Voices In The Park Analysis

Anthony Browne is a British author and illustrator of fifty children’s books. Throughout his career, he has won the Hans Christian Andersen Award, two Kate Greenaway Medals, and was Children’s Laureate for two years. I first discovered Browne during my library exploration at the Boston Public Library. His book “What If…?” was on display and upon reading it, I understood a deeper message that most children’s books lack. This book sparked my interest and upon doing some research on more of his books I was able to conclude that they are all this special. Anthony Browne writes children’s picture books that places the reader and audience into someone else’s shoes. His stories invite these young minds into a situation that they may not relate to

This book is an example of his use of gorillas in text and how they truly are gentle creatures. In the book a mother takes her son and dog to the park, while a father takes his daughter and dog to the same park. The mother is very particular with whom her son and dog associate with deeming the young boy and his dog not worthy enough. The text brings us into the minds of the mother, son, father, and daughter’s experiences at the park. Readers are able to see that although they were all at the same place, each experience was different and personal to them. Whereas the young children were having fun playing together, the father was distracted trying to find a job and the mother disapprovingly took her son home. When in the mother’s eyes the book states, “Then I saw him talking to a very rough-looking child. ‘Charles, come here. At once!’”, (Browne, 2001). Through the father’s perspective, the reader is able to see that he is having a difficult time and is not paying attention to whom exactly his father is playing with. At this point in his text it says, “I settled on a bench and looked through the paper for a job. I know it’s a waste of time really, but you’ve got to have a bit of hope, haven’t you?”, (Browne, 2001). Yet in the perspective of the young son, the scene where they meet goes as follows, “‘D’you wanna come on the slide?’ a voice asked. It was a girl, unfortunately, but I went

One of the biggest takeaways being that we need to place ourselves in others shoes and feel sympathy for them. In every book, there was a scenario where a character felt out of place, underappreciated, or nervous and needed reassurance from those around them. These books all teach importance lessons that I want the students in my classroom to be aware of. When I picture myself teaching, it is always in younger grades; incorporating these texts in the classroom could be as simply as having “Thoughtful Thursday’s” where we read as a class one of Browne’s works and discuss the importance of that specific story and how we would treat the characters of the book with kindness. I want my students to understand the way everyone deserves to be treated and I truly believe that Browne’s work would help me to accomplish this