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195th out of 262 books
—
27 voters
Bad Day at Riverbend
Riverbend was a quiet little town, the kind of place where one day was just like all the rest and nothing ever happened. Occasionally the stagecoach rolled through, but it never stopped, because no one ever came to Riverbend and no one ever left. The day the stagecoach stood motionless in the center of town, Sheriff Ned Hardy knew something was terribly wrong. What was the...more
Hardcover, 32 pages
Published
October 30th 1995
by Houghton Mifflin Books for Children
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Chris Van Allsburg does something very different and unique with the illustrations in "Bad Day at Riverbend". This is one of the first things I noticed when I picked up the book, as the front cover shows a black-outlined drawing of a man in a cowboy hat, which seems to then be messily drawn on with crayon. The front end-page is solid black, which gives the reader minimal clues about what is to come. The town of Riverbend is sleepy and rather boring. That is until Sheriff Ned Hardy sees a red lig...more
This book is portrait orientated because it depicts a community of people. The color in this book is something to be discussed. I think it was excellently used through the scribbling - which enhances its appeal to a child when being read out loud. It uses bright colors of red, purple, green, blue and yellow - all typical colors that a child would use when coloring. The art technique that is used is something I am very familiar with because it's the only art technique that I can do - scribbling/c...more
Choosing this book from the library shelf, I flipped through it quickly and saw that it had been scribbled in. It was a library book; I was a little dismayed but not surprised that some kid with crayons had gotten a hold of it. I was also surprised at the drawings; Chris Van Allsburg is one of my favorite illustrators, so the simple (and poorly rendered) contour drawings were disappointing at first. But then I started reading, and began to understand the concept. Van Allsburg knew just what he w...more
Bad Day at Riverbend is a hilarious story of an old western town. One day something strange happens, the stage coach stops in town. The stage coach is also covered in crazy colored greasy squiggles. The town is in a panic as the greasy squiggles spread.
Chris Van Allsburg never ceases to amaze me at his creativity. The pictures are my favorite. They look as if a child has scribbled all over them. It isn't until the end of the book when you find out the town is really in a coloring book and a chi...more
Chris Van Allsburg never ceases to amaze me at his creativity. The pictures are my favorite. They look as if a child has scribbled all over them. It isn't until the end of the book when you find out the town is really in a coloring book and a chi...more
Bad Day at Riverbend, published in 1995, is another picture book written and illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg. The book has a portrait layout, but the illustrations cover both pages, giving the book, essentially, a landscape orientation. When the book begins, it appears to be a coloring book. The lines of the pictures are bold, but there is no color at all. A few pages into the story, the first bit of color is seen, but it appears that the pictures have been scribbled on by a child, which we fi...more
Bad Day at Riverbend by Chris Van Allsburg is such a great children's book. I read it for the first time this past week and I had to read it many times. It is now one of my favorite books I have every read. As I was reading the book, I analyzed each picture very carefully. In each of the pages something in the picture was scribbled on. I wasn't too sure on what was the author trying to do, or why he was doing it. The story was really cute about a little town named Riverbend who came upon some un...more
Van Allsburg demonstrates his genius with this book. He broke out of his comfort zone artistically by abandoning his sculpture-like illustrations (until the end) and crafted a pen and ink style coloring book. Of course, the beauty is in the tale as we see scribbles all over. What a unique perspective! This is so different.
A must read for any Van Allsburg fan!
I had not read this before, but I was aware of the coloring that is in the book. The librarian at the public library was not. She was conce...more
A must read for any Van Allsburg fan!
