THE STRANGER
By Chris Van Allsburgh
Houghton Mifflin Company (1986)
ISBN 9780395423318
Grades: 2-4
Tale
It was fall and Farmer Bailey was driving around when he hit a man. Confused, the stranger is taken to the farmer’s home and examined by the family’s doctor; he should stay until recovering his memory. Weeks passed without the stranger having any sign of remembering who he was and where he came from. That didn’t bother the Baileys that learned to like him. Mysterious things happen around the farm until one day the stranger leaves.
Thoughts
Beautifully illustrated in autumn colors, the illustration is intrinsically tied to the story. The book is full of mystery about the strange man who has lost his memory and became part of the Bailey family. His clothes, his manners, and his way with animals, all lead to questions about his identity. This is a great book for older readers who will become intrigued by the given clues.
About the author
"As long as I can remember, I've always loved to draw. But my interest in drawing wasn't encouraged very much. Growing up in the 1950s, in Grand Rapids, Michigan, boys were supposed to be athletic. Certain peer pressures encouraged little fingers to learn how to hold footballs rather than crayons.
My early love for drawing developed into a love for telling stories through pictures. Stories begin as fragments of pictures in my mind. I create a story by posing questions to myself. I call it the “what if” and “what then” approach. For example, for my book Jumanji, I started out by thinking “What if two bored children discovered a board game? What if the board game came to life? What then?” The Polar Express began with the idea of a train standing alone in the woods. I asked myself, “What if a boy gets on that train? Where does he go?
From the time I come up with the idea, write and illustrate the book, and deliver it to the printer, it takes about seven months. First, I begin thinking of the idea (asking myself what if and what then). Then I imagine the pictures and the story. A good picture book should have events that are visually arresting - the pictures should call attention to what is happening in the story. I first consider scenes that are exciting to look at and then my challenge is to weave a story around those pictures. The next step is putting the illustrations and story down on paper. At that point, it becomes intense work - all day, every day, even on weekends!
When you first look at my illustrations, you see ordinary, everyday things. But if you look closer, things might not seem quite so simple. When I'm writing a book, I always try to create something strange or puzzling in each picture. By using artistic strategies of perspective, light, and point of view, I can give the drawing a kind of mysterious quality. In other words, the style I use allows me to make a drawing that has a little mystery to it, even if the actual things I am drawing are not strange or mysterious.
All of my books are picture books, so they are generally thought of as books for children. But when I make them, I think of the books as being for everybody - for people of all ages. When I was a kid, I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up, but now I'm really glad I became an artist and a storyteller."
Click here to go to Van Allsburgh’s official website.
Curiosity about the author: Van Allsburgh includes the drawing of a little white Bull Terrier in all his books, as part of the story or simply as a tiny part of the illustration. Here is why :
Why do you put that little white dog in all of your books? Do you have a dog like that?
The first story that I wrote, The Garden of Abdul Gasazi, had a dog in it named Fritz. When I thought about the kind of dog I wanted Fritz to be, I decided he should be a bull terrier. Unfortunately, I didn't know any bull terriers that could be my model for drawing pictures. I found some photographs, but they were not what I needed. What I needed was a real dog. My brother-in-law, David, visited one day, and told me he was thinking of getting a dog, possibly a golden retriever. I told him he should get himself something more interesting. Something really unusual. I showed him photos of bull terriers and he agreed that it was a most unusual and appealing dog.
Not long after that, he acquired a bull terrier puppy, and named him Winston. Winston became the model for Fritz, and because he was my brother-in-law's dog, I thought of Winston as a kind of nephew. Sadly, Winston had an accident that sent him to the big dog kennel in the sky at a young age. I decided to commemorate the contribution he made to my first book by including him (or at least a tiny part of him) in all of my books.
Review
SLJ Reviews 1986 November
"Gr 2-4The Stranger is a down-homey modern myth about the phenomenon of Indian Summer, but the opening owes less to the folktale than to The Twilight Zone. Farmer Bailey, rapt on an end-of-summer day in his 1940s pickup, suddenly hits something: the next page shows a young man's body, dramatically foreshortened and stretched out at eye-level in the evening shadows. The terror-stricken victim quickly recovers but has lost both speech and memory. Invited to stay with the farmer, his wife, and little girl, he spends idyllic days with them while autumn's advance is unaccountably delayed. The text scatters clues to the stranger's identity (Jack Frost); but the moment of recognition is cleverly given over to the electrifying illustration alone. Characteristically, the bold simplifications of Van Allsburg's warm pastels look back to American regionalist paintings of the 1930s and '40sespecially to Thomas Hart Benton and Grant Wood. The story is too low-keyed for most children, although several compositions provide suspense with their unorthodox points-of-view, out-of-frame action, and play with effects of light. Here the interweaving of fantasy and reality is more complex than in Van Allsburg's earlier books, and the effects more subtle; but the surface pleasures of color and form are still enticing. Patricia Dooley, formerly at Drexel University, Phila . Copyright 1986 Cahners Business Information."
Activity
From Houghton Mifflin Harcourt publisher. Click here to visit HMH website.
Introduction:
Tell your students that you will be reading a book to them that contains a mystery—a man cannot remember who he is! Their job, as you read the book, will be to listen very carefully for clues in the words and pictures that will help them to solve the mystery of the man's identity. Paying attention to clues is an important skill to use when we are reading mystery stories, but it is also an important part of every kind of reading. When we pay attention to clues, we build theories that are based on what the book actually tells us. Authors are tricky that way—they hide information that we get to search out and use to figure out what's happening! Tell your students that today they are going to practice this—first in The Stranger, and then in their own books.
Teaching:
Read The Stranger to your class. As you read, ask the children to raise a thumb when they notice something that may be a clue to the man's identity. Write down what they notice on chart paper or on an overhead projector. They will be likely to notice such things as the way the rabbits behave around the man, his ability to work all day without sweating, or his confusion about simple things like buttons. Before you reach the page that describes the man blowing on the leaf, reread the list of clues the class has collected. Discuss how this list might help readers build a theory about the man's identity. The students are likely to have different theories to share, and you may want them to turn and talk to a neighbor about their theories before you discuss a few of these ideas with the entire class. Make sure to draw your students' focus back to the process of building theories with the clues they have collected. If they describe a nonsensical theory that is not related to the book, ask, "What in the book makes you think that?"
Tell your students that readers collect clues all the time, whether they are reading mysteries or other kinds of books. When we collect information about characters of all sorts, we are building theories about them as we read. Tell the students that during their independent reading time, they will be trying this out. Ask them to choose a character in the book they are reading and keep a written list of clues that help develop a picture of who that character is.
