8.4 /10 1 Votes
4.2/5 Barnes & Noble Country United States ISBN 978-0-395-55113-4 Dewey Decimal [E] 20 Genre Picture book Awards Caldecott Medal | 4.2/5 Goodreads Cover artist David Wiesner Publication date 1991 OCLC 21970322 Originally published 1991 Illustrator David Wiesner Publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Similar David Wiesner books, Caldecott Medal winners, Children's literature | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tuesday, written and illustrated by David Wiesner, is a 1991 picture book published by Clarion Books. Tuesday received the 1992 Caldecott Medal for illustrations and was Wiesner's first of three Caldecott Medals that he has won during his career. Wiesner subsequently won the Caldecott Medal in 2002 for The Three Pigs, and the 2007 medal for Flotsam.
Contents
Description
Tuesday is an almost wordless picture book for children, written and illustrated by American author David Wiesner. The book was originally published in 1991 by Clarion Books, and than re-published in 2001 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books for Young Readers. The book contains 35 pages and is designed for children ages 3 and up. Tuesday is dedicated to Tom Sgouros.
Plot
The story contains only six words and three points that determine the time of the action. The whole story is narrated by colorful pictures of frogs flying on their lily pads.
The story begins on "Tuesday evening, around eight".
A group of frogs start their journey at some wetlands, then fly to the nearest town. They levitate among birds that sit on the electric wires, then fly next to the kitchen window where a man is eating his sandwich. The frogs then visit someone’s backyard. They also visit a house where an old lady sleeps in front of her television. The squadron of frogs, without the knowledge of the old lady, appropriate her remote control and stare avidly at the screen. At "4:38 a.m.", they encounter a dog who tries to catch one of the frogs, but eventually joins their adventure. After the night, the frogs return to the pond where they swim and float on their lily pads like normal frogs. Back in the city, people investigate traces left by the frogs.
The final pages of the book show "next Tuesday" around eight in the evening, with pigs hovering above the roof of a farm building.
Critical Reception
The School Library Monthly declares that Tuesday has “spellbinding effect on first-time readers that they may wish to join in the adventure”. The New York Times highlights that Tuesday “allows readers to concoct their own story lines”. while Publisher Weekly calls the book “stunning: slightly surrealistic, imbued with mood and mystery”. Mary Lou White, from the Caldecott Award Selection Committee chair summarizes Wiesner’s work as a “masterful use of light and dark, alternating perspectives, and variation in page design”. Kirkus Reviews claimed that Wiesner "provides plenty of intriguing visual details to ponder".
Awards
Animation project
In 2002 Tuesday was used for the production of an animated movie which belongs to the anthology film Paul McCartney: Music & Animation. The director of the enterprise was Geoff Dunbar, with the production tasks carried out by Paul McCartney. In the movie voices were provided by Paul McCartney, McCartney’s wife Linda McCartney, Dustin Hoffman, June Whitfield,and Windsor Davies. For the animation of Wiesner’s book, Dunbar and McCartney were nominated for a British Academy Award.