Discovering Oliver Jeffers

When the book The Heart and The Bottle came out this year, I became very interested in the work of Oliver Jeffers. Who was this amazing illustrator and writer with quite the imagination? I have to be honest with you and admit not knowing much until I got the book The Heart and The Bottle in my hands.
Each time I read this book, I discovered new things...what is The Heart and The Bottle about? It is about a little's girl world who was full of wonders and discovered nurtured by her dad who continuously supported and encouraged this journey until one day...
Dad is not in the picture anymore and the girl felt lost and confused so she decided to tuck away her heart in a bottle.

My fifth graders and I read this book in a Book Discussion Group and their thoughts, observations and journey throughout this book was fascinating!! The text in this book in very minimum so my students have to rely heavily on the pictures in order to infer. And may I just say they INFER!!! High level thinking and questioning. We talked about how magnificent and fascinating is the work of Oliver Jeffers as an artist. So my students' challenged was to record their thoughts and how their thinking changed throughout the story by using pictures. Once again, my students were up for the task impressing me not only with their artistic talents but also with their inferences.

Of course, after reading The Heart and The Bottle, I was thirsty for more books by Oliver Jeffers and to my surprise I discovered not only other equally wonderful books but also several of his books are available in Spanish. Check them out!

   

Keep an eye on this amazing artist, I'm sure we will be hearing more from him as the book The Heart and the Bottle will becoming a motion picture very soon!