Picture Book #10 Write-Up

Author: Jan Brett  

Title: The Umbrella

Illustrator: Jan Brett

Genre: Non-Fiction

Subgenre: Informational

Theme: Exploring the rainforest and discovering all the different animals that live there.

Primary/Secondary Characters: Carlos, Father, and all of the rainforest animals

Award(s)/Publication Year: no awards presented/2004

Publishing Company: G.P. Putnam’s Sons  

Brief Summary/Book Usage: This book begins with a young boy named Carlos leaving home to explore the rainforest, he tells his father he is going to see the jaguar, monkey, toucan and kinkajou, so he grabs his umbrella and off he goes. Once in the rainforest Carlos see nothing he decides to climb a tree, maybe he can find the animals he is looking for up there! So he lets down his umbrella and heads up into the tree. Soon after a beautiful frog lands in his umbrella, what a wonderful spot to be thought the frog, there is no one around and there is just enough water for him to sit in. Then something falls into the frogs water, it was a fig, and guess who comes to get the fig? The toucan, the frog tells the toucan he cannot stay here but he refuses to leave. Then something slides down the tree and falls into the umbrella with the frog, it is a kinkajou, the frog tells him you cannot stay here but the kinkajou is just getting comfortable and does not plan on leaving.  Next, a monkey swings down and grabs the umbrella he throws it into the nearby river and jumps in, the frog exclaims that monkey never thinks before he acts and now they will sink. The animals all fuss because now they are getting cramped, hearing the commotion the jaguar pounces into the umbrella and it sinks further into the water. As the animals try to stay afloat a hummingbird sees the top of the umbrella handle sticking up and decides to take a rest on it, the other animals warn the bird not to rest on the umbrella because it is full, the bird does it anyways and causes the umbrella to sink completely. The umbrella washes back to shore and Carlos did not see any animals so he heads back down from the tree and grabs his umbrella and heads home. I would use this book in my classroom because it has gorgeous pictures that show the environment of a rainforest along with all the different animals that would live there. It gives many adjectives to help visualize the atmosphere. I would use this book when teaching about the rainforest, it also has many words in Spanish throughout the book you could use it to express different cultures.