The Girl with the Brown Crayon: How Childen Use Stories to Shape Their Lives [Paperback]

Vivian Gussin Paley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 1998 | ISBN-10: 0674354427 | ISBN-13: 978-0674354425

Once again Vivian Paley takes us into the inquiring minds and the dramatic worlds of young children learning in the kindergarten classroom.

As she enters her final year of teaching, Paley tells in this book a story of farewell and a story of self-discovery--through the thoughts and blossoming spirit of Reeny, a little girl with a fondness for the color brown and an astonishing sense of herself. "This brown girl dancing is me," Reeny announces, as her crayoned figures flit across the classroom walls. Soon enough we are drawn into Reeny's remarkable dance of self-revelation and celebration, and into the literary turn it takes when Reeny discovers a kindred spirit in Leo Lionni--a writer of books and a teller of tales. Led by Reeny, Paley takes us on a tour through the landscape of characters created by Lionni. These characters come to dominate a whole year of discussion and debate, as the children argue the virtues and weaknesses of Lionni's creations and his themes of self-definition and an individual's place in the community.

The Girl with the Brown Crayon tells a simple personal story of a teacher and a child, interweaving the themes of race, identity, gender, and the essential human needs to create and to belong. With characteristic charm and wonder, Paley discovers how the unexplored territory unfolding before her and Reeny comes to mark the very essence of school, a common core of reference, something to ponder deeply and expand on extravagantly.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Vivian Paley is a kindergarten teacher who won a MacArthur "genius" award for her work in her classroom at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools and for the books she has written about how children play and think and imagine. Now she describes her final year of teaching when the preschoolers focused on the classic picture books of Leo Lionni and related his stories to their own lives. One creative child, Reeny, becomes a kind of mentor to her teacher, helping Paley discover her own uncertainties and connections in Lionni's elemental tales. There's no pedagogical jargon here; no stages of abstract thinking. Paley shows how far kids can go when their learning is connected, uninterrupted, and interactive--if the teacher is open, and the stories are great. Hazel Rochman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

Paley's book is the breathtaking account of a golden time she has carved out in the lives of [her school] children and herself. Essentially, she conducts a high-power kindergarten think tank in which she, the children, and some parents explore 'the artist's role in society, the conditions necessary for thinking, and the influence of music and art on the emotions.' Infected by their teacher's enthusiasm, wisdom, and human warmth, these beautiful children shape their semester of art, dance, song, and applied psychology around 14 picture books by the great writer-illustrator Leo Lionni...[Paley] render[s] tellingly the originality and sensitivity with which her kindergartners explore art and life as they skip from work to work, character to character, and back to their daily lives with persistence, eloquence, and depth...Her book is a reminder for adult readers that our task, at home and abroad, is to ensure that children may flourish with such awareness of their own worth that they can be free, then, to love another.
--Peter F. Neumeyer (Boston Sunday Globe )

I was delighted after an initial reading of The Girl With the Brown Crayon and couldn't wait to share it. However, after rereading the text and discussing it as a member of a learning community, I can more fully appreciate why it was awarded Harvard University Press's annual prize for an outstanding publication about education and society. (Reading Teacher )

[Paley describes how] she decides to give direction to her curriculum by focusing on the books of one author, Leo Lionni...The result, as recorded in the book, is a long exploration, questioning, and debate among the children and teachers about the characteristics and actions of the characters and important ideas (which become curriculum themes) as the books are read, dramatized, and portrayed in notebooks and posters. Throughout this journey, Paley shares her unique insight into the nature of young children and kindergarten learning as it could be, as it should be. (Young Children )

Paley, the charismatic teacher and author...is taken on a metaphorical journey of discovery and self-discovery by kindergartners with inquiring minds...[Paley's class] is an oasis, blessed with a unique curriculum and a teacher willing to be taught by her students. (Publishers Weekly )

To focus a year's curriculum on a single writer, no matter how acclaimed or popular, was a departure for [Vivian Gussin Paley] and her school. But as anyone can tell from reading The Girl with the Brown Crayon, Paley's experiment was a resounding success, cultivating among very young children a deep engagement with literature that they were able to share every day.
--Molly McQuade (Book Links )

A beautifully realized, deceptively simple classroom memoir from a longtime kindergarten teacher and author. Paley begins the narrative of her final year of teaching by focusing on Reeny, a self-assured, thoughtful, and creative black five-year-old girl in a class that's mostly Caucasian and Asian. Reeny is a wonderful character, but it is her identification with another character, Frederick the mouse in a Leo Lionni children's book, that is the catalyst for a truly remarkable classroom experience...Disproving the general opinion that kindergartners are unable to focus on a lengthy, ongoing project, these children show an amazing aptitude for referring back to previous discussions, understanding metaphor, relating their reading to the world around them, and using the information they glean in creative and unusual ways. Their discussions cover everything from race and friendship to gender and the artistic personality, and they are able to appreciate the Lionni titles with a maturity that is sometimes startling...The reader closes the book with the hope that Paley will, with Reeny's help and her own newfound self-awareness, overcome her ambivalence about standing out and continue to write superb books like this one. (Kirkus Reviews )

