Kristyna Litten

One day Bertie the giraffe wakes up and realizes he has been separated from his herd and is completely lost. He wanders a bit and finds a Blue, a giraffe who is ... you guessed it, blue. Blue shows Bertie parts of their world he had never seen before and then brings Bertie back to his herd. But can Blue fit in with all the other giraffes?

While the core messages of friendship, acceptance, and joyful discovery outside of your comfort zone are all fantastic, something about this book just didn't "click." The illustrations are comically cartoonish, but not in a good way. The text isn't much to write home about -- a bit of purposeful repetition here and there, but no rhyming or other literary devices typically found in picture books. The two main characters are of course male and no other character is given enough details to know anything about them. Even the children I shared this book with seem disinterested and did not include this one in the pile of "read again!" picture books.… (mehr)

Blue and Bertie
This book is about a giraffe, Bertie, that gets separated from its herd that does the same thing every day. He must find his way back but runs into a blue giraffe in the way. The blue giraffe, Blue, shows him all sorts of new things will leading him back to his herd. Bertie asks him to join the herd and then the whole herd does different stuff every day. I liked this book for three reasons. One reason is that the author uses fonts to demonstrate tone. When Bertie saw the giraffe that was blur the text went big and blue at the part, “he was BLUE.” When the giraffes do something over and over it’s put in bold and looks boring. The use of fonts to display a message I though was really cool and different. Not enough books do that and visuals like that always help a reader understand the point that is trying to be presented. The second thins I like about the book is the colorful pictures. The pictures started out boring but when Bertie saw blue they became very colorful and different. Color is important in a book because it makes it more interesting to the reader. A child would almost always rather read a colorful book then a black and white book. Finally the third thing that I liked about the book was its message. The message was that it’s okay to try new things. Bertie did the same thing every day but when he met Blue he started doing different things and liked it. This message is important because it tells a children to try new things and expand their world. In conclusion I liked this book because of the unique use of font, colorful pictures, and positive message.… (mehr)

I read the book Blue and Bertie by Krystina Litten. This book was about a group of giraffes that eat, sleep, and drink together every day in the same routine. One day Bertie doesn’t wake up from his nap in time to drink with the herd and loses them and becomes lost. He then runs into blue who helps him find his way back. I liked this book for a couple reasons. First, I think the illustrations were very good. Throughout the book, the emotions of both Bertie and Blue changed depending on their moods and it was very consistent. The drawings weren’t extravagant and it was easy to understand what was going on on each page. The second thing I liked was the message the book portrayed. Even though Bertie got lost and was afraid, and even though Blue didn’t feel he fit in with the normal giraffes, they still helped each other out and stuck by one another through the book.… (mehr)

I truly enjoyed the deeper meaning behind this book. I think the pictures helped portray the real message in this book. For example, the giraffe’s in this text were different colors than each other, but deep down are exactly the same. The deeper message behind this book is that is okay to be a little different than each other, as well as how important it is to accept someone else’s differences. One giraffe is not inferior to the other, and their friendship was not change by the fact that one giraffe was yellow/orange, and the other giraffe was blue. The sounds in the book were written in bold print text, which allowed the sounds to stick with me even after reading. The colorful and vibrant images in the book showed how much fun the two giraffes had together on their journey.… (mehr)