Comments on: The Money We’ll Save

By: Jonathan Hunt

Jonathan Hunt — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:52:53 +0000

First of all, I don’t think the setting of any picture book text is distinguished. If a picture really is worth a thousand words why wouldn’t you use that medium to suggest the bulk of where the story is set? That said, there are definitely clues to the setting as I mentioned above. You can infer that it takes place in a crowded city a long time ago, but you have to recognize the vocabulary which most young readers do not. They will have to move, as Silvey put it, from visual acuity to verbal acuity.

Now some of my students knew of privies from Mexico, and some of them can relate to cramped and crowded living quarters, too. We obviously didn’t have the same discussion about the turkey that your class did, but I think the key here is that they named the turkey, kept him inside (Do your students *really* keep their chickens inside the apartment?), and treated him like a pet. I don’t think most of your students would feel comfortable eating their pets, would they? Of course, it’s possible to criticize any plot point in any story–Why does Dr. De Soto even let the fox back in a second time? Shouldn’t the book end there?–but this one seemed entirely plausible in a silly way. And if I’m going to buy the fact that Pa constructs a pen and strings it out on the clothesline–and I did buy that fact–then I’m certainly not going to fault him for not killing the turkey with a week to go.

By: Wendy

Wendy — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 06:37:20 +0000

Eric, thanks for the very interesting comment. I reread The Money We’ll Save this evening with your students in mind and yes, noticed that there are no real setting markers to say exactly when or where this story takes place. In fact, trying to substitute, say, a modern Latino family in my head for the turn-of-the-century Irish one (could also be any of several others) made the story come alive for me a little more and seem less cliched–but of course that has nothing to do with the quality of the book.

So what do we do with this? I don’t think we can say that it doesn’t have any setting at all, because the reader can still picture the apartment and the farmer’s market, we still get the sense of some of the trappings of poverty. But I don’t think I could call it a distinguished setting, in Newbery terms. Looking closely at this book, I think it is less than distinguished in pretty much every category, except perhaps for “appropriateness of style”, and even there I don’t think it rises to the top.

By: Eric Carpenter

Eric Carpenter — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 23:30:02 +0000

I read THE MONEY WE’LL SAVE to my class of second graders this week. They had some problems with it. For instance after the cage falls off the clothes line and breaks the father says they can just house Alfred in their bedroom for this last week. One of my students asked why they wouldn’t just kill the turkey at this point since it’s only a week until Christmas. I assume that the family doesn’t have a freezer/refrigerator but they would certainly have access to enough ice/salt to have the hypothetically butchered bird survive the week.
My class as a whole also didn’t buy the kids not wanting to kill and eat the turkey at the end. One student explained that when they keep a chicken in their apartment mom just kills it when they want to eat it. By show of hands about half of my students said they had kept live chickens or rabbits in their apartments at some point (none of them had ever had a turkey though) and said that the farmers market always has live chickens for sale (my school is in Atlanta). These comments got me thinking about the story’s setting. Is there anything outside the illustrations that places the story in the past? The pictures depict a 1910-1930 time frame to me but the text could happen anytime even today. In a country like america where 1 in 5 children live in poverty, I’m not sure there is anything about this family’s situation that places it outside the norm for many of our current students. The inclusion of a communal privy may be the only clue that takes the story out of modern urban America but it could certainly take place in many other modern countries. After explaining what a privy was, my class offered up comments like “oh that’s what i had to use when I visited my grandmother in Nicaragua or “oh my dad told me they had that in Mexico.”
Does Cole’s text fully develop the world these character’s inhabit? Can we place them in a time that allows for the story to make sense without relying on the pictures?

For the record I enjoyed the story the few time I read it to myself but seeing how my students interacted with the narrative I felt the book lost some of it’s shine. (they all LOVE Doctor De Soto though!)

By: Mr. H

Mr. H — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 21:46:02 +0000

Did you read my comments about the illustrations in A MONSTER CALLS? (That’s not a snotty retort, sorry). I never really said that the sense of setting *wasn’t* necessarily distinguished. I kind of think the jury is out on that particular aspect, because you didn’t actually provide any textual evidence and I own the book and am not seeing any either.

