The Land of Lost Thing / El Pais de Las Cosas Perdidas

This book was written and illustrated by Dina Bursztyn. It was published in 2011 by Pinata Books; Bilingual edition.
Lexile Level: AD430L     Ages: 5-7

Summary:

     The Land of Lost Things is a bilingual book about a young boy wanted to draw, but his blue pencil was missing. He looked inside his pencil box. It was empty, but there was a narrow path. He followed the path and arrived in a forest of blue pencils. Continuing to explore he found a missing button, hair comb, scissors, and everything else he had ever lost. He followed the path through the mountain of mittens, the garden of lost umbrellas, and the flock of flying socks. He catches a sock and looks through the hole in the sock and went back to his pencil box.

Evaluation and Illustrations:

     I found the illustrations in this book to be a bit odd. When I was doing some research on the writer/illustrator Dina Bursztyn I found an article that was discussing whether the character is a boy or a girl. To me, the character looks like a young boy, but I could see how some readers see the character as a girl.There was also a discussion over which race the character is, on some pages he has darker skin and on other pages he has lighter skin. Unfortunately, I found the illustrations inconsistent. One thing I did find nicely done was the boy’s exploration is depicted with the whimsical art in digital collage, opaque watercolors and markers.The reader can clearly tell he is walking through a garden of umbrellas or a mountain of gloves.

     I think this was a good story but there is room for improvement. The plot for younger students is believable because younger children lose things all the time and they go on a mini adventures to find there missing item. This book is bilingual and on each page there is a English on the left page and Spanish on the right page. I found text was a bit slow and awkward and much more could have been done with this story. The ending is also very abrupt and could leave the reader confused. Altogether, I think the illustrations pulled the story together to make it an enjoyable read for both the English readers and the Spanish readers. This may not be a story I would use as a read-out-loud maybe just a book I would have in my classroom. I think it would be OK to do a read-out-loud when you have Spanish speaking students.

Literary Elements:

     The main character in this story is the young boy who is trying to find his blue colored pencil. The tone of this story starts out sad because he cannot find his blue pencil, but as he begins to explore "the land of lost things" he cheers up because he is finding so much lost stuff, like his comb and scissors. The setting of this story is in the young boys home and it moves into the path of his pencil case.

1. Character: the young boy
2. Tone: sad to happy
3. Setting: the boys home and pencil case

In the Classroom:

     An activity I would do with my students is have them think about something they lost that was important to them. Once they know the item have them write a paragraph about that item.
Including:

• What is the item?
• Where did you(or think you) lost the item?
• Did you find the item?
• How long was it missing for?
• Where did you find it?

 

 

Bursztyn, D. (2011). The Land of Lost Things/El Pais de Las Cosas Perdidas. Pinata Books.