Elephant & Piggie - We Are in a Book! — Chapter 1

About This Passage

Selected because Gerald gives voice to a position no character is supposed to be able to take: he protests the limits of his own form. The repetition of "more" builds toward the simple final clause ("I just want to be read"), which is the most precise possible articulation of what a fictional character could ever want — the only kind of attention a character can receive. Mo Willems compresses a small philosophical claim about the nature of fiction into eight short sentences.

Narration Prompt

Summarize this chapter, then explain what you think the author most wanted the reader to notice or feel. What techniques did the author use?

Discussion Questions

1. Mo Willems uses metafiction — characters aware of being in a book — in a story for very young readers. The technique has a long history in adult literature (Cervantes, Sterne, Borges, Calvino). Argue why Willems brings the technique into the early-reader form, and what young readers gain from learning about books from inside a book.
2. Gerald says, "I have more to give. More words. More jokes. More bananas. I just want to be read." Argue what kind of feeling this is. Is Gerald afraid of mortality (the book ending = his death), of incompleteness (he had more story to tell), of being unappreciated (no one reading him), or something more precise to the condition of being a fictional character?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide