Thundercake

Polacco, P. (1990).  Thundercake. New York: Philomel Books.

Thundercake is a narrative picture book.  It is about a little girl that is afraid of thunderstorms.   While visiting her Babushka(grandmother), she helps her granddaughter overcome her fear of thunderstorms.  She tells her that it is perfect “thundercake” baking weather and takes her on different adventures.

In my opinion, she is such a stupendous illustrator that she could tell the story just through the visual elements.  To visualize movement throughout this story, Patricia uses a doublespread layout.  This is when the illustrations go off one page and onto the next to keep the reader’s eye moving.   She also uses a very cool color palette to show a dark, gloomy, and scary time throughout the book until near the end.  At this time she begins to add in some warm colors when the thunderstorm is over and she isn’t scared anymore.

I would really suggest that you use this book to introduce narrative writing. I’m definitely going to!  The story had great use of dialogue and figurative language, which are two large components of writing narratives.  One form of figurative language used was onomatopoeias.  They were written in large font, for example, ZIP, RRRRUMBLED, BOOOOOMED, CRASHED, and BBBBAAAAARRRRROOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMMED.  She also wrote other words in large font to show intensity such as ROARED and ROLLED. Go check this book out at your local library and enjoy!