A Sick Day for Amos McGee
Stead, P. (2010). A sick day for Amos Mcgee. New York, NY: Roaring Book Press.
Stead, P. (2010). A sick day for Amos Mcgee. New York, NY: Roaring Book Press.
A Sick Day for Amos McGee has received several awards including, 2011 Caldecott Medal Winner, 2011 Notable Children’s Book, Kids Wings Award Book.
Amos McGee is a zookeeper at the City Zoo. Everyday Amos prepares for work and proceeds through his day just the same as every day before. He gets up early, gets dressed, and has breakfast. He then rides the bus to the City Zoo, where he visits with all the zoo animals. But, these are not just zoo animals they are Amos McGee’s friends. Every day was the same as the day before until one day Amos was not feeling well and he didn’t go to work. The animals waited for Amos to come as he did every day, but he did not come. The animals then decided to visit their friend to make him feel better, so the animals departed on an adventure to find Amos McGee and show him the importance of their friendship.
Throughout this book the illustrator used visual element of line to depict movement. In the illustration of Amos going into the zoo you see the curvy lines of the pathway drawing you into the zoo, farther into the picture. Their intention use of color draws attention to the most important parts of the illustration. Most of the illustrations are drawn in pencil only the focus of each illustration is in color. The illustrator also used very subtle colors to insinuate a calm mood. All of the illustrations are realistic in nature; they are all illustrations most students would recognize.
The illustrations themselves are realistic, yet they portray the characters doing very fantastical things, so I would classify this book as a fantasy animal story. These fantastical things include elephants playing chess, turtles running races, penguins wearing socks and many more. I feel students would find this book very comical.
The following website has great discussion questions to use before, during, and after reading. It includes several cross-curricular activity ideas and a list of related books. It also has links to the author’s website and the illustrator’s website. Best of all there are links that include activities and printable worksheets that go along with the book.
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