This is my second year reading The Not So Quiet Library by Zachariah Ohora to my kindergarten students when they come to library class for the first time. This story helps debunk the idea that the library is a quiet place, but it is more of a place to have fun, to be creative and explore new subjects. This book is also a start of our author study of Zachariah Ohora, who writes and illustrates so many funny books. We use his work to help us understand what an illustrator does and how the work they do is not easy. My goal is to get my kindergarten students to appreciate the illustrations in a book because often times the illustrations are more important than the words.
Over the first few weeks of school students in kindergarten drew one of their favorite characters Wolfie, from the story Wolfie the Bunny. They watched a video tutorial of Zachariah drawing the character and follow along. We talked about our experience drawing the character. They used words like hard, fun, tricky, exciting. I think these emotions more than likely parallel the feelings of actual illustrators when they create their first book or first draft of a book. Take a look at their final product, they are all really impressive.
Click the link for more about the author, his art and upcoming projects http://www.zohora.com/.
