Illustrated by Jiang Hong Chen
Written by Susie Morgenstern.
The pictures and the words both work together to present the message of the book. It is not so much a story, but more so the deceleration of a little boy. In all of the illustrations through out the book, the little boy is present. He looks very influenced by the style of Maurice Sendak; simply depicted yet with facial expression and body language. He is constant and realistic in every scene, but the backgrounds are wild and turbulent, always changing, exaggerated and abstract.
In a further comparison, I thought that the lyrical style of the text is similar to that penned by Dr. Seuss, and in fact the book could be likened to Oh the Places we will go. Morgenstern applies rhyming couplets throughout the book, and the average line length is of 8 syllables. There is a rhythmic flow to how the words run together
I'll meet everyone on earth,
and ask about their dreams.
Because life is more,
so much more than it seems
My giant loaf of bread will cure the world of hunger,
and the people who eat it will feel ten years younger!
And then for the child who has nothing to wear,
I'll sew her a dress. That will answer her prayer.
Through the above verse may not show it, there is a very exaggerated mood in the book. It encourages a child to change the world and even to physically raise the sun and to stir up the waves in the ocean. However, as the books conclusion is intended to be moralistic, it comes across as slightly contrived and in a unbalanced contrast to the rest of the book. I do not disagree with the message- that learning to read and write will unlock unfathomable worlds for a person- but this simple recommendation either itself needed to be more exaggerated, or the rest of the book needed to be even crazy to make the contrast so absurd that it was normal.
The style of art work, however, is a huge success. It lends itself to the amplified mood of the book. For example, the two page spread of I will stamp out earthquakes, floods, and fire- / The world will stop shaking, be cooler and drier, is illustrated fantastically with strikes of blood red water color, and overlain with slashes of black, bleeding due to excess water. Of course, amongst this is the realistic portrayal of the watercolor boy running through the melee with arms outstretched and a defiant look on his face.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
A Comparison: Feminism in Childrens Litterature
An old Folktale and a Modern Graphic Novel
Ideas and beliefs, and preconceptions are certainly perpetuated through a culture by the stories that the culture listens to. Well I think that the style of stories that effect cultures has certainly changed. I think today in our north American culture the stories are coming in diverse forms of text, such as television programs or celebrity personalities. IN the past however, this was not the case. In the past I think the written word had a stronger potential to influence the mindset of a culture. It is then in the past that we can really see how childrens literature in specific had an impact upon expectations and treatment of women.
Despite childrens literature fall from the status of a strong cultural influence, some authors are trying to present an alternative version to how females were often depicted in childrens literature of the past. The two texts that I read were No Girls Allowed: Tales of Daring Women Dressed as men for Love, Freedom, and Adventure, by Susan Hughes, and a collection entitled The Maid of the North: Feminist Folk Tales from Around the World, compiled by Ethel Johnston Phelps. These books are similar in that they present several different stories, and that all of these stories are in some way connected to 'feminism.' They are both illuminating forgoten stories from the past that show girls in a different role that what one might imagine classical childrens literature to depict females in. They are different in how these texts are presented.
No Girls Allowed is a graphic novel which retells seven stories of women, who forced by circumstance had to sacrifice their female identity in order to achieve what they wanted to achieve, usually as a means to help their family survive. The author, Susan Hughes, writes a variety of texts in which she become a temporary expert on the subject. In her uncovering of these stories that had never been told before, she was also able to insert a contemporary voice to the tales. The illustrator of the text specificaly said that she wanted the book to give girls power, to show them other girls in positions of authority.
In Maid of the North, Phelps did not retell the stories persay, but more so endevored to compile a selection of historic folk tales that showed females as the protagonist as opposed to the typical story where the male was the protaginist and females were the subject of victimization. This collection is interesting because it is the fact of collecting and preserving these stories that is pro feminist, and the author did not need to use her own voice to change these tales, as they had already been told as printed in the collection.
Both texts use historic stories, one retells factual accounts from history, adding emphasis to their feminist message, and the other does not retell the tales, but lets the act of collecting 'historical artifacts (folk tales)' and letting the volume of all of these collected add emphasis to a feminist message. Both of these texts had an important impact on me because they showed how children s literature, because of the conventions of what is normal within them, can have an almost subconscious influence on the people who are reading them. In the most popular texts of today, which likely include video and song, I am not certain hat these unconscious conventions are, I am not sure what preconceptions are being trained into the ears of children. However, the two texts I have presented hear are at least giving a convention that is not subconscious, but instead is loud and clear. They are saying that a) we need to be aware of the pressures that are being put on children because of their gender, and that b) both boys and girls have the right to be presented with role models that show them they have the ability to reach their potentials, and that they have the right not to be held down.
