Customer Reviews

Previously

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Goldilocks arrived home all bothered and hot.
Previously she had been running like mad in the dark woods.
Previously she had been climbing out of somebody else's window.
Previously she had been sleeping in somebody else's bed, eating somebody else's porridge, and breaking somebody else's chair!Previously she had been humming a tune and having a little skip by herself in the dark woods.
Previously she had bumped into a hurtling and older boy named..."

PREVIOUSLY is both a very fun and a very important picture book that can be used as a learning tool with older readers.

Just the other day, the humanities teacher asked the wide-eyed sixth graders experiencing their first day of middle school, "What is history?" and "When you look at the word 'history,' what other word do you see?"

In PREVIOUSLY, Allan Ahlberg interweaves the tales of Goldilocks, Jack and the Beanstalk, Jack and Jill, The Frog Prince, Cinderella, and The Gingerbread Boy to illustrate how there was something going on previously (before each story began) and how the people and places that make up history -- whether silly/make-believe or serious/real -- are all related and dependent upon one another. This is a vital and profound concept for middle school history scholars to synthesize in order to make sense of the waves of information in which they will be surrounded as they spend three years traveling from ancient civilizations to contemporary American history.

The tale of PREVIOUSLY, illustrated with Bruce Ingman's colorful acrylics, is made even more fun for older readers through inclusion in the antecedent portions of the traditional tales of such modern day twists as "the free gift in the cornflakes box," and the prince having previously been "traveling his kingdom in a milk-white Mercedes."

"And all the bears were cubs.
And all the frogs were tadpoles.
And all the buckets and chairs and ballroom floors were planks of wood.
And all the wood was trees in the dark woods."

And before I wrote this review I made myself a smoothie.
And before that, the UPS dude dropped off a padded mailer from Candlewick Press...

I LOVED this book! It will be one that I use in my classroom year after year. I showed it to our media specialist and she wants to buy her own copy so that she can do lessons using it also. It's a great book, and the kids loved it as much as I did!

Read this book to a group of Brownies - they (and their parents) loved the book. It has been requested by several girls as a repeat read or they have asked their parents if they can find it at the library..,

The book is VERY cute. Unfortunately it was presented as a book for children from 5 - 8. NOT SO. 4 - 5 would be generous. I got two of them for children who will soon turn 7 and it was MUCH too juvenile for either of them. I was sorry, but gave it to them anyway as it was for Valentine's day and I didn't have time to make a change. Had I had the time to view it in a store I would never have bought it for these kids. Darling book, but miss-identified. I had heard it reviewed on NPR and it sounded perfect.

I bought this book to help my kids learn vocabulary concepts, but it is also good for starting a discussion or introducing the classic children's stories it refers to.

I do think this is such a cute, clever idea. Telling various fairy tales "backwards."

None of the fairy tales are told with much depth or description, but I did think it was cute how Ahlberg intertwined the various characters. The ending seemed a little out of place, but it was sweet. And the illustrations were cute. I pretty much felt that both the illustrations and story were cute, but nothing really wow. Still, fun enough and a quick read.