printables” section- 7 worksheets ready for immediate printing and distribution for students, including an assessment piece on the “fifth voice” From the cover illustration and from what I’d read about the story, I thought I’d love this book, but I have mixed feelings about it. Children's books reviewed by parents for you and your kids. 17 Aug. 2003. 1 Children Books Malaysia. 17 Aug. Voices in the Park is a very unique children's book. It tells the story from four separate perspectives about the same day in the park: a woman, her son, a man, and his daughter. The two children play together--creating a friendship--while the two adults keep to themselves. The woman, specifically, is upset by having to share the park bench with the man. The feelings of these characters can be seen in the illustrations. Depending on the perspective, the reader will notice the seasons changing. For example, the trees will appear bare for one character and in full bloom for another.

For Smudge's father, the type is a less formal type of font that is bolded. There is just more of a noticble rounding of the letters, not as rigid as the ones for the font listed above. The informal bold text, along with the type of grammar of the sentences, leads one to conclude he is a working class person. The fact of it being in bold makes one envision he has a deep, rough voice. The father’s walk home will show his emotional state much improved, like the cheerful night before Christmas. Street-Lamp-Flower-Voices-In-The-Park Voices in the Park has four different first-person narrators that describe their day in the park. Books that have first-person narrators are characters within the story and “refers to themselves using first person pronouns; I, me, my, mine, our,” (Kachorsky, Unit 3 Characters & Narrators, slide 26). The characters in Voices in the Park narrate the story in first-person. For example, the first voice says, “it was time to take Victoria, our pedigree Labrador, and Charles, our son, for a walk,” (Browne, 1) and the second voice says, “I need to get out of the house, so me and Smudge took the dog to the park,” (Browne, 8). First-person narration tells us what the character of the book does and what they say or think about themselves. The story starts with an upper-class mother and son who walk their dog to the park and meet other people who are depicted as coming from a lower class status. What I found interesting within the story is that this can be a realistic occurrence that can happen daily. I consider the characters can also relate to the reader quite accessibly. In my opinion this is done through a good use of language and wonderful illustrations that pose extraordinary features. Although many may find these as unusual, I believe the use of these types of pictures as appealing.

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The exception to ‘all on one level’ is the see-saw scene, but the nature of a see-saw is that people take turns being up and down. Effectively, this is an egalitarian metaphor. In this image, the poor girl is higher than the rich boy. Life can thrust us out of riches (more frequently than it thrusts us into them.) Socioeconomic circumstance should be considered, like life, like health, a temporary state which can change suddenly at any time. Think about the hopes and dreams of the different voices who are speaking. Could you describe these to a friend? The third voice is the little boy from the first story. He is also a sad child looking for a friend to play with at the park. Again you are going to ask the same two questions. “Who is talking in this story?” and “Who’s voice is missing?” The reason we keep asking these questions is to get the children to focus on who is telling the story so we can have more discussions once we have read all four voices. Read The Fourth Voice There is some disagreement about the origins of the numerous variations of the name Smith. The addition of an e at the end of the name is sometimes considered an affectation, but may have arisen either as an attempt to spell smithy or as the Middle English adjectival form of smith, which would have been used in surnames based on location rather than occupation (in other words, for someone living near or at the smithy). Wikipedia

Anthony Browne has described Mrs Smythe as “dominant” and “militaristic” and explains that she loves her son but overprotects him. This is evident from what the girl says later, about how she won’t even let a dog smell her dog’s butt (something dogs don’t mind at all). Mrs Smythe wears the female version of a bowler hat. MR SMITH Voices In The Park was awarded the Kurt Maschler Award (1982-1999), which specifically rewarded British picture books demonstrating excellent integration between words and pictures. The prize covered picture books and an illustrated book for a wide variety of ages, and Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland appears to be a particularly satisfying text to illustrate because it was won twice, by two different illustrators. Doonan, J. (1993). Looking at pictures in picture books. 1st ed. South Woodchester (GB): Thimble Press. Why do you think Anthony Browne chose a park as the setting? Would a different setting affect the attitude and behaviour of the characters? Another picture book with a different structure, different art style but identical message is Who Wants To Be A Poodle I Don’t by Lauren Child. I don’t buy the binary that some picture books are didactic while others are not. All stories contain a message, even if that message is conveyed by what they leave out rather than what goes in. More useful: to draw a distinction between implicit and explicit messaging.

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You don’t have to spent too much time on the answers. Simply get the kids’ talking about the voices and who isn’t heard. Read The Third Voice