Me...Jane

= Me…Jane = = Author/Illustrator- Patrick McDonnel =



__Biographical Data__ ISBN-13: 9780316045469 Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers On Sale Date: 04/05/2011 Grade level: kindergarten-third

__Summary__ The story, //Me… Jane// is about a young girl named Jane who had a stuffed chimpanzee named Jubilee. Jubilee and Jane did everything together, including climbing trees and playing outside. Jane loved playing outside and loved to learn about all things that lived outside. One day she snuck into a chicken coop and observed where eggs came from. While Jane was sitting in her favorite tree that she named beach she discovered a book about Tarzan who lived with apes in which another girl named Jane lived with them. Jane dreamed about living in Africa, helping the apes. The story ended with us being told that Jane got to live her dream.

__Review__ This is a story about Jane Goodall’s childhood as a little girl who is interested in nature and how the world works. This story is interesting because it has stories of her childhood that were taken out of her autobiography. I enjoyed this story and I think that children will enjoy it too. It was interesting because it is tells a story that children can relate to and then you can take this book into a lesson on Jane Goodall’s adult life as a chimpanzee researcher. This story is great for anyone who likes to dream. Jane Goodall is someone who can be very interesting for students to learn about and this book can lead into other lessons like science and history.

__Author Bio__ Patrick McDonnell is not only an author and illustrator of children’s books but he is a dedicated animal advocate. The awards he has received are cartoonist of the year award in 1997 and 1999, and the Genesis Award. He also serves on the board of directors for the Humane Society. Me…Jane is the winner of the 2012 Caldecott Award. Along with being the author of this book he is the creator of the comic strip MUTTS which has characters that he wrote into children’s books called, Wag!, The Gift of Nothing, Just Like Heaven, South, and Hug Time.

__Analysis of Literary Elements__ This book focused on passion that led to a career in what Jane loved to do. Jane loved her stuffed chimpanzee which led to her loving nature and everything outside. Because of her curiosity of the world she was able to obtain her dream of taking care of the animals that she loved so dearly. When applying this to the classroom, I would focus on asking the children if they can think of something that they are passionate about and then ask them if it is something that could turn into a job.

This book was illustrated by the author. Because of this the pictures told the story really well. Younger children who are more likely to get this story read to them will be able to understand the book better due to the pictures. While reading the book, I could ask the students to see if they know what would come next in the story due to the fact that the pictures are so clear. This book would be good for recall because it would be easy for the children to look through the pictures and tell back the story.

Here is a link to a reading of this book