Paley [tells how she] and her co-teacher turn a sizable portion of their curriculum over to a study of Lionni stories, and her students blossom with insight...Paley's book is a treasure for anyone who wants to know more about what magic is possible in a classroom where a teacher encourages what Paley calls...a "narrative community."
--Carol Doup Muller (San Jose Mercury News )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (September 15, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674354427
• ISBN-13: 978-0674354425
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #109,857 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Vivian Gussin Paley worked for nearly forty years as a preschool and kinder-garten teacher and is the author of thirteen books about young children, including, most recently, A Child's Work: The Importance of Fantasy Play.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A poignant, instructive story about stories for children., October 26, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Girl with the Brown Crayon: How Childen Use Stories to Shape Their Lives (Paperback)

Vivian Paley has written a magical, deeply moving account of teaching, children, and the stories of Leo Lionni, and what can happen in a classroom during the course of a school year when a teacher knows how to listen to and learn from the children in her charge. This eloquent book is a must for parents and teachers both, for anyone who wants to learn more about the power of stories in the classroom.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Leo Lionni, April 1, 2001

By 

Jay - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Girl with the Brown Crayon (Hardcover)

Paley is wonderful at inviting us into our kindergarten classroom to show us two things. First, she is an example of how an experienced teacher treats the children in her care. She provides new teachers with a model of how to encourage their students to explore new topics and to find themselves. Secondly, Paley is very insightful as to the lives of children. Her years of teaching have shown her many things and made her an authority on the minds of 5 and 6-year olds.

This book follows Paley and her students through her final year of teaching Kindergarten. She makes the decision to read only books from a specific author for the year. The author selected was Leo Lionni. Lionni's books are read, presented and interpreted by the children. One student picks up on the qualities of these stories more than any other - she becomes the Girl with the Brown Crayon.

The reader gets a good look at not only how a teacher can guide his or her students into a deeper understanding of literature and with that find lessons to be learned about life through the parallels that are made. Paley also teaches her readers a lot about children. But then, this is only what I saw - the author herself reminds us that "Ultimately...it is the reader (italics) who interprets the writer" (42).

Why 4 stars?: I have read several of Paley's books and have enjoyed them all. This one is no different. Her insights into the world of teaching, education and the joy of children are profound. However, my only problem with this book is that I was not familiar with the Leo Lionni books discussed so heavily in the text. But, don't let that stop you - there is still much to be learned from this text.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, November 22, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Girl with the Brown Crayon: How Childen Use Stories to Shape Their Lives (Paperback)

The Girl with the Brown Crayon is a non-fiction book that is also an autobiography. It does not describe the complete life of the author, but it does explain a year in her life and in her classroom. This book is intended for any one interested in becoming a teacher. I would recommend this particularly a lower elementary teacher, because it would help them to understand the wonderful things children and comprehend and accomplish at such a young age. Ms. Paley has a simple, straightforward writing style that is easy to read.
There is one sentence that sums up Ms. Paley's last year as a teacher. "...I resist the uninvented classroom." (p. 50) Throughout the year, Ms. Paley and her students are books of Leo Lionni. It is through these books that the students and Ms. Paley discover themselves. One student in particular plays a major role in the development of the class. Reeny "sees" things before any one else does. She also brings new interpretations to the class.
I would say that The Girl with the Brown Crayon was an interesting book. At the beginning the author warns us that it might not seem like a true story. She is right, the events to seem incredible. It takes a very special class full of very special students to have a year such as they did. Throughout the book the author is very analytical of herself. She keeps finding traits of herself that the characters in the books also posses. Due the fact that this is her last year of teaching, she is very reflective, and rightfully so. Ms. Paley is also a good teacher in the sense that she is constantly reviewing what she is doing with her class. It has become stereotyped that older teachers follow the same exact curriculum from their first year. Ms. Paley fights that, and is always inventing something new and creative for the class she is teaching that year, not the class she taught the previous year.
There is a common theme of a person versus society. Throughout the book the students discuss the feeling of the characters and whether what they did was appropriate or not. While the students were looking at the books with a very high intellectual level, it should have also been brought down to their level. For example, would they give into the peer pressure of giving up the golden wings? The key words in that sentence are peer pressure. Through out the entire book, this idea was never brought up. The students could think higher, but only when they were talking about wings. What about issues in their lives.
Overall, this was a very good book and I would recommend it to anyone that is looking to teach in the near future. Ms. Paley has wonderful ideas, which she brings into her teaching. Ms. Paley makes her children excited about what they are doing.