David Gets in Trouble

Shannon, D. (2002). David gets in trouble. New York: Scholastic, Inc.

What a delightful book—especially for young children! This picture book fits within the realistic fiction genre. The story is relatable and could certainly happen. It uses both words and illustrations to tell the story. With very little text in the book, the illustrations are essential in telling the story. The story would make little sense without the support of the very detailed, colorful illustrations.

In regard to the illustrations, David Shannon uses bright and intense colors to reflect the chaotic world of this young boy—the main character, David. Additionally, his lines go in all different directions to further support the disarray. The objects within the illustrations are also large and a bit oversized. All these elements combined show just how much “trouble” David is causing to the world around him—from skateboarding in the house to breaking a window with a baseball to pulling his cat’s tail. In the end, though, David says that he is sorry—with a doublespread illustration of his face. Additionally, the background is blue, which reminds me of tears and sorrow. This shows that David is truly sorry for what he’s done.

While I’m familiar with David Goes to School, this is my first time encountering this particular story by David Shannon. My kindergarten students could very easily to relate to this boy, because they’ve all had similar experiences. When reading with young children, it’s helpful to use books that allow students to draw from their own experiences (their schema). For this reason, I would encourage students to make text-to-self connections after reading this story—asking them to share a time when they’d gotten in trouble. At the beginning of the year, I would just ask them to share their connections orally—as this is most developmentally appropriate. Later, you could have them draw a picture of a time they’d gotten in trouble and possibly even write a sentence to describe the event. I feel that this book makes a great starting point for teaching terms like schema and text-to-self connections, because all students have experienced something like this in their lives. The following photograph (found on Pinterest) clearly shows that making text-to-self connections provides a link between the book and an individual.

Here are some questions/prompts I'd ask to facilitate students as they make text-to-self connections:

1. Tell me about a time that you've gotten in trouble. What were you doing? What should you have been doing? 
2. How did it make you feel when you were corrected? 
3. What did you do to make it better? (Did you say "sorry" like David?)
4. Did you learn from your mistakes?