Ideas and beliefs, and preconceptions are certainly perpetuated through a culture by the stories that the culture listens to. Well I think that the style of stories that effect cultures has certainly changed. I think today in our north American culture the stories are coming in diverse forms of text, such as television programs or celebrity personalities. IN the past however, this was not the case. In the past I think the written word had a stronger potential to influence the mindset of a culture. It is then in the past that we can really see how childrens literature in specific had an impact upon expectations and treatment of women.
Despite childrens literature fall from the status of a strong cultural influence, some authors are trying to present an alternative version to how females were often depicted in childrens literature of the past. The two texts that I read were No Girls Allowed: Tales of Daring Women Dressed as men for Love, Freedom, and Adventure, by Susan Hughes, and a collection entitled The Maid of the North: Feminist Folk Tales from Around the World, compiled by Ethel Johnston Phelps. These books are similar in that they present several different stories, and that all of these stories are in some way connected to 'feminism.' They are both illuminating forgoten stories from the past that show girls in a different role that what one might imagine classical childrens literature to depict females in. They are different in how these texts are presented.
No Girls Allowed is a graphic novel which retells seven stories of women, who forced by circumstance had to sacrifice their female identity in order to achieve what they wanted to achieve, usually as a means to help their family survive. The author, Susan Hughes, writes a variety of texts in which she become a temporary expert on the subject. In her uncovering of these stories that had never been told before, she was also able to insert a contemporary voice to the tales. The illustrator of the text specificaly said that she wanted the book to give girls power, to show them other girls in positions of authority.
In Maid of the North, Phelps did not retell the stories persay, but more so endevored to compile a selection of historic folk tales that showed females as the protagonist as opposed to the typical story where the male was the protaginist and females were the subject of victimization. This collection is interesting because it is the fact of collecting and preserving these stories that is pro feminist, and the author did not need to use her own voice to change these tales, as they had already been told as printed in the collection.
Both texts use historic stories, one retells factual accounts from history, adding emphasis to their feminist message, and the other does not retell the tales, but lets the act of collecting 'historical artifacts (folk tales)' and letting the volume of all of these collected add emphasis to a feminist message. Both of these texts had an important impact on me because they showed how children s literature, because of the conventions of what is normal within them, can have an almost subconscious influence on the people who are reading them. In the most popular texts of today, which likely include video and song, I am not certain hat these unconscious conventions are, I am not sure what preconceptions are being trained into the ears of children. However, the two texts I have presented hear are at least giving a convention that is not subconscious, but instead is loud and clear. They are saying that a) we need to be aware of the pressures that are being put on children because of their gender, and that b) both boys and girls have the right to be presented with role models that show them they have the ability to reach their potentials, and that they have the right not to be held down.
The Three Questions
The genre of this picture book is what I am going to call an adaptation. For the story, you see, was borrowed from a man who already wrote it. The original author was Leo Tolstoy. According to the back flap cover, Leo Tolstoy is one of Russia’s most famous novelists and story tellers. The three questions was a short story that Leo wrote. I do not know much about Leo right now, and in fact wished I researched more about him. I feel like the more I knew about the original tale, and the original author, the more that I could take from the adaptation for children.
The new author also brought in some other influence to his adaptation. In the explanation of the book the author mentioned that he brought in the influence of zen to his book. Again, I would like to learn more about zen so that I could elucidate more of the meaning from the book. I do notice in the pictures a kind of high forest Chinese feel, perhaps this is where the zen comes in, in the art work.
The art work is one of the first things that struck me about the book, and in fact, the art work is definitely my most exuberantly favorite great excellent favorite part of the book. It is water color paintings, but with a quality of color, shape and detail unlike in any other water color paintings I have ever seen. The bridges that fade into the mist, the Himalayan mountains in the sunny winter, the posture of the boy as he flies his red kite. Even the wy that the light plays off of the characters, the water color paintings in this book are special!!
It would be nice to incorporate an art lesson as well as a religion or social studies lesson alongside with this book. The paintings and the sub narrative, or the backround of the book, make it a very rich and interesting read, if not for the story line, then at least for the making and origins of the book.
