Skip to main content

Me and You

Image from amazon.co.uk

In a double narrative, Me and You is a transformation of the fairy tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears. In wordless sepia toned illustrations, Browne depicts Goldilocks’ origin story set in an inner city where she lives in a single-parent home and is raised by her mother. Feeling the want of Baby Bear’s idyllic suburban life, this character has no voice of her own and no color in her existence. Having wandered out of her world and into his, Goldilocks roams through his home, sees how the other half live, and revels in the colorful idealized world. However when the homeowners return and express their disapproval, Goldilocks flees—escaping their world and returning to hers where she is greeted by the open arms of her mother. Browne’s juxtaposition of sepia and color, voicelessness and voicing, and realism and idealism masterfully convey a little girl’s struggle to accept her imperfect existence and find emotional peace. Such intense symbolism lends itself to a study of character development that explores the concepts of flat, round, dynamic, and static characters; antithesis; and juxtaposition. Moreover, Browne’s parallel perspectives will make an excellent pairing for John Cheever’s “The Opportunity.”

  • Me and You by Anthony Browne; illus. by author
  • Primary
  • Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  • 32 pp.
  • 2010
  • 978-0-3743-4908-0
  • $16.99
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Decloaking Wakanda: Creating Space for BIPOC Nerds

On February 9, 2023, at the fourth Joint Conference of Librarians of Color (JCLC), I had the exhilarating experience of guiding a discussion that focused on the need to connect with nerd culture and create a welcoming environment for the BIPOC fandom. The soul of this session had been several years in the making and built on countless heart-to-heart moments. So, I couldn’t imagine a better venue for seeing it actualized than my first JCLC. Furthermore, for this session, I had the honor of being in conversation with fellow nerds and comics librarians Jean Darnell and Deimosa Webber-Bey . To my eternal amazement, our talk was met with a standing room only reception, and afterward we were repeatedly regaled with tales of being turned away at the door. In hopes of capturing a small portion of that day's magic, this post grew out of that discussion. *** For the past 30 years, BIPOC nerds have existed in the cringe-worthy shadow of Urkel. What if, instead, they’d had portrayals such as ...
1 comment
Read more

Standing TALL: Choosing to Apply to the Texas Library Association's TALL Texan Leadership Institute

 After having attended the Texas Library Association's TALL Texan Leadership Institute, another library worker reached out to me with questions about my experience. Below are the answers that I provided in response to her questions. *** Why did you apply to Tall Texans?  Originally, I heard about TALL Texans as a new school librarian - within my first five years - and at the time it was described to me as an opportunity to gain meaningful leadership training in the field of librarianship that was specific to the Texas Library ecosystem. Thus, it was something that I'd aspired to for quite awhile. However, as time went on I made my way toward leadership without having attended the institute and began to second guess the value of the investment. However, when I mentioned to my supervisor that I was mildly interested in attending, she strongly encouraged me to apply - stating that not only would the library pay for my tuition but that she believed I would particularly benefi...
Post a Comment
Read more

BIMM, DIMM, and PIT - Oh My!

Sara Pavone and Christina Taylor, the RRHS librarians, used a combination of different technologies to introduce the logistics of digital copyright protection to students in BIMM, DIMM, and PIT. This lesson marked the maiden voyage of the iPads that the library received as part of the Next Generation Digital Classroom (NGDC) initiative. Mrs. Pavone and Mrs. Taylor combined the tablets with Blendspace , Google Drive , and WeVideo to provide a lesson that not only engaged the students but also allowed teachers to differentiate the instruction to meet students’ needs. Finally, because the entire lesson was platform agnostic, using online tools, students were able to work at their own pace...beyond the confines of the physical classroom...from anywhere they had Internet access. Many students commented that they enjoyed the lesson and thought it was a lot better than last year’s, which was not nearly as interactive nor heavy in technology. **This post was originally published on the  R...
Post a Comment
Read more