Pistes d'exploration

When you have exciting news, who are the first people you want to share it with? Create a poster announcing something special that happened in your life. 

Choose one of the characters Madlenka visits. What country does he or she come from? What unique features about that country can you identify from the accompanying illustrations?

How do you think Madlenka lost her tooth? Write about losing a tooth. Does your family have any special traditions around this rite of passage?

Notice the different ways the characters refer to Madlenka. Discuss how your name is the same or different in English and French. Research your name in other languages and share your findings.

Complete a graphic organizer to identify the people Madlenka visits, their jobs and countries of origin. 

On a world map, pinpoint the countries Madlenka’s friends come from. Research their flags and add these to the map.

Explore your school neighbourhood. Who lives and works there? Create an informative poster, including an enlarged map, with the book as a model.

Examine the illustrations representing different countries. Research one of these countries and share the information with your class.

Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street, Re-Zoom, Zoom, TheMost Magnificent Thing, Have You Seen My Dragon?, My Neighbor Is a Dog, Dusk, In New York

Mots-clés

Picture book , city life , community , discovery , everyday life , multiculturalism , neighbours , New York City , teeth

Commentaire descriptif

Here is a book that begs to be opened, beginning with Madlenka peering through a window on the front cover, inviting readers into her New York City neighbourhood, a beehive of world cultures and ethnicities. She’s thrilled about her wiggly tooth and dashes off to share the news with everyone on her block: the French baker (“Bonjour, Madeleine”), the Indian news vendor (“Sathsariakal, Madela”), the Italian ice-cream man (“Buon giorno, Maddalena”) and a host of others. Wraparound text invites readers to rotate the book and explore a parallel universe of stories-within-the-larger-story, each built around the cultural imagery, food and language of the various characters. Visually complex die-cut windows open onto full-page spreads for each country. Through Eduardo’s Latin American produce shop, for example, we glimpse an eagle, one piece of the collage of images to be found on the following page. This multiplicity of perspectives is underscored as Madlenka’s apartment building itself is seen from above and below, from inside and outside, and from far, far away. After Madlenka “went around the world,” she finally lost her tooth, an experience common to all.