The Squiggle (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition) [School & Library Binding]

Carole Lexa Schaefer (Author), Pierr Morgan (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1999 | Age Level: 4 and up | Grade Level: P and up

FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. As she walks to the park with her school class, a young girl finds a piece of string, which her imagination turns into a dragon's tail, an acrobat, fireworks, a storm cloud, and more.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This call to creativity shows that rope need not serve a purely functional purpose. Walking with her classmates on a trip to the park, a dark-haired girl finds a flexible length of red cord and begins to shape it into outlines on the sidewalk. Her designs have a Chinese theme: she creates a festival dragon's curving spine, a tightrope for an acrobat who carries a bamboo umbrella, and the angular edge of the Great Wall. She then shows her inventions to her classmates, who had been moving "in a bunched-up, slow, tight, straight line"; when they take hold of the rope, their procession loosens into a "squiggle." Schaefer (In the Children's Garden) adds an aural dimension to the girl's visual game, imagining "Crack crickle hiss-the sky trail of popping fireworks" and "Ripple shhh-the circle of a deep still pool." Morgan (The Nine Days Wonder) illustrates with calligraphic strokes of marker and gouache on speckly, paper-bag-brown stock. With a few deliberate lines, minimal color and plenty of negative space, he suggests the blank openness onto which the girl projects her ideas. Together, Schaefer and Morgan encourage readers to see that mundane objects hold playful possibilities. Ages 3-7.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal

PreSchool-Grade 1-When a group of young children set off with their teacher on an orderly walk through the park, the very last little girl spies a "squiggle" on the ground and picks it up. As she twirls, twists, and turns the long red ribbon, she imagines it to be a dragon, a thundercloud, a "full fat moon," and much more. She hastily rejoins the group and, much to their delight, demonstrates her treasure's potential. Then the youngsters continue the walk, not as a "bunched-up, slow, tight, straight line," but in exuberant squiggle-style, instead. A distinctly Asian look is conveyed through the vertical calligraphy of the title on the cover and through the clothing and facial expressions of the chunky children in the gouache-and-marker illustrations. The speckled brown-paper backgrounds add texture and a sense of solidity as does the visual weight of the children. In contrast, the imaginative scenes conjured up by the red squiggle are lighter in line and brighter in coloration. The very easy text effectively uses onomatopoeia to capture the crackle of fireworks and the stillness of a deep pool; its placement and typeface enhance the design of every page. This paean to flights of fancy is, at once, a simple picture book and a study in subtle contrasts. Perfect for preschool listeners, it presents one of the universal joys of childhood in an accessible and charming fashion.
Carol Ann Wilson, Westfield Memorial Library, NJ
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4 and up
  
• School & Library Binding: 32 pages
• Publisher: Turtleback (June 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 061318193X
• ISBN-13: 978-0613181938
• Product Dimensions: 9.7 x 9.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,816,602 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Imagination - something we all should use more often!, January 21, 2005

By 

KSL "emma-and-me" (Florida, USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Squiggle (Paperback)

When you sit down to read this book with your child make sure you have a red or any other color "squiggle" of your own in your pocket or close by so that once you are done so you too can imagine wonderful objects and things with your squiggle!

I love the illustrater just focuses on the little girl and her new magical squiggle, there is nothing in the background. And now that I've told you, you won't even miss that there is no background! Imagination is such a wonderful thing, something we must make sure that are children do each day. I also love that the author never names the little girl, so you and your child can name her yourselves!

I like that Dragonfly books also take 2 pages - the back of the front cover page and the front side of the back page and uses them to add some more crafts and creative things that go hand and hand with the story you just read! Kiddos to Dragonfly books!
The only thing that would make this book a 6 Star book was that it came with a red Squiggle!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a fun make believe book, January 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Squiggle (Hardcover)

I like this book more more than my three year old. All the things the squiggle can become are chinese things. It is good to have a nursery book where all the faces are not blond, blue eyed! The walk with the squiggle becomes full of giggles.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Similar to "Not a Box", February 10, 2011

By 

SeaShell (WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Squiggle (Paperback)

From the storyline of a child using their imagination to create with a simple object, right down to the plain brown-paper background of the pages, this book is very similar to the popular "Not a Box". However, critics of that book's ultra-simple illustrations may find more to like in this book's colorful pen and ink drawings. A delightful story.