Teacher and Parent Resources

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Getting the most out of MITTENS

Excuse me, but my name is NOT ‘Mittens’! is the self published debut picture book by the award winning illustrator, Louise Wills.

This is the charming and surreal story of a girl who has her stubborn and quick-to-judge mindset challenged by her neighbours cat. She assumes her neighbour’s cat is old and boring and not worth playing with. When the cat eventually speaks to her, he takes her on a journey through his internal universe, where she realises that the assumptions she has made about him are further from the truth than she could have imagined.

Using striking illustrations, symbolism, and surrealism the author/illustrator tells a heartwarming tale of friendship, acceptance and imagination. Encouraging you to slow down and look. As you journey through this book with the characters you awaken a sense of wonder and find your self reflecting on the minds of all the people you haven’t met yet, and even those you think you know well.

Mittens can be used by teachers and parents to talk with children and reflect on social issues of judgment, agism and friendship. It’s also a great basis for discussing visual storytelling and narrative, self reflection, art and design, symbols, metaphor, surrealism and of course, creativity.

A Visual Narrative

This beautifully illustrated book is a visual narrative, which means the story is told mainly through illustrations, rather than using lots of words. One of the most important skills in drawing is not how to draw, but how to see and learning to look. This is also a crucial skill in learning to read. Visual narratives help your child develop an understanding of how stories work, encouraging them to look and see things that link the characters and elements together, helping to develop an idea of the structure of narrative. The child will pay close attention to the details in the images and look for the narrative. This encourages development of creativity and the ability to engage in non prescriptive ideas.

Having less words to direct the thoughts or impressions of the reader is a way of unlocking the imagination and allowing opportunity for their own discovery and input into the narrative. The child may notice, for example, that the cat increases with size through out the story and create their own explanation as to why this might be the case.

Sometimes parents find it hard to know how to interact with a book that has only a few words to read. It is important to spend time on each page of a book, looking at the pictures and asking your child questions about what they can see and letting the child discuss what they think is happening. You could also comment on the illustrations, the feelings the characters might have or what it might be like to be doing what they are doing in the story. What might it smell like to be floating in a sardine shaped hot air balloon?!

Stories are a great spring board for discussing other topics in your child’s world. It is useful to reflect on similarities, for example your child might know some one who seems boring, old, and quiet, like Mittens, you could use this comparison to discuss that there may be things you don’t know about that person and wonder what their mind might be thinking about.

SOME SUGGESTED Questions to ask Your Students

• Do you notice what happens to the cat as the girl gets to know him? Why do you think this is?

• Do you notice what happens to the girl’s mask? Where is it at the beginning of the story? What happens to it by the end? What could the mask symbolise?

• What happens with the cardboard box?

• Have you ever assumed that someone is boring then got to know them and been surprised by what you find out?

• What people in your life do you think the cat might represent?

• Why do you think the author has chosen not to reveal the cat or the girls name?

• Why do you think the author has made the cat belong to her neighbour and not to her?

• On page 4 why do you think the illustrator has chosen to make not everything in the picture colour?

• When the characters are ‘inside’ the cats mind what do you think the lines, symbols and drawings in the background could represent? What do these thinks make you think about the cat.

• Why do you think the author has used so little words to tell the story? Do you think you can tell a story or talk about an idea without using any words?

• What happens when the girl gets in the box with the cat?

• How do you feel at the end of the story?

• What words and images can you think of to describe the girl and the cat’s personality? To create the characters the author made a mind map of each character with words and pictures to create a representation of who the character is.

• At the beginning of the story, do you agree with the girl? Do you have someone or something in your life who sits around not doing very much? Or do you see people and make assumptions about them. Does this story make you feel differently about them?

• If his name is NOT Mittens then what is it? Do you think the characters should have names? why or why not? If you do, then what should the names be? How does it change the way you view or feel about the character when they have a name?

SOME SUGGESTED Activities

• If the Illustrator asked you to write words to go on the pages with no text. what would you say? would you describe what they characters are feeling, or what they are doing? would you use poetry?

• Are there things that go on in your mind that other people don’t know about? What would they look like if you created an art work to explain them

• If you were going to take a friend on a journey through your mind, what would they see? Create a picture. Think of something you would like to represent and using collage create a mind-scape of you and your friend traveling through the land.

• What can you see in the pictures that cats like? Are they being represented in a way you would expect?  for example, some Cats like balls of wool but the way this cat thinks about them is unexpected, Think about how this could relate to people you know what are you assuming about them?

• Surrealism was a type of art which ‘sought to release the creative potential of the unconscious mind, by the irrational juxtaposition of images’. Where has the artist used this technique? Why do you think this is a suitable way to represent some one’s mind? Look at some famous surreal artworks and discuss what visual stories they could be telling

   

• Do you have a pet? Create an artwork about of what they might have in their mind.

  TIP – think of something to represent, like a piece of cheese for a pet mouse then think of ways to change the perspective and make it surreal. Could the cheese be as big as a car, a building, or a planet? How are the characters moving around the cheese related world? What other thinks might come into the picture? Push the boundaries of what is possible and see what you come up with.

   

• Think about someone you don’t know? Someone you see waiting at the bus stop, working in the supermarket, or walking down the street. What do you think their internal universe might be like?

DESIGNING THE BOOK

PLANNING THE STORY