Luckily the story line is pretty good to. It is a book that leads to a moral. It starts with three questions, and in the end, through the story, we learn the answer to those three questions. The most important time is now, the most important one is the one we are with, and the most important thing is to do good for the one standing at our side.
(p.s. the paintings are so good I wanted to mention that again)
Thanks World
Happy Reading!
Adrian
The new author also brought in some other influence to his adaptation. In the explanation of the book the author mentioned that he brought in the influence of zen to his book. Again, I would like to learn more about zen so that I could elucidate more of the meaning from the book. I do notice in the pictures a kind of high forest Chinese feel, perhaps this is where the zen comes in, in the art work.
The art work is one of the first things that struck me about the book, and in fact, the art work is definitely my most exuberantly favorite great excellent favorite part of the book. It is water color paintings, but with a quality of color, shape and detail unlike in any other water color paintings I have ever seen. The bridges that fade into the mist, the Himalayan mountains in the sunny winter, the posture of the boy as he flies his red kite. Even the wy that the light plays off of the characters, the water color paintings in this book are special!!
It would be nice to incorporate an art lesson as well as a religion or social studies lesson alongside with this book. The paintings and the sub narrative, or the backround of the book, make it a very rich and interesting read, if not for the story line, then at least for the making and origins of the book.
Luckily the story line is pretty good to. It is a book that leads to a moral. It starts with three questions, and in the end, through the story, we learn the answer to those three questions. The most important time is now, the most important one is the one we are with, and the most important thing is to do good for the one standing at our side.
(p.s. the paintings are so good I wanted to mention that again)
Thanks World
Happy Reading!
Adrian
Harriet the Spy
This novel was excellent! The character development was exquisitely crafted. I remember in school we used to learn about character development, we studied it as a formal thing to analyze and answer questions about. However, I approached this novel in a different way. Because I am beginning more and more to appreciate writing as an art form, I approached this novel on my own terms. Ok Ok, it supposed to be a novel for children, well, I think that good writing is good writing, it doesn’t matter who it was intended for.
The character development was good because the author did not rely on abstract descriptions. She did not say what Harriet was like, she showed what Harriet was like. The words thoughts and actions of Harriet, in context of other people and places, showed me who Harriet was. This style of character development is what made this novel stand out as special to me. It is easy to write things like -so and so is a wonderful person, she is thoughtful and always concerned about others. I mentioned that as an example, I am trying to show a standard way of describing people where we use adjectives. The thing is, a description based only on adjectives lacks substance, plus, the adjectives mean different things for different people. The author of Harriet the Spy did no rely on adjectives to describe Harriet. She showed Harriet’s thoughts, and Harriet’s mannerisms, and Harriet’s reactions to situations. Through these concrete descriptions of what Harriet does I got to know her. I was able to connect and understand Harriet and formulate my own understanding of how she could be described.
This way of thinking, preferring concrete images over abstract descriptions is a practice I learned in Susan Ingersoll creative writing poetry course in my third year of university. Ezra Pound said 'go in fear of abstractions.' Meaning do not write a poem that says ' they were best friends, instead, show the friendship, for example have one boy sighing, and then giving half of his firecrackers to the other boy. This example lets the reader understand the friendship on their own terms, lets the reader bring their own way of analyzing the event. When we say the concept only, that they were good friends, then the reader must bring with them their previous knowledge of what friendship means. The friendship the reader understands may be different than the friendship that these two boys experience. In poetry I believe this strategy is called imagism, and it was a movement away from romanticism. ( I might be un accurate here), But I think that poetry in the romantic period for example was heavy on abstract descriptions, using a lot of adjectives to describe something, like- a terrifying meadow in the sultriest of nights where sulking spirits roamed and called with might. Imagism on the other hand would describe what was in that field, a wind, dark ripples on a shallow pond, rattling apple tree branches free from fruit with only dying leaves, and a sound not sure if its is wolves or .... . Both strategies for writing are valuable, but I found in very refreshing, and entertaining to read a novel that relied on the concrete to describe its characters.
