Children's Literature Evaluation Form
Children's Literature Evaluation Form
rhythm, rhyme and sentence length. Share unexpected insights or interesting information the reader
cheered, baseball. Some of the word choices might be more difficult for children, examples:
The sentence length varies, examples: “She preferred sliding to sewing, batting to baking and home
runs to homecoming.” “She talked baseball.” “She loved the hotdogs and the peanuts.”
The dialogue is easily understood as it varies like real conversations would. Examples: “Outrageous!
Everyone said.” “Girls playing baseball? No one will pay to see girls play ball.” “Better stick to
ballet.” “Say sister, how’d you like to go to Chicago to try out for a real team?”
Character: With examples from the book, provide the following- (5 points)
own baseball teams in America, American people, the coach of the Kenosha Comets, boys from her
The reader can relate to Katie Casey because not everyone is good at everything and not everyone is
good at things other people think they should be good at. Katie was said to not be good at being a
girl, but it was just because other people thought she should knit, bake and dance instead of play
baseball. Even though she was not good at those things, she was good at playing baseball. “Katie
Casey wasn’t good at being a girl… at least not the girl everyone thought she should be. Her clothing
was crumpled, her knitting was knotted, her dancing was a disaster.” “There was one thing Katie was
school’s baseball tryouts and does not even get a try out and boys tease her. America was at war, so
men were off to fight so there were no baseball players. Phillip Wrigley (owner of the Chicago Cubs)
has an idea for girls to play baseball. Everyone disagreed. He did not listen and sent scouts all over
America to find girls who play ball. A scout found Katie Casey and asked her to go to Chicago to try
out for a real baseball team. The coach saw Katie’s swing and said, “sign her up!” Everyone in
America thought it was weird and were opposed to the idea of girls playing baseball until they saw
The main message of this book is that you can do anything you put your mind to, no matter what
others say or think about it.
Illustration: Analyze the book you selected with the following categories
Style (realism, surrealism, expressionism, impressionism, naïve, cartoon art)? (2 points)
Naïve.
Media Choice (paints, oils watercolors, pencils, pen, charcoal, crayons, acrylic, chalk): (2 points)
Line: We see a lot of flowing lines to show the movement of the people illustrated in the book.
Shapes: We see many curved shapes throughout the book to show things that are alive and realistic
Color: We see a lot of cool and warm hues throughout the book’s illustrations. Very colorful images
Texture: We see varying lines on the images, cross hatching of line shows texture.
Page design (placement of the illustrations, use of borders, white and dark space, and all pages the
Most of the book has individual one-page illustrations that take up the entire page with little to no
white space. On two of the pages, there is a white background with three individual images on each
page. On six of the pages, most of the background is white with smaller illustrations.
Child Development Theory: Choose either Piaget, Erickson or Social Emotional to describe the
Explain the cognitive development from this stage and provide an example from the book to support
your choice:
School age children learn to master new skills, reading, school subjects, physical skills like sports.
They develop a sense of industry when they have opportunities to develop skills and learn
information. Children who feel inferior may never learn to enjoy or take pride in what they are doing,
This book shows this theory because in the beginning of the book, Katie Casey is told she is not good
at being a girl because she does not dance, knit, or bake well. She also wants to play baseball because
she loves watching baseball and playing baseball, but her school team does not even allow her to
tryout for the team. “Katie Casey wasn’t good at being a girl… at least not the kind of girl everyone
thought she should be.” “Her clothing was crumpled. Her knitting was knotted. Her dancing was a
disaster. And, no matter how hard she tried, her heart just wasn’t in home ec.” “But, there was one
thing Katie was good at, baseball. Katie could catch any ball with any mitt with her eyes closed. She
could hit any ball with any bat with one hand behind her back. She preferred sliding to sewing, batting
to knitting and homeruns to homecoming.” “Her parents were not pleased.” “Every Spring, she
showed up for Fairfield High team tryouts. And every year, she was turned away without even getting
a try. “Better stick to ballet, the boys said. What good is baseball to a girl?”
My rating of the book would be three, highly recommend. I would highly recommend this book
because I think it teaches a great message, that you can do anything you put your mind to, no matter
what others say. I also believe this book teaches a history lesson that before the 1940’s, girls were not
allowed to play professional ball. It also touches in the beginning on how during that time, girls were
expected to bake, knit, dance, etc. but how over time, that has changed. Teaching with this book, you
can identify how time has changed where now we see women playing professional sports and working
every job that men can but in past times, women were not allowed to do such things.
Date: 2003
3.PK.9: Listen to age-appropriate material that makes connections to self and the
3.PK.2: Create works of art that express themselves and represent their ideas.
Can express how others are similar and different from themselves.
Scissors
Construction paper
Various magazines
Glue
Before reading the story, I will ask the children “did you know, there was a time when
girls were not allowed to play baseball in school and professionally?” We will briefly
discuss their answers. We will then read and listen to the story Players in Pigtails by
Shana Corey. After reading the story, I will create a Venn diagram on the dry-erase board
and write ‘girls’ on one side and ‘boys’ on the other side. I will ask the children “what are
things girls like to do?” and fill in that side of the Venn diagram. Then I will ask them
“what do boys like to do?” and fill in that side of the Venn diagram. Finally, I will ask
them “what do both girls and boys like to do?” and fill in the center of the diagram. We
will discuss how boys and girls can like and do the same things if they want to. We will
discuss how during parts of history; girls were not allowed to have the same jobs or play
professional sports like boys could. We will discuss how it is important that this has
changed and that anyone can do anything they put their mind to. We will break off into
small groups and I will inform the children that they are going to be given a piece of
construction paper in the color of their choice and they are going to look through
magazines to find things they like to do or things they like, cut them out and glue them to
their paper. After everyone is finished, we will come back to the large group and share
5. Closure: (2 points)
When we return to the large group, the children will be invited to share what they added
to their collage. We will discuss how many of us like similar things and how it does not
matter if we are girls or boys, that we can like and do the same things.