Polacco, P. (n.d.). Gaw meteor [Photograph] Retrieved from http://patriciapolacco.com/author/my_home/my_home.html
Polacco, P. (n.d.). Meteor ridge farm [Photograph] Retrieved from http://patriciapolacco.com/author/my_home/my_home.html
Patricia Polacco’s website provides real photographs of the meteor that landed in her grandparents yard. She tells her readers this story through her first picture book called Meteor! Polacco’s book explains how one quiet night a meteor crash lands on the Gaw’s farm. Following the crash, word spreads very quickly and soon there is a carnival full of people with a band, a circus, a hot air balloon and more on the farm. At the end of the story, we learn how the meteor is now the family headstone in the village cemetery where her grandparents are buried.
Again, Patricia Polacco tells a story that reflects a personal experience. These photographs show the location and the actual meteor that landed in her family’s yard. She allows her audience to see real pictures of the pretend pictures she draws in her stories. She tells the entire story through her book Meteor! We learn about her grandmother who loves to tell stories, the circus that followed the landing of the meteor, and where the meteorite is now. Although this book is label as fiction, on her website Polacco explains this experience, how it happened right in front of her eyes, and the events that followed. This is a real story that happened, but Polacco is known to add more details and exaggerate the stories to pull readers in. This story teaches us about her childhood and where her grandparents are laid to rest. This meteorite brought a lot of action to the small town where Polacco and her family lived and this contributed to the shaping of her childhood.
