Gorilla

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The best part with revisiting these is seeing the deeper meanings that you might have missed as a kid... After days of being alone, eagerly waiting for the attention from her very busy father, Hannah's toy gorilla becomes real and takes her on an adventure to the zoo, the cinema, a restaurant and the evening ends with a dance on the lawn. To Hannah's surprise, her birthday wish comes true as her father is waiting to take her to the zoo the next morning! Hannah would like nothing more than to spend time with her father; except he’s always working, “not now, I’m busy, maybe tomorrow” is the usual response. The disappointment, isolation and sadness Hannah feels immediately echoes with the reader. Could you create your own picture which is based on a famous work of art, but where the people are replaced with animals? However on the eve of her birthday something peculiar happens… She awakens to discover a gigantic gorilla at the end of her bed! Thus, beginning a magical adventure, the pair embark on trips to the zoo and cinema.

Me and You (Doubleday, 2011) —a retelling of The Story of the Three Bears in a contemporary setting Anthony Browne: Children's Laureate 2009–11". Children's Laureate (childrenslaureate.org.uk). Booktrust. Retrieved 28 September 2013. Hannah and the gorilla see the primates at the zoo. Can you find out about primates? What different types of primate are there? How are they similar / different?

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What would you like to do now?” the gorillaasked. “I’d love to go to the cinema,” saidHannah. So they did. In 2001–2002 Browne took a job as writer and illustrator at Tate Britain, working with children using art as a stimulus to inspire visual literacy and creative writing activities. It was during this time that Browne conceived and produced The Shape Game (Doubleday, 2003). Look at the map on Hannah’s wall. What place is shown in it? What information can you find out about that place?

The next morning a very excited Hannah rushes downstairs to tell Daddy all about her adventure, but before she can say anything Daddy wishes her a Happy Birthday and asks her if she’d like to go to the zoo! Hannah is extremely happy.

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The night before her birthday, Hannah went tobed tingling with excitement – she had asked herfather for a gorilla! This was always one of my favourite books as a young reader and probably even before I could read it myself! urn:lcp:gorilla00brow:epub:ef8decc0-c849-4b16-97ea-ff0cff62d0d1 Extramarc University of Alberta Libraries Foldoutcount 0 Identifier gorilla00brow Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t8qc10250 Isbn 0394875257 Famous works of art can be found in the illustrations, but the people have been replaced by gorillas. Can you identify the original pictures? Who painted them?

The gorilla took Hannah to see the orang-utan,and a chimpanzee. She thought they werebeautiful. But sad. The reader (along with Hannah) now learns that Dad really does think about his daughter. He has intuited that Hannah is fascinated with gorillas, and has planned exactly the birthday outing she has been dreaming about. He’s the sort of dad to hang Hannah’s pictures on the wall, framed. The young readers are left with the message that even when they feel that their caregivers don’t care about them, parents actually do love them, no matter what. This is a reassuring story: children will eventually receive the attention they crave. Gordon Fraser became a close friend and taught me a lot about card design which was to prove very useful when I came to do children’s books. I experimented with many styles and many subjects from snowmen to dogs with big eyes to gorillas. I sent some of my designs to various children’s book publishers and it was through one of these that I met Julia MacRae who was to become my editor for the next 20 years. She taught me much of what I know about writing and illustrating children’s books.The night before her birthday she asks for a gorilla and is suprise to find a stuffed toy as a present on her bed.

This story is of Hannah whom is a little girl, who wants nothing more but to spend quality time with her very busy father. The story starts off with her not spending much time with her father and being lonely and showing a small sense of neglect in the story with the bland colours. So, she has a dream about a gorilla whom takes over the fatherly figure and as the story progresses the child is happy as she is spending time with her father A less well-executed story may have started with something like, “Tomorrow it was Hannah’s birthday…” It is particularly masterful that Anthony Browne withholds this information until the conclusion. Why? Because the brightness associated with birthdays lightens the ending. Since the first part of the book is melancholic, a birthday tone would not fit well.

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The book could be used as a class story because of the numerous talking points i.e. discussing Hannah’s emotions (there is a wide range throughout the text), whether animals should be kept in the zoo (Hannah says she feels “sad” when visiting the zoo) and the depiction of a single parent family (Hannah’s mum is absent from the story). The story could also help inspire creative writing; children could develop their own adventure/dream stories with their favourite animal. Or alternatively children could write a letter to Hannah’s Dad (or vice versa) explaining how she feels during the first part of the book, this activity may be better suited to older pupils. Although very sad at the beginning I found this story to be refreshingly honest and deeply gratifying. In 2000 Browne was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal, an international award given to an illustrator for their body of work. This prize is the highest honour a children's writer or illustrator can win and Browne was the first British illustrator to receive the award. On 9 June 2009 he was appointed the sixth Children's Laureate (2009–2011), selected by a panel that former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion chaired. [5]