Product Description

The unpredictable events of a particular Tuesday unroll before the reader with the precision and clarity of a silent movie. A Caldecott Medal book.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2449 in Books
• Published on: 1997-07-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 32 pages

From Amazon.com
David Weisner has allowed his imagination to run free in Tuesday, and the result is a wondrous and mysterious picture book that mixes the ordinary with the unimaginable. He's merged his talent with the palette and his penchant for odd perspective to create a book where frogs careen through suburbia on flying lily pads, startling witnesses and spooking a dog. And that's just for starters. Tuesday has few words and no human protagonist, relying instead on a surreal and supernatural vision. The book, for children ages 5 years old and up, won the 1992 Caldecott Medal.

From Publishers Weekly
Leapin' lizards?er, frogs! The many fans of Wiesner's 1992 Caldecott Medal-winning Tuesday will be hoppy to learn that one of its acrobatic amphibian actors has landed in his very own book-and-toy package. The personable critter rests (courtesy of Velcro) on fabric lily pad, accompanied by a paperback edition of the book (Clarion, $22, ages 5-up ISBN 0-395-73511-4 May).
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 4-- As the full moon rises over a peaceful marsh, so do frogs on their lily pads--levitating straight up into the air and sailing off, with surpris with some laundry, hovering briefly before a TV left on. A dog chases one lone low-coasting frog, but is summarily routed by a concerted amphibious armada. Suddenly the rays of the rising sun dispel the magic; the frogs fall to ed but gratified expressions. Fish stick their heads out of the water to watch; a turtle gapes goggle-eyed. The phalanx of froggies glides over houses in a sleeping village, interrupting the one witness's midnight snack, tanglingthe ground and hop back to their marsh, leaving police puzzling over the lily pads on Main Street. In the final pages, the sun sets on the following Tuesday--and the air fills with ascending pigs! Dominated by rich blues and greens, and fully exploiting its varied perspectives, this book treats its readers to the pleasures of airborne adventure. It may not be immortal, but kids will love its lighthearted, meticulously imagined, fun-without-a-moral fantasy. Tuesday is bound to take off. --Patricia Dooley, University of Washington, Seattle
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

tell your own story
Although there are very few words included with the wonderful illustrations, I have a pretty standard version of the story which my kids expect to hear whenever we read the book. The illustrations contain so many humourous details that the story can be subtly varied in each telling to help keep the story teller amused.

If you are not sure about making up stories for your kids, this book might provide an excellent template--just describe what you see in the pictures.

Monday you can fall apart. Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart
We've all heard the stories of the skies, for whatever reason, raining frogs on innocent town travelers. This natural occurrence of the wild is one of the great weirdnesses of life. So how much odder is it, really, to consider frogs flying? They have all the self-possession required of such a task. Frogs are a uniquely calm species. Confident even. In Dave Wiesner's essentially wordless book "Tuesday", amphibian folk are given the unexplained power of floatation. In his tale, Wiesner considers what exactly frogs would do with the gift of flying if it was granted them.

One of the best pictures in this book is on one of the first pages. There, a turtle cowers into its shell as black eyed pupil-less frogs rise on their lily pads out of the water. The frogs descend, so to speak, on a nearby suburb, and proceed to wreak some minor havok. They disturb a man pausing to eat a late night sandwich. They disturb laundry and enter old ladies' homes to watch a little telly. And they take a great amount of pleasure in scaring a dog that would undoubtedly eat them if it had the chance. As the book ends, the frogs are relieved of their otherworldly powers and hop back to the swamps, leaving only their lily pads behind them. The next Tuesday, at the same time, we're given a hint of how a more porcine animal will handle flight.

Wiesner is a genius at the visual gag. His illustrations are simple watercolors, well-detailed and in-depth. Wiesner knows when to give an animal human expressions and when to leave it looking particularly froggy. He gets every single one of those frogs' spots down , and can manipulate his illustrations in such a way that you never doubt for a moment the ridiculous things you're seeing. To top it all off, the man's a master at conveying light. I'm particularly attached to a scene of flying frogs watching t.v., a wary cat crouching in the background. The old lady asleep in the chair is wearing glasses that are reflecting the light of the television perfectly. On top of that, this is exactly what a room lit only by a single screen looks like. Wiesner's details are marvelous. Make sure to notice the frog appreciatively eyeing the old lady's painting of the forest.

There aren't that many wordless picture books out there these days though Wiesner has made a name for himself by specializing in this area. After reading "Tuesday", you can understand why he deserves this honor. Both witty and perverse, this author/illustrator lets you see into worlds you never could have imagined existed before he came up with them. You'll be thankful that he did.

Wordless, yet eventful Plot
David Wiesner's, almost wordless, book, "Tuesday," gives the reader a vivid story about a group of frogs who take their lily pads for a ride. Their lily pads fly through the air and through the neighborhood. The frogs' adventure ends when the sun begins to rise. However, the next Tuesday, another animal gets to take a similar adventure.

In the book, "Tuesday," David Wiesner uses watercolor on Arches paper for the illustrations. The illustrator uses dark colors to represent the time of night in this story. The dark colors also give the viewer a sense of mystery as they flip through the pages. However, the illustrator also uses light colors to represent the light from a house, the glow from a television set or the time of day. David Wiesner uses line to show the action of the frogs, by guiding the viewers' eye through the frogs' adventure on their lily pads. Wiesner's choice to make the frogs in the book, "Tuesday," makes the frogs seem friendly and happy.
My favorite aspect of the illustration was that color. The light and dark differences found throughout the book made the story seem very real, even though the plot is very, "magical." The use of blues and grays make the frogs flying through the air seem mysterious. While the fluorescent lights of the kitchen give a very drastic change to the frogs flying in the night outside. I also think that it was very cute for the frog to be waving at the man in the kitchen. I think that is a minor detail that a child will most likely pick up on and appreciate.
The lighting of the television room was another favorite for me. I like how the artist let the glow of the television shadow the frogs and the old woman. I enjoyed the fact that the frogs made themselves at home with the remote control and the cat looking on, in the background.
I think this is a book that a child would definitely enjoy to, "read," especially since they do not have to read. The child is free to let their imagination do the storytelling.