Gorilla

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After days of being alone, eagerly waiting for the attention from her very busy father, Hannah's toy gorilla becomes real and takes her on an adventure to the zoo, the cinema, a restaurant and the evening ends with a dance on the lawn. To Hannah's surprise, her birthday wish comes true as her father is waiting to take her to the zoo the next morning! Gorilla’ is an intriguing picture book from the esteemed author and illustrator Anthony Browne. The narrative uniquely examines serious themes like loneliness and parent-child relationships through the lens of a human-gorilla transformation. Central to the story is a young girl’s solitude and her relationship with her father. The narrative is layered with subtlety, inviting children to interpret the story in their unique ways. The intricate beauty of the illustrations not only appeases the eye but also encourages children to share and revisit the book. On the night before her birthday, Hannah was ‘tingling with excitement’. Can you think of other ways to describe how she was feeling? Famous works of art can be found in the illustrations, but the people have been replaced by gorillas. Can you identify the original pictures? Who painted them? The illustrations in this book are good and funny and show the story well. Some of the illustrations do look a bit silly though such as the gorillas, who are body building. They look so silly that it made me laugh.

Look at photos of different primates and draw your own pictures of some of them. You could also look at video footage of gorillas and other primates. For example: Read this book in Spanish for Primary level. This book translates very well as it has simple sentences and the illustrations would really help the children to understand the story. You’d better go in now, Hannah,” said the gorilla.“See you tomorrow.”“Really?” asked Hannah.The gorilla nodded and smiled.

TRANSLATE

Hannah was frightened. “Don’t be frightened,Hannah,” said the gorilla, “I won’t hurt you. I justwondered if you’d like to go to the zoo.”The gorilla had such a nice smile that Hannahwasn’t afraid. “I’d love to,” she said. Write in-role to explore and develop an understanding of character: By writing from the perspective of the characters, students will gain a deeper empathy for them and a more nuanced understanding of their motivations and emotions.

I like the colourful illustrations in the book, but I found them quite stereotypical in the clothes that Willy and the gang were wearing. I think it is a positive example of how you can increase your confidence and become happy with yourself. It is up to you to make the changes, to get fitter and feel happier in your own skin. This emotive and endearing book tells the humbling story of Hannah, a little girl, who wants nothing more but to spend quality time with her very busy father. Left to her own devices a lot of the time, Hannah spends her days reading about gorillas, watching gorillas on television and drawing pictures of gorillas. But she has NEVER seen a real gorilla!! Her father doesn’t have time to take her to the zoo; he doesn’t have time for anything!The next morning Hannah excitedly jumps out of bed, sprinting, to tell dad her news of her amazing journey. He approaches her “happy birthday love, do you want to go to the zoo?” The reader can instantly feel Hannah’s joy, she is glowing with happiness; her one wish has come true. The night before her birthday she asks for a gorilla and is suprise to find a stuffed toy as a present on her bed.

What would you like to do now?” the gorillaasked. “I’d love to go to the cinema,” saidHannah. So they did. The illustrations are beautiful and really make the story come alive, and although children of primary level would not understand all the Spanish language and the sentence structure, it would be a fantastic book to read to younger KS2 students who were learning Spanish. A feature of Anthony Browne’s work is that although the characters are depicted in almost naturalistic style, “in all styles we can only interpret faces with certainty as positive, negative or neutral in affect, with more subtle readings dependent on contextual and intermodal guidance. (Tian, 2011.) Although very sad at the beginning I found this story to be refreshingly honest and deeply gratifying.

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Themes of childhood loneliness is very strong in the first half of the story and whilst Hannah dreams of trips to both the zoo and cinema, it's nice that she actually gets an even better treat on her birthday. Afterwards the walked down the street together.“That was wonderful,” said Hannah, “but I’mhungry now.”“Okay,” said the gorilla, “we’ll eat.” The best part with revisiting these is seeing the deeper meanings that you might have missed as a kid...