Contemporary Realistic Fiction

 Summary of the book: 

"The Twins' Blanket" is a story about identical twins who have shared everything in life since birth, including their bed and blanket. The twins are girls, and they are now five years old. The girls have outgrown their blanket, and both express their desire to keep the blanket for themselves, which results in several emotions being expressed between them. Their mother allows both girls to pick out the fabric for their blanket to be made with; each girl picks out their favorite color and style. Even though the girls are identical twins, they learn that they have differences in what they like and need their own space. Once the blankets are made, the girls are introduced to two twin beds dressed with their blankets. When the girls lay down for bed, they quickly discover how much they miss each other and bond by holding hands from their beds. 

 

Evaluate Genre/ Illustrations:

When comparing the book "the twins' Blanket" to the checklist for quality contemporary realistic fiction, the book meets all of the qualities. The story's problem is believable and solved realistically; the mother included the old outgrown blanket into each girl’s new blanket. Identical twins may experience sharing many things when at a young age, and as they get older, they develop into their personalities resulting in each twin identifying their style. The setting supporting the story is realistic, and the characters are credible. The illustrations in the book support the text by displaying how the twins have physically outgrown the blanket. The emotion expressed by the twins is shown in the images, which brings the story together for the reader of how they felt about growing up and developing into their selves. The illustration also shows that even though the girls no longer share identical things in their lives, they still need the love and support of each other.

 

Motivational Activities: 

After reading this book, conduct an activity where the children draw or create their own blankets. It is an excellent way for the children to show everyone how different their personalities are, resulting in no two blankets looking exactly alike. 

 

Questions that could be asked during the book are, what does it mean by identical twins? What steps did it take to make the blankets? Also, after reading the book, the children could be asked, how was the problem of the twins growing their blanket solved? In the end, were the twins happy with each other? What emotions did the twins experience during the story? Question and response is a great way to get the student's minds working, make them reflect on the text and story, and build an understanding of what order all the events occurred. 

 

Personal comments/ Author background information:

The book "the twins' Blanket" shows how identical twins' desire to have their different styles and personalities shine through. The story is realistic, any identical twins may experience this adjustment in real life, and this story helps showcase how it's okay not to be the same and to create your own style even if you have an identical twin. However, I like that it shows that despite the twins developing their personalities, they still love one another. The author of the book Hyewon Yum is also the Illustrator. Yum was awarded the 2012 Best Children's Books for Family Literacy, the 2011 School Library Journals Best Picture Book, and the 2012 Best Children's Book of the Year for the book "the twins' Blanket" (Wikimedia Foundation, 2023). Yum also was awarded several other awards, such as Golden Kit Award and Fiction Honorable Mention for the Bologna Ragazzi award along with several other awards (Wikimedia Foundation, 2023). Yum wrote many books, and several of her books have editions in English, French, Brazilian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Spanish. Yum wrote several books during her career Pubble, Saturday is Swimming Day, Last Night, and many others (Wikimedia Foundation, 2023). 

References

Wikimedia Foundation. (2023, July 29). Hyewon Yum. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyewon_Yum

YUM, H. (2021). Twins’ blanket. FABER AND FABER.