CONTENT:
Rain (2009) was written and illustrated by Manya Stojic. This picturebook deals with the rain cycle in the African savannah. The story has a cumulative structure: it opens when the dry season is coming to an end; every animal responds to its perception of the approaching rainy season and communicates it to the others. The picturebooks shows and describes how rain affects animals' ability to see, hear, taste, and feel. When finally it rains all animals enjoy it and the cycle starts again.
WHY USING THIS PICTUREBOOK:
Thanks to this picturebook children can learn about the importance of rain in the ecosystem. They are also introduced to the issues related to climate change and their consequences. The characters are the animals, although they speak in the story they are little anthropomorphised. The dialogues are aimed at explaining to the reader/listener the phenomena from the perspective of the animals. The written text and images interact with each other in a symmetric way supporting the comprehension of new expressions. Visual support is provided also through the use of colours: warm colours (e.g., red and orange) are used to convey the idea of heat caused by drought, cold colours (e.g., light blue) is used to depict the rain, and green is used to represent the rebirth of nature. The author used plenty of direct speech, in particular there are many questions in the written text which can be used by the storyteller to stimulate children to interact and participate during the read-aloud session. Each animal in the story repeats what has been said by the previous character and adds to it their thought. This cumulative structure characterizes the whole picturebook and creates a sense of expectation and predictability that can foster children’s comprehension and promote memorization.