I’m simply wondering if the reason I took away a “claustrophobic” feeling from the book, was due in large part to the creepy illustrations that seemed to suffocate the text on nearly every other page, and not necessarily as a result of anything Ness did with his use of language.

Personally, I think it’s interesting to consider . . . I must be the only one though.

By: Jonathan Hunt

Jonathan Hunt — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 20:21:59 +0000

I notice that even the illustrations in A MONSTER CALLS are giving you fits. It’s interesting to note that all of the books on our shortlist have illustrations, save THE PENDERWICKS AT POINT MOUETTE. So they all have the text-to-picture relationship to one degree or another, even OKAY FOR NOW and THE TROUBLE WITH MAY AMELIA.

By: Mr. H

Mr. H — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 18:35:47 +0000

I’m still confused about the pictures and text dilemma and I suppose I will just always be confused. I keep hearing that “the text does not need to stand alone” but I don’t actually see that in the Newbery criteria. Where are you getting that from? How are you jumping to that conclusion? You asked me at one point to show you where the Newbery criteria states that the text needs to stand alone . . . well, we don’t get a clear cut conclusion like the one you’ve jumped to either. We merely get that cryptic line about “illustrations” and “may be considered” and “less effective”.

You asked me if it’s the amount of text in a picture book or the picture-to-text ratio, and I’m beginning to think it’s the picture-to-text ratio that gets me. Because while someone may think they find distinction in the text alone (of a picture book), it’s difficult to know for sure because your brain has also absorbed the pictures, and subconsciously may have definitely impacted how you interpreted the text.

That’s why I think that arguing for a picture book text will ALWAYS be an uphill battle because the Newbery Medal was derived as an award for “writing” and 99% of the criteria support that. (Shelila, btw, does an awesome job of clarifying above.) I feel sometimes on here, that the criteria is twisted in a way so that convincing arguments can be made for picture book text, easy reader text, etc. When a lot of times, to me, it would appear we’re stretching and not always holding that text to the same (comparative) standard as we would with a novel. Example: Saying something like, “Since ALL this picture book text NEEDS to do is _________, I feel that it does that in a distinguished way.”

By: Jonathan Hunt

Jonathan Hunt — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 05:49:36 +0000

The thing is that the Newbery committee doesn’t care whether or not THE MONEY WE’LL SAVE is a truly great picture book. They only care whether or not the text is a distinguished contribution to children’s literature. Remember Nina’s mantra: We consider only the text, but the text need not stand alone. We don’t have to pretend that the pictures don’t extend the text, but if the text does its part of the storytelling with excellence and distinction then it comes under the purview of the Newbery committee.

By: Sheila Kelly Welch

Sheila Kelly Welch — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 05:37:59 +0000

I guess I feel that a truly great picture book, by definition, has a text that is intentionally missing something that is completed by the art work. Does that make sense?

Now, many very good picture books may have stand-alone text, but I don’t think they would qualify as “great” picture books. If a book tells a story that is wonderful without its illustrations, as you seem to feel is the case with THE MONEY WE’LL SAVE, then I agree, it should be considered for the Newbery.

Illustrated books of poetry, such as A VISIT TO WILLIAM BLAKE’S INN have an “advantage” because with poetry the text is probably intended to stand alone. By “advantage” I mean that really well written poetry is more likely to catch the attention and be considered Newbery worthy than a prose story. Oh, my. Don’t pay too much attention to that over simplification.

In my opinion, with Cole’s book, he wrote the story knowing that his art would help tell certain elements — some vital — that he wanted to include. Or maybe he did the artwork first. Either way, it’s a package deal. I will be fine if it wins the Newbery, however!

By: Nina

Nina — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 04:19:25 +0000

Sheila, yes on less and fewer!

But why the insistence that a book must fit “more” for either a Caldecott or a Newbery? One is for art, the other for words. Some books have both. A VISIT TO WILLIAM BLAKE’S INN got a silver medal from one committee and a gold from the other…for utterly different reasons.

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