Something else that I loved about this novel was the precision of language. It is labeled as a children’s novel, but I think it can be respected as more then a simple text for children. The honesty and efficiency of the descriptions moved the novel closer to an experience of poetry than prose. I find that boring novels are heavy on description and elaboration. Harriet the spy bounced along from one specific and sharply described scene to the next. This precision of language made the novel very satisfying to read. As Susan Ingersoll said, a poet must be extremely efficient with language, not a word should be wasted, every word and even every line break should be intentional and a concentrated effort of the author, every word should have purpose and meaning. I felt the same way with this novel. The author wasted no space in telling me how I should react to a scene, the author described the scene precisely by what exactly was happening, and the emotional reaction was mine to have. These terse and accurate depictions of what was happening, that focused on the concrete and real, gave me stronger emotional reactions to the novel. I laughed out loud at the hilarity of the world within which Harriet lived, and I also cringed at the changes she went through.
For example. the scene which describe the shrink with red hair was brilliant. Never did the author mention that he was a psychologist, not give any commentary on what a psychologist is like or how this one should be viewed. Instead the Author described what the man said and how he acted, through these descriptions I knew what he was like and I reacted to him in my own way based on my own previous knowledge and feelings about how he acted. People who know about child psychologists and counselors (of which I know very little) know there is a certain humor in the idea of active listening when it is taken to an extreme. An active listener rephrases what the speaker has said, and poses their own words as questions back to them (as one strategy) it is somewhat of an unnatural conversation because the listener is not adding any opinions or advice, they are putting all of their effort into drawing out the thoughts of the speaker. In Chapter 14 when Harriet goes to the 'doctor' the author does not mention anything about this style of counseling, but through the ensuing conversation she shows the comedy and confusion of what occurs;
Dr. Wagner got up and went to a cabinet next to the door. When he opened it Harriet could see all sorts of games, dolls, doll houses, and trucks. She tried to be nice about it, but she was curios. "Do you sit here all day and play with all of those things?"
Wait til lher mother got a load of this.
He looked at her archly, "What do you think?
Do you think I sit here all day playing with these toys?"
"How do I know? You got a whole closet full of em"
"Don't you have toys at home?"
This was to much. "Yes,,: she shouted " but Im eleven."
"Oh." He looked somewhat taken aback, standing there with the monopoly board in his hand.
Harriet began to feel sorry for him. "Well," she said, "shall we play one game?"
It’s the exchange between the characters that reveals the silliness of the counselor and the intelligence of Harriet, the author does not have to explicitly state these ideas, instead she implies them though the seen, and lets me the reader formulate my own understanding and reaction to Harriet and the other characters.
Throughout the novel, the author lead Harriet over great changes, but never once spoiled my imagination by telling me how to feel. I watched Harriot change, and had to justify her actions and analyze her changes by my own terms. Perhaps the way I feel about Harriet is different then they was another reader would feel, and in this lies the brilliance of the work of Art that is Harriet the spy. No person can be described in two dimensions. We all have characteristics and life stories, but it is not easy for a third person to define us perfectly and tell the world what we are like. In the same way, the author did not tell me exactly what Harriet was like, who she was, and how I should define her. The key word here is that she did not tell me, instead she showed me. The author showed me what Harriet said and how she acted, and because of my observing Harriet it was up to me to react to her, i had to 'tell' myself what Harriet was like. I feel that this makes this novel multi dimensional, and most of all, it makes it honest. Because of this sharpness of description, efficiency of words, and honesty of presentation that I rank Harriet the spy not only as a good novel for children, but rank it as a good novel (period).
(P.S. Another thing that this novel reminded my from my school days was the point of view. In this novel I knew the world through Harriet’s perspective. I knew her thoughts and how she saw other people to be. This was cool to appreciate this facet of the book by my own accord and acknowledgment, and not as an exercise in school. My other creative writing poetry teacher, Don Mckay, told us that we could do whatever we wanted in a poem as long as it followed its own internal laws. I feel like the novel is the same way, it followed internal laws about whose thoughts I could know and what point of view people and places were seen from. Seeing the world through Hariet’s eyes helped my to love and sympathize for her, even at times when the rest of the world was against her. This crafting of perspective is another factor that elevates this novel to an appreciative work of art for me. )
The character development was good because the author did not rely on abstract descriptions. She did not say what Harriet was like, she showed what Harriet was like. The words thoughts and actions of Harriet, in context of other people and places, showed me who Harriet was. This style of character development is what made this novel stand out as special to me. It is easy to write things like -so and so is a wonderful person, she is thoughtful and always concerned about others. I mentioned that as an example, I am trying to show a standard way of describing people where we use adjectives. The thing is, a description based only on adjectives lacks substance, plus, the adjectives mean different things for different people. The author of Harriet the Spy did no rely on adjectives to describe Harriet. She showed Harriet’s thoughts, and Harriet’s mannerisms, and Harriet’s reactions to situations. Through these concrete descriptions of what Harriet does I got to know her. I was able to connect and understand Harriet and formulate my own understanding of how she could be described.
