SMACKDOWN- hello! hello! vs. Machines

We found these two books to be very DIFFERENT.
The first book we read was hello! hello!, it was a narrative story.  The second book we read was Machines, which was an expository book.  
The class liked hello! hello! better then Machines. It was a funny story that was a little silly, with the main character riding all sorts of different animals (whales in the sky).  The story also had a great moral which taught us an important lesson about families and life. In the book the girl, Lydia, and her family, spent too much time on electronic technology and not enough time talking together.  This was a good reminder to us about not spending too much time with electronics and  spending more time with our families.
Where as Machines mostly just gave us information about big machines that work in the city.  

The second thing we liked about hello! hello! was the actual text. There wasn't very much writing but the author used many different fonts,  making the words interesting.

The last thing we enjoyed about both books were the illustrations.  hello! hello! has drawings that were very cartoon like sketches. There was no colour in the beginning, to show how dull it was when the family didn't spend time together.  However, it was very clever that the author added more colour as Lydia, and then her family went on their adventure.
The illustrations for machines were also very interesting because they looked like beautiful paintings and we loved the flaps with more information.

hello! hello! By Matthew Cordell

Summary

The story is about a girl named Lydia and her family.  Lydia's family loves playing and spending time on different electronic devices.  They are not spending very much time together, both physically (the same room) and emotionally (talking together).  Lydia discovers the outside door slightly open and a colourful leaf floats in. It is in that moment that Lydia realizes that spending time in nature is important. Along the way she observes trees, flowers, insects and many other animals.  Suddenly, Lydia gets a cellphone call from her angry mother and father to come back home.  When Lydia gets home she trades each family member their electronic device for artifacts she found outside.  At the end her whole family begins to appreciate nature and they all spend time together as a family.

Our Opinion

This book was really liked by 11/30 students in our class.  The best part about this book is how Lydia rediscovered the importance of nature and shared with her whole family.  It was really funny how when she was discovering nature she decided to hop on the animals and go for a ride. ,There were even whales and fish floating in the sky.
The illustrator did an excellent job of choosing colours for the pictures.  When Matthew Cordell drew the pictures of Lydia and her family in the beginning they were all gray  and  dull.  However, the minute Lydia discovered nature she and the outside were very colourful.  Her family also became colourful once they began to love nature and being together too!

  

Mme Smith's Books