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Browne, A.(1983)Gorilla London: Julia McRae Books.

Summary of story: Gorilla revolves around a little girl called Hannah, whose biggest wish is for her father to take her to the zoo to see the gorillas. Hannah is lonely and desires more time with her father who she sees as being too busy. Anthony Browne uses clever visual imagery and text to closely examine the father and daughter relationship, and how sometimes wishes do come true. Orientation we are introduced to the main characters: Hannah and her dad. Preview of complication there is a lack of involvement of the father with Hannah Complication: there is a problem of an absent father followed by a series of adventures with Gorilla Resolution Hannahs father takes an interest in her. Language Features Literary techniques (for 10+ book review)eg. Repetitive text / refrain: repetition of gorilla on p. 1; repetition of Not now. - father to Hannah. compound words: week/end; may/be; any/thing; birth/day; down/stairs; afterwards; out/side; wonderful words with prefixes words with suffixes: beautiful past tense words regular: loved; watched, asked, frightened; irregular: drew, went, woke, threw base words: question contractions: well; wont; dont; Id Palindrome: Hannah Alliteration Similes Metaphors Rhyme Relevant phonic examples (for 4-6 yr old book review ONLY)eg. Single consonant word beginning gorilla, Hannah, monkey Initial blends crept, swing Consonant digraph- threw, she Single syllable words with onset/rimewalk, hurt, put Vowel digraphs- read, street, been, seen, said Diphthongs toys Rhyme Repetitive text / refrain Alliteration Key Words/ Unusual Vocab Gorilla, crept, primates, chimpanzee, oran-utan, cinema Different words for said: whispered, asked,

Literary & Visual Features: Key themes, ideas and character descriptions, construction of images, layout of page, colour, techniques The main social issue examined by Browne is the nature of families and the roles and responsibilities of those within it. In this single parent family, Hannah feels neglected by her preoccupied father who is depicted reading the newspaper and doing work. His priorities are his work & we assume providing an income for his family. However, Hannahs priorities are to spend time with her father to go to the zoo, the cinema & share a meal. Anthony Brownes powerful use of focalisation, which pertains to the way we see things and the way we hear things (Winch et al, 2006, p. 457), allows us to delve into Hannahs life and provides us with an insight into one girls loneliness and desire to spend time with her father visiting the zoo. This technique is evident in both the written and visual elements of the text. The visuals are detailed, with cooler, sad colours used at the start, changing to much warmer ones at the end; a technique that maps the changing mood of the main character Hannah and the progression of the plot line. Browne uses a range of other devices to create visual effects, for example, he inserts gorillas in most pages, making us hunt for them as we read. This technique makes use of intertexuality (Winch et al, 2006, p. 459) as these are modified images of popular artworks or other cultural artifacts such as Whistlers Mother and King Kong. The images are powerful and realistic in style but also quite sad at times. Another common device employed by Browne is the use of particular angles to create different perspectives of power (Callow, 1999, p. 6). This is evident with the father reading the newspaper and also the gorilla looking over Hannahs bed. Gorilla allows the reader to empathise with Hannah the created world is familiar as it deals with parent/child relationships, ie, a young reader will identify with Hannahs feelings being ignored by parents who have different priorities to their own, thus Books fit world, or versions of it, to a childrens grasp (Winch et al, 2006, p. 446).
References: Winch, G., Ross-Johnston, R., March, P., Ljungdahl, L. & Holliday, M. (2006). rd Literacy: Reading, writing and children's literature (3 ed.). Melbourne: Oxford University Press; Callow, J. (1999) Reading the Visual: An Introduction in Callow, J. (ed) Image Matters. Newtown: PETA.

Having read this book with a class, describe an activity which would teach them about one literary feature of the book. Purpose to interpret character feelings using visual images and colour. Stage / Class - Stage 2 /Year 3 Outcome RS2.7 Discusses how writers relate to their readers in different ways. Indicator/s Talks about different interpretations of visual texts, identifies techniques used in visual texts to create effects. Description of Activity Read the book again with the class and ask students to be picture detectives. Ask questions about colours and facial expressions that are used in the book and link these to the feelings of each character. Eg. on the 3rd page What do you notice about the colours? How does this page make you feel? Why? 9th page How are these animals feeling? Why do you think this? What is the effect of using different colours? Does Anthony Browne use other things (techniques) in his pictures apart from colour to make the reader feel certain things when reading Gorilla? Use an overhead of 2 or 3 of these illustrations that show a picture on the left hand side and have room for writing on the right. Scaffold the way in which students can i. describe the visual elements of each picture and ii. support this by reference to these elements. Follow this by distributing a couple of pictures from the book, not discussed as a whole class, and have pair groups complete this modelled task. Discuss results as a whole class referring to the description and how this is supported by referring to elements of the picture, ie, This picture shows This creates a feeling of . because