This way of thinking, preferring concrete images over abstract descriptions is a practice I learned in Susan Ingersoll creative writing poetry course in my third year of university. Ezra Pound said 'go in fear of abstractions.' Meaning do not write a poem that says ' they were best friends, instead, show the friendship, for example have one boy sighing, and then giving half of his firecrackers to the other boy. This example lets the reader understand the friendship on their own terms, lets the reader bring their own way of analyzing the event. When we say the concept only, that they were good friends, then the reader must bring with them their previous knowledge of what friendship means. The friendship the reader understands may be different than the friendship that these two boys experience. In poetry I believe this strategy is called imagism, and it was a movement away from romanticism. ( I might be un accurate here), But I think that poetry in the romantic period for example was heavy on abstract descriptions, using a lot of adjectives to describe something, like- a terrifying meadow in the sultriest of nights where sulking spirits roamed and called with might. Imagism on the other hand would describe what was in that field, a wind, dark ripples on a shallow pond, rattling apple tree branches free from fruit with only dying leaves, and a sound not sure if its is wolves or .... . Both strategies for writing are valuable, but I found in very refreshing, and entertaining to read a novel that relied on the concrete to describe its characters.
Something else that I loved about this novel was the precision of language. It is labeled as a children’s novel, but I think it can be respected as more then a simple text for children. The honesty and efficiency of the descriptions moved the novel closer to an experience of poetry than prose. I find that boring novels are heavy on description and elaboration. Harriet the spy bounced along from one specific and sharply described scene to the next. This precision of language made the novel very satisfying to read. As Susan Ingersoll said, a poet must be extremely efficient with language, not a word should be wasted, every word and even every line break should be intentional and a concentrated effort of the author, every word should have purpose and meaning. I felt the same way with this novel. The author wasted no space in telling me how I should react to a scene, the author described the scene precisely by what exactly was happening, and the emotional reaction was mine to have. These terse and accurate depictions of what was happening, that focused on the concrete and real, gave me stronger emotional reactions to the novel. I laughed out loud at the hilarity of the world within which Harriet lived, and I also cringed at the changes she went through.
For example. the scene which describe the shrink with red hair was brilliant. Never did the author mention that he was a psychologist, not give any commentary on what a psychologist is like or how this one should be viewed. Instead the Author described what the man said and how he acted, through these descriptions I knew what he was like and I reacted to him in my own way based on my own previous knowledge and feelings about how he acted. People who know about child psychologists and counselors (of which I know very little) know there is a certain humor in the idea of active listening when it is taken to an extreme. An active listener rephrases what the speaker has said, and poses their own words as questions back to them (as one strategy) it is somewhat of an unnatural conversation because the listener is not adding any opinions or advice, they are putting all of their effort into drawing out the thoughts of the speaker. In Chapter 14 when Harriet goes to the 'doctor' the author does not mention anything about this style of counseling, but through the ensuing conversation she shows the comedy and confusion of what occurs;
Dr. Wagner got up and went to a cabinet next to the door. When he opened it Harriet could see all sorts of games, dolls, doll houses, and trucks. She tried to be nice about it, but she was curios. "Do you sit here all day and play with all of those things?"
Wait til lher mother got a load of this.
He looked at her archly, "What do you think?
Do you think I sit here all day playing with these toys?"
"How do I know? You got a whole closet full of em"
"Don't you have toys at home?"
This was to much. "Yes,,: she shouted " but Im eleven."
"Oh." He looked somewhat taken aback, standing there with the monopoly board in his hand.
Harriet began to feel sorry for him. "Well," she said, "shall we play one game?"
It’s the exchange between the characters that reveals the silliness of the counselor and the intelligence of Harriet, the author does not have to explicitly state these ideas, instead she implies them though the seen, and lets me the reader formulate my own understanding and reaction to Harriet and the other characters.
