, characters, and style. Specific references to individual texts are included. Four sources used. MLA.

David Wiesner

David Wiesner has been delighting children and adults as well since his first publication, "The Loathsome Dragon." He became known as a picture book artist with the publication of "Free Fall," a wordless book. He has since become the winner of the Caldecott Medal and is considered one of today's most accomplished authors and illustrators of children's books. There is always an element of logic behind his fantasies. Moreover his illustrations are unique and visually appealing. Although he has authored several story books, including a his own version of "The Three Pigs," Wiesner's style is known as the wordless picture book, literally a book without words. These books are wonderful for young children because they can stimulate creativity in a way reading books cannot.His use of color and imagery in his illustrations attract the attention of not only children but even adults are captivated by his vivid imagination.

Free Fall" published in 1988, is a wordless picture book. The opening page shows a little boy who has fallen asleep in bed reading a book. The next page we discover it is an atlas book, and Wiesner floats the pages across the patchwork of landscape and onward to adventures of dreams (Wiesner p3). The boy encounters giants and even becomes one himself. The book is reminiscent of other adventure books however, Wiesner's use of illustrations enables the story to be told without a single word.

Tuesday" contains only four words and three clock times. The book's opening page states, "Tuesday evening around eight" (Wiesner 1). This is followed by pages of illustrations showing frogs flying on lily pads wrecking havoc around town. Then a few pages over we see "11:21pm" (Wiesner 9), then 4:38am" (Wiesner 17), with an illustration of emergency vehicles trying to figure the mystery of lily pads littering the streets. And.....