The Dark

 

Title- The Dark
Author/Retold- Robert N. Munsch
Illustrated by Sami Suomalainen
Genre- Fantasy/Science Fiction
Grade level- 1st - 3rd Grade
The story begins with Jule Ann thudding the cookie jar on the table for breakfast. A “dark thing” fell out and ate her mother’s shadow. They realize it’s a dark and it eats shadows. Jule Ann father threw the dark out, but the dark began to eat other bigger shadows. It got as big as a hill and laid on top of Jule Ann’s house. The whole yard was so dark that the parents walked outside and couldn’t find the door back to the house in the pitch black. Jule Ann saw that the dark didn’t eat the chairs shadow, so she broke a piece of the shadow and gave it to the dark. She put the rest of the shadows in the cookie jar and the dark went in. She closed, glued, plastered, taped, roped the jar shut. They threw it in a garbage can it never came back.

The illustrations in this book were different than most books. The illustrators idea for drawing the dark as a silly monster makes the idea of darkness less scary. I think this would be a good story to read for students to start a class and have them think/write their feelings about the book. It is a great opener to talk about fears and taking a step to conquer them. I think this is a good example for students in English classes for personification. 

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