Blog 26: Analysis of James and the Giant Peach

After reading Mark West's article on Dahl's writing, I see that I am not alone in not appreciating the book. I do understand that children would find many of the situations in the book humorous, and they would not take them as literal advice on life. However, I am still hesitant to teach children to take justice into their own hands. The fact that James is being abused by his aunts is clearly understood. So James wanting them gone is natural. The arguement in class was that James did no wrong because he did not kill the aunts, the peach did. But when we argue the case in a hit-and-run car accident, we do not blame the car, we blame the person inside. Also, throughout the book James seems to turn himself into the victim when he is not. He and his friends taunt the cloud men, but then as why they are being mean. The whole book just confuses me. I can see that children might like it, but I don't think I will offer up any Dahl book to my kids unless it is required by their school.

Blog 25: Notable Moment from James and the Giant Peach

This book falls under the category of Grotesque/Dark Fantasy, but even knowing that I do not like the way death is discussed in the book. As I said in my Anticipating post, I did not like the way Dahl talked so casually about death in the begining of the novel. I understand that the Aunts were cruel to James, but that does not excuse killing them and feeling good about it.

   "But is it not very unlucky to kill a spider?" James inquired, looking around at the others.
   "Of course it's unlucky to kill a spider!" shouted the Centipede. "It's about the unluckiest thing anyone can do. Look what happened to Aunt Sponge after she's done that! Bump! We all felt it, didn't we, as the peach went over her? oh, what a lovely bump that must have been for you, Miss Spider!"
   "It was very satisfactory," Miss Spider answered. "Will you sing a song about it, please?"
   So the Centipede did.   page92

'A lovely bump' really did not seem appropriate to me. The group in/on the peach is rejoicing in the fact that the aunts were smushed and that they did it. What does this teach our children?? And at the end of the book, James supposedly writes the book we are reading and publishes it for everyone to read about his adventures. Does no one notice that this child they are treating like a celebrity killed someone?
I know you are thinking...He didn't do it on purpose. Its not like he pulled a weapon on her or anything... It's not if he intended to do it or not, but his actions and reactions to it happening. In today's violent society, where kids are brought up on video games that teach them to kill, giving them literature that says its ok to do it on top of all that does not seem very smart to me. I know I am probably taking this to literally, but I can't help thinking that somewhere out there, a troubled tween justified hurting his mom with fruit after reading this story.

Blog 24: Anticipating James and the Giant Peach

This was the first book off of our class list that I bought. I found it a Half Price Books and was excited by the $1 price. So naturally, not being able to buy a book and not read it right away, I went home and started it. I am sad to say this is the first book I have ever read that I could not finish. I could not get into it and did not like the way that Dahl talked about death. When the peach rolled over the aunts, I kept waiting for some feeling of remorse or at least a bit of guilt. But no, just an oh those bumps must be us smushing the aunts under a peach the size of a house, On with the journey! I only got as far as the sharks trying to eat the peach, then gave up. I am hoping that I can finish it this time around. Wish me luck!

Blog 23 Analysis of City of Ember

I really liked this book a lot. And I feel like it was so close to the movie (which I loved also). But I feel like there were so many unanswered questions. I understand that The Builders put the city together, but who were they? What was the disaster that sent everyone underground? Why was the population so uncontrolled when they knew of the limited food supply. I guess when you think of the fact that now I am completely drawn in and want to read the rest of the series to see what happens, the questions are good.
Out of the three dystopia novels we read this is my favorite. I feel like it is the closest to real life. Not the underground part, but the elements within the city. The interactions between people are more real than in The Giver, where everyone around Jonas is almost robot, and Among the Hidden, where the main characters in the book are ignored/scorned by society. I also liked the idea of corruption and selfishness. They added to the realness of the story in that these were issues readers could relate to. Especially when Lizzy confesses about stealing the rare foods. I think everyone can relate to that feeling of 'me first', and then see Lina's point of view as right once you realize how selfish the act of stealing was.

Blog 22: Notable Moment in City of Ember

The citizens of Ember do not know that they live underground, they just believe that the sky is black. I did not at first think anything of the colors Lina chose for her colored pencils, except to think she would have liked red to match her jacket. But when she and Poppy draw on the can labels, I had an 'ah ha!' moment.

