one of the speakers at the Where the WIld Books Are event recommended this book, Wednesday / Mercredi, and i knew it would be part of my Child Reads World project. so for its namesake, i introduced crw to this book on a Wednesday.

“Wednesday” / “Mercredi” by Anne Bertier
visually simple but creatively imaginative is a story about a square and a circle who play together. when they combine their efforts, their differences create new things – in terms of shapes, they create new shapes.
crw was amused by some of the images, i.e. the flowers and the fence. but some of the images were abstract – i.e. the butterfly and pointy mushroom and i’m not sure if the little one really connected it was the image we said. i’m also not sure if crw knew how the original shapes of the orange circle and blue square were able to create the later shapes.

Image from annebertier.fr
author: Anne Bertier
U.S edition
– title: “Wednesday”
– © Enchanted Lion Books, 2014
– translated by: Claudia Z. BedrickOriginal French edition
– title: “Mercredi”
– © Éditions Memo, 2010
on my end, i was a little confused by how the original two shapes create some of the later shapes. i thought i’d help crw visualize how the square and circle made the images if i cut up a square and circle and then rearrange them to create the images in the book. but since the proportions don’t work out, it would not actually create some of the images in the book. so maybe i’ll do cut up some color paper at a later time just to let crw create different images.
as crw understands shapes and sizes more, in think the ideas of the books can come alive more but for now it may just be an introduction to abstract images. a week ago, i was drawing a bird that is far far away like a lowercase “r” and crw asked me what it was. i explained it but i’m not sure the little one was convinced so i’ll have to take future opportunities to demonstrate. when we graduate from birds, i’ll tackle the butterflies next. reading grows as we grow and so will this book.
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resource(s):
- author Anne Bertier: Mercredi
- publisher Enchanted Lion Books: Anne Bertier