Module 12: Me Jane

Book Summary: This book tells the story of a young Jane Goodall and her stuffed chimpanzee, Jubilee. Jane enjoys play with Jubilee and exploring the outdoors. She finds a fascination with the natural world and dreams of one day getting to study chimpanzees in the wild.

APA Reference of Book:McDonnell, P. (2011). Me... Jane. New York: Little, Brown. 

Impressions: I very much enjoyed this book. The text is very simple and the drawings are beautiful. It is easy enough for young children to understand but still enjoyable for adults who will appreciate the art. I particularly liked the style of the book. It is laid out with the illustration on one side with smudged looking edges and the text on the other. The text pages have lightly drawn images decorating them that are very pretty. It makes the whole thing look more like a scrapbook of Jane's childhood.
 
Professional Review:
Little Jane loves her stuffed animal, a chimpanzee named Jubilee, and carries him everywhere she goes. Mainly, they go outdoors, where they watch birds building their nests and squirrels chasing each other. Jane reads about animals in books and keeps a notebook of sketches, information, and puzzles. Feeling her kinship with all of nature, she often climbs her favorite tree and reads about another Jane, Tarzan’s Jane. She dreams that one day she, too, will live in the African jungle and help the animals. And one day, she does. With the story’s last page turn, the illustrations change from ink-and-watercolor scenes of Jane as a child, toting Jubilee, to a color photo of Jane Goodall as a young woman in Africa, extending her hand to a chimpanzee. Quietly told and expressively illustrated, the story of the child as a budding naturalist is charming on its own, but the photo on the last page opens it up through a well-chosen image that illuminates the connections between childhood dreams and adult reality. On two appended pages, “About Jane Goodall” describes her work, while “A Message from Jane” invites others to get involved. This remarkable picture book is one of the few that speaks, in a meaningful way, to all ages.
— Carolyn Phelan

 Phelan, C. (2011).  Me Jane  [Review of the book Me Jane? by P. McDonnell].  Booklist.  Retrieved from www.booklistonline.com




Library Uses: This would be nice to use along with programming about ecology, monkeys, or about Goodall herself to help children become more familiar with preservation and research efforts and how they might get involved.