Throughout the novel, the author lead Harriet over great changes, but never once spoiled my imagination by telling me how to feel. I watched Harriot change, and had to justify her actions and analyze her changes by my own terms. Perhaps the way I feel about Harriet is different then they was another reader would feel, and in this lies the brilliance of the work of Art that is Harriet the spy. No person can be described in two dimensions. We all have characteristics and life stories, but it is not easy for a third person to define us perfectly and tell the world what we are like. In the same way, the author did not tell me exactly what Harriet was like, who she was, and how I should define her. The key word here is that she did not tell me, instead she showed me. The author showed me what Harriet said and how she acted, and because of my observing Harriet it was up to me to react to her, i had to 'tell' myself what Harriet was like. I feel that this makes this novel multi dimensional, and most of all, it makes it honest. Because of this sharpness of description, efficiency of words, and honesty of presentation that I rank Harriet the spy not only as a good novel for children, but rank it as a good novel (period).
(P.S. Another thing that this novel reminded my from my school days was the point of view. In this novel I knew the world through Harriet’s perspective. I knew her thoughts and how she saw other people to be. This was cool to appreciate this facet of the book by my own accord and acknowledgment, and not as an exercise in school. My other creative writing poetry teacher, Don Mckay, told us that we could do whatever we wanted in a poem as long as it followed its own internal laws. I feel like the novel is the same way, it followed internal laws about whose thoughts I could know and what point of view people and places were seen from. Seeing the world through Hariet’s eyes helped my to love and sympathize for her, even at times when the rest of the world was against her. This crafting of perspective is another factor that elevates this novel to an appreciative work of art for me. )
A Grain of Rice
Hello World! I am here to write a delicious blog for you all. It is a reflection upon my personal feelings. You see, I have read a book, and thanks to my decoding skills and my ability to understand language, the book I read had an impact upon me. I basically broke the code of the alphabet and the English lexicon, and using the meaning it symbolized combined with my previous knowledge of the world, I interpreted meaning from the book.
What kind of meaning you may ask? Well, the story was one of character, it showed the integrity, perseverance, humility and intelligence of a young man. Lo, how I wish I could emblazen those attributes across my own soul's being.
The boy was in love, and the apex of his goals was to gain, fairly, a princesses hand in marriage. Now, while I do want to get married someday, I feel like I connected to the story by more then just that one goal. You see, as the boy pursued his goal, there was something special about his characteristics, his personality.
I hope that as I pursue my goals in life I to can have a strong and noble personality. That is why I like this book. It shows a good person.
At first I was worried that the story line was to classical, that it was an archetypal tale of a boy trying to win the hand of a princess. This was true, however, the story redeemed itself. The boys admirable quality, plus the light humor of the book, and the suspense of the plot more than made up for the old fashioned story line. The book did not depend on the old story line, it used it as a framework, and off of that framework a beautiful tale was developed.
I am not exactly sure what type of genre this is, but i think I will call it a classical narrative.
The drawings were pencil sketches done by the author herself. They simply expanded the story, they did not add much depth, but they did a great job of illustrating some of the details. For many of the details were ancient Chinese objects, like special plates, ceramics, math tools, and even rosewood trunks carried by the backs of elephants. I think the drawings were very helpful to new readers because if there was some object they did not already know about, then they could imagine it easily by looking at the pictures.
Thats then end of the blog for today, overall, great book because it takes an old story line and pumps some good role model characteristics into it. Furthermore, I think I will use this book in a math lesson that I am making about algebra.
Thanks World!
Happy Reading
Adrian
What kind of meaning you may ask? Well, the story was one of character, it showed the integrity, perseverance, humility and intelligence of a young man. Lo, how I wish I could emblazen those attributes across my own soul's being.
The boy was in love, and the apex of his goals was to gain, fairly, a princesses hand in marriage. Now, while I do want to get married someday, I feel like I connected to the story by more then just that one goal. You see, as the boy pursued his goal, there was something special about his characteristics, his personality.
I hope that as I pursue my goals in life I to can have a strong and noble personality. That is why I like this book. It shows a good person.
At first I was worried that the story line was to classical, that it was an archetypal tale of a boy trying to win the hand of a princess. This was true, however, the story redeemed itself. The boys admirable quality, plus the light humor of the book, and the suspense of the plot more than made up for the old fashioned story line. The book did not depend on the old story line, it used it as a framework, and off of that framework a beautiful tale was developed.
I am not exactly sure what type of genre this is, but i think I will call it a classical narrative.
