Book Review: The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg

Book: The Polar Express

Author and Illustrator: Chris Van Allsburg

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Publication date: 1985

Categories: 

Picture Book 

Lexile Score: 520L 

Target Audience: Preschool - 3rd Grade
Age Range: 4-7 year olds

Brief Summary

This is the story of a young boy who rides the Polar Express to the North Pole along with a bunch of other children. They go through mountains and up and down hills through the snow. When they reach the North Pole, Santa Claus chooses one child to talk to about what they want for Christmas. The little boy wants a sleigh bell from Santa's sleigh. Santa gives him a bell but he thinks it is broken because he doesn't hear anything when he rings it. Santa tells the boy that he has to believe to hear the bell. The boy begins to believe and he can hear the bell but unfortunately he loses the bell on the way home due to a whole in his pocket. The next morning, the boy finds a box under the tree that contains the bell. His parents think it's broken but the boy will always believe so he will always hear the bell.

Evaluation: 29/32

Illustration - 4

Storyline - 4

Appropriateness - 4

Problems/Resolutions - 4

Stereotyping - 3

Relatability - 3

Readability/Cohesiveness - 3

Critical Thinking - 4

This book is  Christmas classic and children love it during the winter season. The way it is written provides students will great ideas of the holiday and a lot of imagery when it comes to the scenery. I'm not sure how much I would use this in the classroom due to the fact that it does revolve around the idea of "Christmas" but maybe if the class was talking about all different types of holiday tradition then yes I would consider using this book.

Literary Elements

1. Imagery - This book is filled with descriptions that allow the reader to visualize the whole story without having to look at the illustrations. This would be a great lesson to teach to students. I would use this book to show students how the author used great describing words and allowed the reader to visualize their own version of the story. The students would then be able to use this technique to create their own stories using imagery.

2. Point of View - This whole story is written in the point of view of the main character. He is describing what he is seeing and what he is hearing and even smelling. We are hearing the story as if the little boy was here in real life telling us.

3. Simile - An example of a simile from the book is a phrase such as "as white as snow."