I had not read this before, but I was aware of the coloring that is in the book. The librarian at the public library was not. She was conce...more
It's hard to say what meaning there may be to this book, except perhaps to keep your imagination open to unseen possibilities. The illustrations are striking. It seems almost that the story was built around the images. The illustrations are mostly all full-bleed (so to speak). The background is all in black and white outlines, like in a coloring book. Then, crayon-like scribble marks fill certain parts of the images. The main colors are fiery (red, dark pink, and a yellow-orange), but blue, gree...more
The pictures in this book are nothing short of interesting. Instead of great amounts of detail and bright colors, the pictures look pencil drawn and are colored with scribbles in primary colors like red, yellow, and blue. The book definitely appeals to kids in this way, because it looks like a child colored in the pictures. I also think this is a book that really opens up the imagination. The story itself mixes with the pictures and makes the reader feel like there is something a little off. I t...more
Bad Day at Riverbend was written and illustrated by Chris Van Allsburg. The book has a portrait shape and the illustrations inside are double page spreads. The illustrations are black and white and resemble pictures found in a coloring book. As you read through the story different colored crayon appears on the pages representing shiny, greasy slime. The illustrations are full bleed and there are no boarders. The pictures are one dimensional until you reach the last few pages of the story where t...more
Chris Van Allsburg's Bad Day at Riverbend was a great book for children, boys and girls. The story was set in a quiet little town in the 1800’s. All of the sudden one day strange appearances begin to happen. A stagecoach roles into town and stops. Little squiggles of some substance begin beaming off of the stage coach. These squiggles continue to spread, this is when Sheriff Ned Hardy decides to take matters into his own hands. In the end of the book you come to find that this quiet little town...more
“Bad Day at Riverbend” is a unique book from Chris Van Allsburg about how Sheriff Ned Hardy discovers a mysterious light coming from the sky and causes mayhem in the town of Riverbend. “Bad Day at Riverbend” is a very unique book that children will take some interest in; however the story itself may bore many children since there are too many scenes that slow up the story.
Chris Van Allsburg’s illustrations are highly creative as he draws the characters and the settings in a coloring book style,...more
Chris Van Allsburg’s illustrations are highly creative as he draws the characters and the settings in a coloring book style,...more
I hope I'm not giving too much away when I say this book is about the interaction between a child and a book. One of the reasons I really loved this book is because it reminded me of an incident that took place when my son Bret was two.
My wife Mindy put him down for a nap with a library book about castles and knights. Outside the closed door, Mindy could hear him happily playing, crying out, "There's a battle in the city! There's a battle in the city!"
When Mindy checked on him, she found that in...more
My wife Mindy put him down for a nap with a library book about castles and knights. Outside the closed door, Mindy could hear him happily playing, crying out, "There's a battle in the city! There's a battle in the city!"
When Mindy checked on him, she found that in...more
I'm doing a review of an artist for my 1st grader's class, and I picked Van Allsburg. I watched an interview with him on the internet, and found him quite pleasant. He explained where he got the inspiration for this book - from looking at a Disney coloring book of his daughter's, in particular a drawing of Tiger Lily in peril, with her hands up and a frightened look on her face. His daughter had scribbled over the picture, and it looked to him like Tiger Lily was reacting to the crayon lines on...more
This is chris van allsburg’s book, so I expected that I could see his soft and beautiful illustrations which make me nostalgic, but at first, I couldn’t because the color of illustrations are black and white, sometimes, color messed up with crayon. To tell the truth, It was boring to read at first, because of too simple illustrations and ungraspable story. However, when I finished reading this story, I could felt what I expected!!! In last part of this book, you can see his nice illustrations an...more
The illustrations in this book are enhancing because just reading the text would not give the full affect of a coloring book being colored by a child. The bright colors randomly cropping up in scribbled lines over certain images on the black and white illustrations serve to represent a little boy coloring in a coloring book and the story is about what goes on inside the book. The simple black and white think lines accurately depict the images of a coloring book. While the illustrations at the en...more
This books illustrations are very different from the other books I have read by him. They are more like a rough draft drawing with absolutely no color in the beginning. The pictures are still the main focus, very big, with the text at the river bottom. Once he adds color, it is like scribbles of one solild color on the horses who are acting very strange. After reading the whole story I found I really enjoyed this book. The little boy was coloring in his coloring book, so I believe the text was w...more
The concept behind this book could hardly have been created by a mind other than that of the brilliant Chris Van Allsburg. Bad Day At Riverbend packs many ingenious little twists into such a brief story, leaving the reader guessing as to what is really going on and on the edge of his or her seat to see how it will all end.