The drawings were pencil sketches done by the author herself. They simply expanded the story, they did not add much depth, but they did a great job of illustrating some of the details. For many of the details were ancient Chinese objects, like special plates, ceramics, math tools, and even rosewood trunks carried by the backs of elephants. I think the drawings were very helpful to new readers because if there was some object they did not already know about, then they could imagine it easily by looking at the pictures.
Thats then end of the blog for today, overall, great book because it takes an old story line and pumps some good role model characteristics into it. Furthermore, I think I will use this book in a math lesson that I am making about algebra.
Thanks World!
Happy Reading
Adrian
A Wrinkle in Time (REDO)
A Wrinkle in Time
There are three root ideas that really struck me while reading a wrinkle in time. 1) A battle being fought between good an evil. I feel like the story is describing something that I am a part of, not that I am drawn into the story, but that the story is about myself (the best books are like this).
2) The people fighting in this battle are children; symbols of honesty, fairness, kindness and compassion. The enemy that these children are opposing is unseeable and unexplainable.
3.) Allusion. A literary technique that draws other widely known notions into the story in order to elucidate something within the text.
In an enjoyable way, I like this book. A wrinkle in time depicts a battle between good and evil, of which planet earth plays a small but important role. Since the majority of the story takes place off of earth, but is presented in a possible and tangible way (suspending disbelief), it is easy for the reader (lil’ sweet ol’ me) to believe that the story may actually be something ongoing that I am a part of.
A unique thing about a wrinkle in time is that is also uses a lot of allusion to make the reader connect to the theme in a personal way. The author incorporated descriptions of several famous people, such as Jesus, Eienstein, and Michelangelo, and said that these people were also part of the war being waged against evil, (or in the book as it is called, the dark thing) Incorporating world history into the theme further strengthens my place in the story, as I to am a member of world history.
There are also a lot of quotes incorporated into the text, such as "and a light shinieth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehends in not," How small the earth is too him who looks from heaven," "faith is the sister of justice", "nothing deters a good man from doing what is honorable". The quotes were usually attributed to an author, and knowing that other people in the world are thinking about such ideas helps me feel I am part of a bigger team, and that both a wrinkle in time and my own life are small snapshots of something larger.
I imagine that a lot of children’s literature sets up the reader to feel like they are a part of something bigger then themselves. How this is accomplished, is the appreciable art. The book must be written in such a way that it is believable, yet emblematic. It must be interesting, yet something the reader can relate to. A wrinkle in time is a good example of children’s literature because it accomplished both of these goals for me.
There are three root ideas that really struck me while reading a wrinkle in time. 1) A battle being fought between good an evil. I feel like the story is describing something that I am a part of, not that I am drawn into the story, but that the story is about myself (the best books are like this).
2) The people fighting in this battle are children; symbols of honesty, fairness, kindness and compassion. The enemy that these children are opposing is unseeable and unexplainable.
3.) Allusion. A literary technique that draws other widely known notions into the story in order to elucidate something within the text.
In an enjoyable way, I like this book. A wrinkle in time depicts a battle between good and evil, of which planet earth plays a small but important role. Since the majority of the story takes place off of earth, but is presented in a possible and tangible way (suspending disbelief), it is easy for the reader (lil’ sweet ol’ me) to believe that the story may actually be something ongoing that I am a part of.
A unique thing about a wrinkle in time is that is also uses a lot of allusion to make the reader connect to the theme in a personal way. The author incorporated descriptions of several famous people, such as Jesus, Eienstein, and Michelangelo, and said that these people were also part of the war being waged against evil, (or in the book as it is called, the dark thing) Incorporating world history into the theme further strengthens my place in the story, as I to am a member of world history.
There are also a lot of quotes incorporated into the text, such as "and a light shinieth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehends in not," How small the earth is too him who looks from heaven," "faith is the sister of justice", "nothing deters a good man from doing what is honorable". The quotes were usually attributed to an author, and knowing that other people in the world are thinking about such ideas helps me feel I am part of a bigger team, and that both a wrinkle in time and my own life are small snapshots of something larger.
I imagine that a lot of children’s literature sets up the reader to feel like they are a part of something bigger then themselves. How this is accomplished, is the appreciable art. The book must be written in such a way that it is believable, yet emblematic. It must be interesting, yet something the reader can relate to. A wrinkle in time is a good example of children’s literature because it accomplished both of these goals for me.
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