Creepy Carrots!
By Aaron Reynolds, Pictures by Peter Brown
Summary
"Creepy Carrots" is about a young rabbit named Jasper. Jasper tells us about his daily adventures, which consists of visiting the Crackenhopper Field. The Crackenhopper field has Jasper's favorite vegetable, carrots, and the best carrots around. Jasper goes and picks carrots at the crackenhopper field every chance he gets, until one day he starts to see them follow him. Jasper sees these creepy carrots every where he turns, but he is the only one seeing them.
Literary Elements
This Caldecott winning picture book has a simple progressive plot, that will keep the young reader turning pages. There are also very simple characters, with only Jasper Rabbit being named specifically, but referring to his parents as mom and Dad, rather then giving them other names, helps the reader connect to the story. The style of the text and images stays the same throughout the book to create great unity.
Physical Features
The text images and actual size of this book is rather large, which makes it great for reading aloud! The font throughout the book stays constant, and all caps are used several times for emphasis.
Visual Elements
The image to the right uses a very close up perspective, which demonstrates the climax of the story and the nervousness Jasper has. The thick bold line that creates Jaspers mouth also concentrates on the fear that he is beginning to build up. The very bright orange color of the carrots can also demonstrate with fall and seasonal events, which makes this a great book halloween time.
The three smaller pictures on the first page represents the different times during the day Jasper would go and visit the Crackenhopper fields. In each image there is atleast one circle, the top two and on the next page that circle is Jasper's face while the bottom image the circle is the moon, this could represent comfort, protection, and an endless love he has for these carrots.
Artistic Style
The style in this book is Cartoon. This helps to bring the carrots to life while we watch them follow Jasper. It also helps bring Jasper's character to be more realistic.
Artistic Media
The media used to create the pictures for the book was pencil! It really helped create the depth, and creepiness throughout the story. The theme of the story was based off the Twilight Zone, which Peter Brown watched religiously before and during the process of making these images for the book. He wanted to capture that spooky, dark and timeless effect and pencil allowed him todo just that. He used faded edges to add mystery and suspense.
Elements if Illustration
The framing of each image has a rounded edge that Brown did to represent the rounded edges on old tv screens, and the creepy and mysterious look it gives to each image. Page Four says, "Jasper couldn't get enough Carrots..." The ellipsis represents suspense, and that something is about to happen, making it a great page turner, while the next page, page 6, says, "...until they started following him" and page 7 does not have any words. This just introduced the conflict in the story, and it was done in a simple and easy to understand way.
Interplay of Text and Illustrations
The text and illustrations goes very hand in hand. The text and use of different font creates suspense and excitement throughout the story, while the images helps support the creepy and mysterious setting. The text is also never in the same place, and it is always in great contrast to the images, so it stands out within the image, but does not take away from the illustrations. In the review from Elizabeth Bird she describes the text and images in a very positive way, "Strange and wonderful and weird in al the right places.
Citations
-Peter Brown in The Creepy Carrots Zone. (n.d.). Retrieved February 11, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ag0LPVYpIu4
-Review of the Day: Creepy Carrots! by Aaron Reynolds. (n.d.). Retrieved February 11, 2016, from http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2012/09/20/review-of-the-day-creepy-carrots-by-peter-brown/#_