June 29, 1999 (Science fiction)

June 29, 1999

by David Weisner

This story is about a girl, Holly, who conducts a science experiment where she sends vegetable seedlings into the sky to see what impact extraterrestrials have on vegetable growth. She reports on the experiment in a journal, and on June, 29, 1999  huge vegetables are floating all over in the sky. They eventually float to earth, but was this a result of her experiment? Sadly, for Holly, it was not. It was a ship that had lost it food contents over Aurora Borealis.

This book is classified as Science Fiction, which according to our textbook "is concerned with present-day scientific possibilities on the world of the future (Lee,2010)." The story is plausible, of course with the help of science and innovation. We have seen additives that can make vegetables in particular, grow to amazing sizes. Science fiction does not always have to be futuristic, and this story is a great example of this.

I really love the illustrations in this book. Many of the pictures depict overly sized vegetables over cities adding to the story line, which talks about specific vegetables over specific towns or cities. The illustrations uses watercolor and paintbrushes for media and technique. I believe the style of art is a combination of representational and surrealistic art. The charcter herself is a"literal, realistic depiction of the charcater", but the oversized fruit uses both surrealism and represenational since images are that of "dreams(Lee,2010)." The artwork is beautiful with rich colors that add depth to the illustrations and story.

Some activities to use with this book would be to conduct our own experiments, hands-on activites are some of the best in helping retain information. This will take some pre-planning of a few weeks to start seedlings grow. You can plant seedlings, and have students keep a log of their findings on the seed growth, you can add sunlight, remove sunlight, water, no water, to different seeds, and see which ones grows the fastest. Have the students make predictions. Once the results are in you can have the students make a conclusion page, and read the selected book. After reading the book you can have the students do a writing assignment that can include the "response question" What kind of things can you think of that would make vegetables grow so big that they would be as big as the ones in the book? answer could be a raygun, fertilizers, etc. The more creative the better to create imaginative, creative discussion.

Another activity that can be used, comes from the book's idea to make a recipe (Lee, 2010). Have the students jot down all the vegetables listed and make a recipe using those ingredients. They should write their selected ingredients, how to make them, and a picture to depict the end result.

This book was really cute, and I feel would be a great additional to my classroom library. I feel that it allows the children to make predictions, read a very entertaining story with very imaginative artwork, and has many design features that lends itself well to classroom activities to engage students in reading.

Resources

Lee Galda, B. E.Cullinan, and L. Sipe. (2010). Literature and the Child. 7th Ed. Belmont: Wadworth. Cenage.

Weisner. D. (1992). June, 29, 1999. Clarion Books. New York.