2013 Theodore S.
Geisel Award Winner
Up! Tall! And High!
Written and Illustrated by Ethan Long
Published in 2012 by G.P. Putnam’s Sons
ISBN: 978-0-399-25611-0
Grades PreK - Six
Book Review:
A chapter book for the very youngest reader? A sturdy lift-the-flap
book well suited for a toddler audience? A conceptual exploration of adjectives
describing size and location? Yes! All these and more, Ethan Long’s Geisel
award winning book, Up! Tall! And High! (but
not necessarily in that order) has broad appeal. A quirky cast of avian characters take center
stage in this chapter book for very beginners. In three quite short stories, multiple birds compare their heights
or locations. An element of surprise in
each story keeps repetitive text from being boring and lift-up flaps provide
added dimension, interactivity, and humor. Long uses simple, yet expressive
line, comic-book styling, and a limited palette of pastel colors,
distinguishing each story with a different background color. A vocabulary
consisting of high-frequency words and clear picture correlation make this read
a real confidence booster for those readers just beginning to make the print
speech match. The humor, engaging illustrations and subtle exploration of
abstract concepts (the different meanings of the words up, tall, and high) make
Up! Tall! And High! appealing and
appropriate for a wider audience.
Teaching Invitations: Ideas for Your Classroom
Grades PreK – Three.
Dialogue Bubbles.
Read Up! Tall! And High!, along with
a collection of other books for beginning readers that feature the use of
dialogue bubbles, such as Mo Willems’s Let’s
Say Hi To Friends That Fly and There
is a Bird on My Head; and Geisel honor award winning book in the Toon Books
series, Benny and Penny in the Big
No-No!. Engage your students in close study of these books and a discussion
of how the text in the dialogue bubbles interacts with the visual images to
create a narrative. Provide your students with the opportunity to
experiment with the composition of stories that incorporate dialogue bubbles.
Readers’ Theater.
As we have suggested in previous entries for books comprised of dialogue (e.g.,
I Want My Hat Back and This is Not My Hat), Up! Tall! And High! is excellent
material for exploration through Readers’ Theater. View the author’s read-aloud of the text
linked in Further Explorations below and then invite groups of students to try
their own dramatization of the three stories in the text.
Word Study.
Through the text and images of the book, Ethan Long explores the subtle
differences in meaning among the words: up, tall, and high. Over a period of
time, ask your students to note / collect examples of the uses of these words
in phrases and sentences. Record the examples so that you can look across the
listing to try to develop generalizations around the use of these words.
Cartoons Strips: Comparisons. Discuss with your students
how the illustrations and and text of Up! Tall! And High! help to explain these
concepts. Invite your students to try their own hand at depicting the concepts
explored in the book up/down, tall/ short, high/ low in a cartoon strip format,
using Ethan Long’s style as inspiration for their own work.
Grades 1 -6
Bird Heights. Up! Tall! And High! might also be used a
launch for an inquiry into height and flight ranges in the bird species. The
BBC site and the Audubon foundation site listed below could be a starting point
for this exploration. Use Steve Jenkins’s book Actual Size as inspiration for a class created texts that depicts
birds of different varieties and sizes.
Author / Illustrator
Study. Ethan Long is quite prolific. Gather together a collection of his
books and explore information about him provided on his website. Read the books
over time, noting patterns in his artistic style, character development, and use
of humor and word play.
Up! Tall! And High! As
a Mentor Text. Invite your students to study the illustrative? artistic?
(so as not to confuse with a text-based definition of “composition”) composition
of Up! Tall! And High! bBefore composing their own graphic texts. You could
leave the subject matter open- ended or your could as your students to write a
text that includes comparisons of some sort (height, location, shape, etc.). On
her blog, A Fuse 8 Production, Elizabeth Bird includes a wonderful video that
shows Ethan Long drawing the birds featured in the story. Students will be
inspired by and eager to try to create the expressive effect Long achieves with
very simple lines.
Comparison to Dr. Seuss.
Discuss the fact that Up! Tall! And High!
has received an award that, in name, honors the work of Theodore Geisel, or Dr.
Seuss. Compare Up! Tall! And High! with one of Dr. Seuss’s beginning readers such
as Hop on Pop. What is similar about
the two books? What is different? What makes the books well suited for
beginning readers? Expand this activity by gathering the other Geisel award
winners and sharing the award criteria with your students. Distribute the books
to small groups of students and ask them to discuss how in their view, the
criteria apply to the winners. As a further extension of this activity, you
might ask older students to use what they have learned about books for
beginning readers to author their own beginning reader book. These books can be
shared with primary grade students.
Further discussion of Geisel award winners can be found in our Classroom
Bookshelf entry for Tales for Very Picky Eaters.
Further Explorations
Online Resources
Geisel Award Home Page
Geisel Award Criteria
http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/geiselaward/geiselawardtermscriteria/geiselawardtermscriter
Ethan Long’s Website
School Library Journal: A Fuse 8 Production: Review of the
Day
YouTube: Ethan Long Reads Up! Tall! And High!
BBC: Bird Size Range
Audubon: Birds
Seussville
Books
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Tall. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick
Press.
Coffelt, N. (2009). Big,
bigger, biggest. New York: Henry Holt.
Hayes, G. (2009). Benny
and Penny in the big no-no!: A Toon Book. New York: Raw Junior.
Henkes, K. (2009). Birds.
New York: Greenwillow Books.
Jenkins, S. (2004). Actual size. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Klassen, J. (2011). I
want by hat back. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.
Klassen, J. (2012). This
is not my hat. Somerville, MA. Candlewick Press.
Miller, M. (1998). Big
and little. New York: Greenwillow Books.
Patricelli, L. (2009). Higher!
Higher! Cambridge, MA: Candlewick Press.
Seuss, Dr. (1963). Hop
on pop. New York: Beginner Books.
Schneider, J. (2011). Tales
for very picky eaters. New York: Clarion Books.
Tankard, J. (2007). Grumpy
bird. New York: Scholastic.
Willems, M. (2010). Let’s
say hi to friends that fly. Cat the
Cat. New York: Baltzer & Bray.
Willems, M. (2009). Big
Frog can’t fit in: A pop-up book. New York: Hyperion.
Willems, M. (2007). There
is a bird on your head. Elephant & Piggie. New York: Hyperion.
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