Every year during the month of June, the LGBTQ+ community celebrates Pride Month. Countless events are held across the globe. This year PEPELT has decided to join the celebrations and support ‘Read with Pride’ and ‘Read the Rainbow’ and so our picturebook of the month is ‘AALFRED AND AALBERT’ written / illustrated by Morag Hood and published by Two Hoots (2019). It is a funny love story between two aardvarks Aalfred and Aalbert who both need a friend. However, Aalfred sleeps in the day, and Aalbert sleeps at night. How will they ever get the chance to meet?
Sandie: Peritextual Features
Front cover: Presents the two characters and their idiosyncrasies. Useful to return to after the first read-aloud to decide who is who.
Use to prompt what children know about aardvarks, as this information is needed to understand the illustrations on the front endpapers.
Back cover: Blurb is useful to read, sets the scene, also presents the bird as the interested friend and third character.
Front endpapers: These show the beginning of the visual narrative, two aardvarks each in their own burrow
Back endpapers: These show the end of the story, with the two aardvarks sharing a home.
Title page: Features the bird, so useful to return to after the first read-aloud to ask the children why the bird appears there. [friend who wishes to bring the two aardvarks together]
Dedication: the picturebook is dedicated to someone who brought two friends together. Worth sharing 🙂
Colour scheme: Orange and blue are at the opposite ends of the colour wheel (blue is a primary colour / orange is a secondary colour) and they compliment each other. They each represent one of the characters, so each page has a dominant colour until they come together and the colours become one. It is something you can talk to the children about after the first read-aloud.
NB the paperback version has a sub-title ‘A love story’, and also an aardvark fact section at the back of the picturebook.
Tatia: Teacher Education
Coming Soon …
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Gail: Multiliteracies
Emergent literacy – knowledge of how print functions:
Help children notice how print is used in the illustrations and text:
– thoughts and plans are made visible through thought bubbles and images
– signs in capital letters label the burrows
– sounds are made visible – zzzz, snore, musical notes, ow
– environmental print – signposts for broccoli
– Play on the double ‘a’ in aardvark
Visual and emotional literacy:Interpreting the blue bird’s expressions and body positions to read feelings and emotions and putting these into words
Nature literacy: creating an aardvark fact file
Annete: Notes from the Classroom
Coming Soon …
