In The Fisherman and the Whale, Jessica Lanan portrays the sad, yet inspiring story of an entangled whale and the boy and man who save him. This wordless picture book is filled with action and emotion. It creates endless opportunities for young readers to infer character actions, dialogue and feelings.
I shared this book with a spellbound group of first graders. They couldn’t keep their eyes off the stunning, detailed illustrations. I wish I had recorded their turn and talk about these mesmerizing pages.
In addition, the first graders acted out their interpretation of the conversation that might have happened when the Son convinced his Father to help the entangled whale.
The first graders shared:
- I like the way Jessican Lanan made illustrations to show what the characters were thinking in the book. — Zoey
- The author showed that you should help animals. –Mustafa
- The father was trying to save the whale. At first he didn’t want to, but then he took the risk instead of letting the whale die. –Aria
- I like on one of the pages, it shows that the father and the boy are trying to look at the whale. The whale was actually seeing the people in the eye. So they were kind of talking to each other. –Stella
The illustrations look amazing! Thanks for sharing!