Pistes d'exploration

Examine the cover and title of the book. Predict what the story might be about. Do a picture walk. Make connections to your own experiences playing dress-up.

List the things that make Morris feel good and bad. Add your own ideas.

Imagine you were Morris’ friend at school. How could you help him? Role-play comforting him, offering advice or standing up to the other kids.

Morris feels better when he paints and sings to himself. Explore how art and music make you feel. Listen to some teacher-selected classical music while painting. Discuss how you felt during the activity.

Examine the cover and title of the book. Predict what the story might be about. Do a picture walk. Make connections to your own experiences playing dress-up.

Morris has some interests that differ from his those of his peers. Identify the feelings expressed by other characters regarding these interests.

Think of how art and music make you feel. Discuss what activity you do when you need to feel better. Design a poster with a short text to explain how it helps.

Henry Holton Takes the Ice

Mots-clés

Picture book , acceptance , bullying , gender roles , imagination , individuality , mothers and sons , self-expression , teasing

Commentaire descriptif

Strengthened by a supportive family environment, Morris encounters social pressure at school for his love of a certain dress-up costume: “Morris likes the color of the dress. It reminds him of tigers, the sun and his mother’s hair.” Simple, neutral language relates Morris’s preferences in terms any reader can understand. The evocative sounds of the fancy dress and shoes serve as both a lyric theme and a reminder of Morris’s perspective: “swish, swish, swish when he walks and crinkle, crinkle, crinkle when he sits down … his most favorite shoes go click, click, click across the floor.” Illustrations use fine line and soft-textured colour to create lovely scenes peopled with highly differentiated kid-characters. The atmospheric, ethereal treatment of the dress contrasts with otherwise defined images. In the playground, the dress floats around Morris as he runs away from mocking little girls. At the long, lonely lunch table, Morris is a spot of tangerine colour at one end. Clustered at the other, little boys glare. Being true to the diverse facets within oneself is celebrated when Morris stands his ground, and the boys join him playing astronaut: “Morris smiled as he swished, crinkled, and clicked back to his spaceship.”