Rose Meets Mr Wintergarten

Rose Meets Mr Wintergarten is a well known children's picture book written by Bob Graham which has an award for won 'Picture Book of the Year.'
This book is about Rose Summers and her family moving into their new house, and turn it into a haven of laughter, colours and happiness. Every day the sun shone brightly upon the Summers' house, however it never seemed to touch their next door neighbours house therefore it was always in darkness. All the children are afraid of 'Mr Wintergarten' and his 'dog like a wolf' which guards his house and the crocodile that eats his visitors. One day, Rose accidentally kicks her ball over the fence into Mr Wintergarten's yard. She decides to be brave and go over to ask for her ball back. Mr Wintergarten seemed very grumpy and did not want to give Rose's ball back. However when Rose had left and he seen the big bunch of bright flowers and the hot cakes, he decided that it was time to open his curtains to let some light into his house, which he had not done in years. He then proceeded to go outside and kick Rose's ball back over the fence to her, much to Rose's delight.

Throughout this simple narrative, Graham has been able to send an underlying message to his readers about being compassionate and basically, "not judging a book by it's cover." I believe that this is a very important message for all students to understand. After reading this book, students are able to understand that not everyone is the way that they are made out to be, and that by being compassionate to others will pay off in the end. Graham has included several themes throughout this book including; family, friendship and bravery.

Graham's story is also accompanied by his fantastic illustrations. He has started his story on the end pages of the book, with an illustration of the Summers family moving into their new home, using lots of bright and "happy" colours.Next door however, is a very big, dark house (of course being Mr Wintergarten's) where Graham has used lots of dark tones, making his house look unwelcoming and scary.
I believe that Graham's use of colours would make the book easier to understand for the younger students reading the story. This is because, anything that seems dark can be "scary" which is how Mr Wintergarten is portrayed throughout the story. This is compared to the Summers family and all the other children, gardens etc which are extremely bright, which make them look happy, relaxed and not scary at all.
Graham has also finished his book on the end pages with another illustration. This time, it shows not only the Summers' house looking bright, but also Mr Wintergarten's house which has been cleaned up by the people in the town. This illustration shows the students that Mr Wintergarten is not really as scary as everyone first thought, and is getting everyone to help him tidy up his yard so that everyone is able to visit and like him too. The colours in his house are getting brighter and everyone is happy to be helping Mr Wintergarten out.

I believe that this story would be brilliant for Junior Primary students as it can teach them "not to judge a book by it's cover." The illustrations also accompany the story in a way that would engage the students and keep them interested in the story.