There's not a whole lot more that can be said without giving away something, but you'll notice right from the beginning that the artwork isn't exactly up to the stratospheric...more
There's not a whole lot more that can be said without giving away something, but you'll notice right from the beginning that the artwork isn't exactly up to the stratospheric...more
I absolutely LOVED this book. This is truly the definition of a post modern picture book. The small town of Riverbend, completely boring and black and white, is suddenly struck with strange happenings, where a bright light freezes everything in sight, and when it fades away, everything it touched has been scribbled on with a strange greasy colorful substance (crayon). At the end it turns out that the story had been taking place in a coloring book! This book is so inventive and creative, there is...more
Oct 22, 2012
Monique Franco
added it
I really liked how this picturebook was constructed. When I had first got this book, I thought that it had been colored on by a child yet after reading the book I understood why the book was the way it was. This is a story told through the perspective of the characters of a cowboy coloring book. In a town filled usually with bland days, there is a bright light that seems to bring a disease. Yet it is unclear to the reader what the disease is until the end where the coloring book is closed, the l...more
This book would be great for children because they can relate to the message. The book is about how a city is being taken over by a "grease". However, at the end of the book, the reader realizes that it was really a little boy coloring and he was making up this story in his head. The reason that children would enjoy this book so much is because they will be able to recognize that it is a coloring book and it might make them want to create their own stories out of a coloring book! Reading this bo...more
Bad Day at Riverbend is a mystery about a strange slime that is slowing taking over the town of Riverbend. It all started with a bright light appearing in the sky, and then came the slime covered coach who was missing a coachman. After the sheriff witnessed the slime taking over the town, he decided to put an end to it. Him and his men found the source of the slime but ended up becoming frozen in it. My favorite part of this book is the ending, because it shows that a little boy was coloring and...more
I liked the illustrations of this story. As you go throguht the pages it makes you wonder what is the illustrator doing by scribbling. Also it shows random picture (stick people). I like how it all comes together at the end, and in reality it is a little boy just coloring. All the pages the illustrations were full bleed. There wasn't that much color but the drawings did extend to the edge of the page. I thought the concept of scibbling the color was a different concept that I have not seen befor...more
This book was amusing just from glancing at the pictures of the book. Ultimately, it is about a young child coloring in a cowboy color book and the cowboys and townfolk in the book that don't know what is going on. They are so confused because of the "slime" (a.k.a. the color) that is covering the entire west! A brave cowboy leads a posse against this "light" which is the room light that the child is in. It is a charming book because it mixes the story with the actual reality of the child and th...more
The story is set in a dusty little town where nothing ever happens. They have a stagecoach that speeds through town but never stops because people do not come to the town, and people do not leave the town. One day a stagecoach covered in red squiggles appears in the middle of town. There is no driver. It is strange and the townspeople bad together to figure out what in the world is going on. Kind of a weird story, the illustrations are all outlines the only color is the skribble in the book.
This book is such a good approach to sparking children's interest in picture books. It is creative and different than a lot of other children's books. It invites children to make predictions along the way. It requires an additional read to put together how every facet works to make the specific ending. This book would be at starting a new literacy station where children can color their own blank coloring pages and then write a story about their picture. It sparks individual creativity and innova...more
Bad Day at Riverbed is a story inside of a story. This story is black and white apart from the color marks left by the crayon. This story is about a boy who is coloring in his coloring book. Inside of the coloring book is a sheriff who is trying to save his town from the greasy slime that freezes people. The greasy slime that freezes people is the crayon marks which are made by the boy. The light that the sheriff keeps seeing is the coloring book pages as the boy is turning the pages.
Mar 05, 2012
Jordyn Mcleod
added it
This picture book had very unique illustrations. In the beginning of the book they did not have color, but throughout the story they began to recieve a small amount of color at a time. The illustrations are in a vertical format and they cover two pages. I feel that the illustrations in this story relate to children because they have a scribbled look to them and it gives children the idea that they can be the ones to color in the illustrations and become a part of the book themselves.
In class we discussed that this book would be a good way to encourage your students to make predictions about what is going to happen next. This book had a twist at the end, which makes it different from others that I have read. I feel that this book would be excellent to use for children who are a bit apprehensive about reading because the illustrations mimic those of a coloring book. It is extremely imaginative, and seems like children would have a lot of fun with it.
This is a cute book. This book is a book about prediction and what you think has happened in the book. The pictures are mysteriously receiving marks on the pages and they do not know where those marks are coming from. With this, you could have the children make a chart of what they think has happened in this book. They could make a prediction of what has happend to the main characters and the other characters in the book and why do they think it is a bad day at riverbend.
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Chris was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on June 18, 1949, the second child of Doris Christiansen Van Allsburg and Richard Van Allsburg. His sister Karen was born in 1947.
Chris’s paternal grandfather, Peter, owned and operated a creamery, a place where milk was turned into butter, cream, cottage cheese, and ice cream. It was named East End Creamery and after they bottled the milk (and made the ot...more
More about Chris Van Allsburg...
Chris’s paternal grandfather, Peter, owned and operated a creamery, a place where milk was turned into butter, cream, cottage cheese, and ice cream. It was named East End Creamery and after they bottled the milk (and made the ot...more
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Feb 25, 2012 10:38am