Hipster picture book! Awesome!

Actually, quite well done, and a very nice book. ( )

I sincerely do not get the tattoo craze and have no desire to participate, but this book helps me understand just a little as a daddy explains his tattoos to his little boy as they wind down to bedtime. I really love the art and picked up this book strictly to get a little more Eliza Wheeler in my life. ( )

This story its about a little boy who is asking his dad all about his tattoos.

Tell Me A Tattoo Story
By Alison McGhee

I liked this book for a number of reasons. The language of the book had a sense of rhythm to it and it was also patterned. The way the author asked questions and answered them as he was talking to his son was interesting. The genre of this book is contemporary realistic fiction because we do not know if this was a true story, however, it could have easily happened in real life, also the setting is seemingly set in today’s society. We weren’t told character names or a time period, but it wasn’t necessary. The story was also all narrated by the father with the tattoos. The father repeated his son’s question then responded. For example, the first line of the story is “You wanna see my tattoos? Why, little man, you always want to see my tattoos. Here we go then.” This first line told us that the boy’s father has a lot of memories tattooed on his body that he loves to share with his son. The father also repeatedly called his son “little man” which showed the tone of the the father-son relationship.
The author didn’t assign character names so that the audience could relate and connect to the story as well. The author also wrote in a predictable language because of the way the father would ask a rhetorical question then answer it in a similar way each time. For example, the father would say “This one reminds me of a pretty girl. What made her so pretty? That’s a good question little man. I’d have to say it was her smile. Have you met her? You sure have.” Then later in the story when the father recalled being away at war, he said, “Did I miss home while I was there? I sure did.” This was how the author orchestrated the language throughout the story. My favorite was at the end when the little man asked what the tattooed heart meant on his father’s chest. And when the father showed his tattoo with his son’s birth date on it, he asked his son if he knew who that person was and the father replied to his own question, “you sure do.” I also enjoyed the illustrations from this story.
The illustrations were imperative to the story because they illustrated a landmark or a memory that the father wanted to remember and describe. His tattoos told a story of his past and his beloved family members. For example, the father had a tattoo of the Ferris wheel where he first met his wife. And on his wrist he has a phrase that his father always reminded him of: “be kind”. The tattoos told a story starting from when he was little all the way to a tattoo of a heart with his son’s birth date on it.
The message of this story is so valuable for students to read because the history of a stereotypical person with tattoos is that they are perceived as bad or scary, when in reality they all have meaning and a story behind them. This book puts a different perspective on tattoos that some students whose parents don’t have tattoos need to see and recognize. This eye-opening message says that not everyone who has tattoos is a bad person, and everyone should be respected for their choices. ( )