Module 12: Me...Jane by Patrick McDonnell

BOOK COVER IMAGE:

BOOK SUMMARY: 

Me...Jane by Patrick McDonnell is a biography of Jane Goodall but focuses on her childhood passion.  From the very beginning, Jane had a passion for nature and animals.  She allowed her curiosity to guide her observations of various animals such as chickens and their eggs.  The book is very short, ending by Jane going to bed, longing to be in Africa, awaking as an adult, with her dream realized.                

APA REFERENCE OF BOOK: 

McDonnell, P. (2011).  Me...Jane. New York, NY: Little Brown and Company.

IMPRESSIONS: 

A wonderful story for children, illustrated with watercolors to highlight the childhood of Jane Goodall, when her passion for nature was first formed.  McDonnell paints a very different view of Jane, one of a young girl who longed to be in a different world, among the nature and animals she read about.  While readers will learn that Jane was diligent in her observations, recording the natural world around her, we are instantly taken to her adulthood after one night's sleep.  McDonnell's illustrations up to this point are all in watercolor images, and then adult Jane is shown in a photograph, among a primate.  A great story about dreaming, using the life of primatologist Jane Goodall.              

PROFESSIONAL REVIEW: 

"Where Jeanette Winter’s The Watcher (rev. p. 144) devotes just five of its forty-eight pages to Jane Goodall’s childhood, Me…Jane devotes all but two spreads to the great primatologist’s formative years. And despite its rather cheeky title (justified by the young Jane’s devotion to Edgar Rice Burroughs), McDonnell’s book is the more inspirational. His Jane, along with her stuffed toy chimp Jubilee, studies nature wherever and however she can; as with Winter’s book, Jane’s observation of a hen laying an egg is highlighted as a key moment. But study is only part of the picture, as Jane rejoices in the simple activity of just being outdoors: “It was a magical world full of joy and wonder, and Jane felt very much a part of it.” Jane dreams of traveling to Africa and, in a wonderful sequence of page turns, goes to sleep [page turn], wakes up an adult in her tent [page turn], and is living her “dream come true.” And here McDonnell’s homey, earth-toned pen and watercolor pictures give way to that most famous of all Goodall photographs, where the young scientist and an even younger chimp reach across their worlds to touch hands. The simple and intimate paintings are accented with casually arrayed stamped motifs and some of Goodall’s childhood drawings; a note about Goodall’s current projects and “A Message from Jane” are appended." - Roger Sutton


Reference:

Sutton, R. (2011). [Review of the book Me...Jane by Patrick McDonnell]. Horn Book Magazine, 87(2), 140-141.  

LIBRARY USES: 

A library idea for this book would be to have students discuss their dreams, their deepest passion and have them write it on a piece of paper.  Then those papers can be glued onto a bulletin board with an image of a bed on it.  Explain to students that these are their dreams and one day, they will wake up to have them come true, just like Jane.