Farnsworth House Blog

William Steig was a famous cartoonist for the New Yorker and then later in his life began writing and illustrating stories for children. His picture books and chapter books are well loved by both children and adults. His wonderful illustrations, delicious vocabulary, and timeless themes make his works classics. You will hear several of his picture books read aloud, and read study some together in small groups. As we explore these books students will do a “close reading” and present their findings to the class, just as we did in Charlotte’s Web. You will be looking for the various themes of the book, figurative language, points-of-view, humor, placement of illustrations, as well as anything else of note. We will then move onto his chapter books and will choose one to adapt, as a class, into a play in some form: radio, puppet, etc… One last note, did you know that some of his stories were banned in the 1960’s? We will find out why.