To kick off our October author study of Peter Brown, we began doing a book study of three books: Creepy Carrots!, Creepy Crayon! and Creepy Pair of Underwear!; all by Aaron Reynolds and Peter Brown.
In Creepy Carrots!, the main character Jasper Rabbit loves eating carrots from Crackenhopper Field, until he starts seeing carrots creeping everywhere around him! Jasper has to come up with a plan to keep those creepy carrots from bothering him! In the end, we learn it was all a clever trick by the carrots to keep Jasper Rabbit from eating them. After reading the story, students wrote how they would have stopped the creepy carrots if they were Jasper Rabbit. Be sure to check out student writing displayed in the hallway next time you visit!
In Creepy Pair of Underwear!, Jasper Rabbit goes shopping for new undies with his mom. He reallllllly wants a pair of the newest, coolest underwear: creepy, green, glowing underwear! Mom says they’re probably too creepy for Jasper but he insists they aren’t! When he gets home, he starts to realize he actually is a little creeped out by the underwear and the glow is keeping him up at night! After he finally gets rid of the underwear, his bedroom is too dark without the green glow from the underwear. He realizes that, although they used to seem creepy to him, they could actually be useful to him now! He goes back to the store and buys a few more pairs and uses them as a nightlight. They don’t seem so creepy anymore! As a class, we discussed a new vocabulary word: novelty. Later, first graders wrote about a time that they used to be scared of something.
Finally, we read Creepy Crayon! Jasper Rabbit is back and this time he’s having a hard time in school. He’s failing spelling and math and never wants to give his best effort to his work. Soon, he finds a special purple crayon that is able to write all of the right answers for him! He uses the crayon and gets great scores on all his work, but he doesn’t feel proud of his work when the purple crayon does it for him. We discussed why it is wrong to let the crayon do his work for him.
All three books are illustrated by Peter Brown in a specific style, in which his illustrations are in grayscale except the main focus. The carrots, underwear and crayon are each their own are bright color. As a class, we discussed how this art style helps add to the “creepy” feel of the book and emphasize the carrots in each illustration. We watched a video of Peter Brown explaining his inspiration behind the illustration. Most of his inspiration came from old TV shows and movies. He created 41 pieces of art for Creepy Carrots! using digital and hand-drawn mediums.
After learning about Peter Brown’s art, first graders created their own art inspired by his. We started by creating a concept of a picture with only one color. What object, animal or person would be most important to be in color in your image? What would an appropriate background look like for that item? Next, students painted a background for their work of art using black, gray and white watercolors and black Sharpie. After that, they used colored paper to cut out their colorful piece and pasted it on to the watercolor background.
