Madlenka

Madlenka by Peter Sis

Picture book: K-4

5 stars

                Madlenka has a loose tooth!  She must tell everyone.  She lives in New York City and she knows everyone on her block and they are all her friends.  She tells the French baker, the Indian news vendor, the Italian ice-cream man, the German lady who sits by her window, the Latin American greengrocer, and the Asian shopkeeper that her tooth is loose.  For Madlenka, a trip around the block is a trip around the world. 

                I simply love this book!  It starts on the back side of the cover with a really small earth that has a little pink dot on it.  And in the next four pages that pink dot zooms into New York City, a block in New York City, and we find out that pink dot is Madlenka.  The pictures are pencil drawn with dark and pastel colors and Madlenka is drawn wearing a pink dress.  On every other page Peter Sis shows a square sort of aerial view of the block and the words are going around the block and as the reader you are forced to turn the book around to read it all.  It is as if you are going around the block with Madlenka.  Towards the end of the book when he shows the picture of the block you can see the specific places Madlenka has stopped to visit her friends.

                Madlenka is a great book to us in a Geography lesson or even a culture lesson in Social Studies.  On each page when her friends around the block greet her they say hello in their own language and tweak her name just a little bit.  For example, Mrs. Kham who is from Asia says, “Tashi delek, Mandala.”  One could even have students draw a picture of their home and then write a specific story that takes place at home.