"She put her pencil down for a moment and studies what she had done. It was time to fill in the sky. In the pictures she had done with regular pencils, the sky was its true color, black. But this time she made it blue, since she was using her blue pencil. Methodically, as Poppy scratched and scribbled beside her, Line colored in the space above the buildings, her pencil moving back and forth in short lines, until the entire sky was blue.
She sat back and looked at her picture. Wouldn't it be strange, she thought, to have a blue sky? But she liked the way it looked. It would be beautiful - a blue sky." page 136

I thought it was interesting how Lina chose blue as the sky and how she dreamed of bright cities with a light that was not floodlamps. It seems to be a forshadowing tool, but also makes the reader consider that maybe sees things in a dream or something along those lines. What would have made her draw another city with unknown brightness and to add a blue sky at that. Emberites have not been above ground in around 240 years, so where did her ideas come from?

Blog 21: Anticipating City of Ember

I am really excited about this book because I loved the movie. All of the reviews of the book are great and say that the book is a good read for all ages. I was not sure what to write, so I decided to read the first chapter in the book to get a first impression of the book. My first thought was that DuPrau was writing a story extremely similar to The Giver. The story opens with 12 year olds being assigned their jobs. The details are different, but the outline was the same. Im not sure this would have been as obvious if we had not just studied The Giver, but since we read them so close together it makes me think that DuPrau read The Giver then decided to write a book herself. Probably not true, but just what ran thru my mind.

Blog 20: Among the Hidden

Earlier in the semester we discussed the importance of book order in a series and how important each book is in understanding the overall story. I believe the Shadow Children series is one of those series where you have to read the whole thing. Among the Hidden was a great book, but once you read the rest of the series, this first book feels like just a chapter. I think maybe I ruined the book for myself by reading the rest of the series, but now I do not like Among the Hidden as much. It feels so incomplete. And on top of that, some very important things in this book end up being revealed as untrue in another book. I hope everyone reads the complete series, because it is so much better that just the first book alone.

Blog 19: The Giver

Anticipating

I do not think that I have ever read The Giver. The reason I am unsure is because the book description sounds so familiar, but I cannot recall actually reading the book. I, unfortunately, have the memory of a goldfish, so it’s not so surprising that I cannot remember. I read some reviews on Barnes&Noble.com and Amazon.com, they all say the same thing: The Giver is AMAZING, but skip the rest of the series. (I did not know it was part of a series, until reading this.) From the description, I feel like it may be similar to the movie Pleasantville. The description sounded similar to the movie in the sameness, and then discovering that everyone has differences. The issue came up in class when discussing the “Of Wands and Wizards” class post that there are relationship and boy/girl issues in this book also. I will be sure to keep an eye out for them so that we can discuss it J.

PS: I love love love Number the Stars, also by Lois Lowry. It is amazing and beautifully written, but keep a box of tissues handy. I am hoping that this book is just as good.

Notable Moment

At first, I thought that Jonas’s vision blurriness with the apple and everyone faces was going to be a cancer or a need for glasses. Something that would make him stand out to the community as ‘different’. I was way off. But what it actually was makes a lot of sense once The Giver explains it.

“Let me try one more thing. Look over there, to the bookcase. Do you see the very top row of books, the ones behind the table, on the top shelf?”

Jonas sought them with his eyes. He stared at them, and they changed. But the change was fleeting. It slipped away the next instant.

“It happened,” Jonas said. “It happened to the books, but it went away again.”

“I’m right then,” The Giver said. “You’re beginning to see the color red.”

“The what?”

The Giver sighed. “How to explain this? Once, back in the time of the memories, everything had a shape and size, the way things still do, but they also had a quality called color.”

I did not realize until this moment in the book that nothing had color! I guess my feeling about the book being similar to the Pleasantville movie were closer than I realized. The concept of sameness and rules is brought up a lot in the book prior to this quote, but how extreme it was it a bit scary. I cannot even imagine a world without color. Cars, TV and cleaning the kitchen I could definitely get used to, but no books or color just sounds like torture, not sameness.

Analysis

I must admit that I went thru quite a few tissues while reading this book. I loved it, but thought it was maybe a bit mature and serious for a 4^th grade audience. The concept behind the book was very interesting though. With all the fighting, wars, and other issues we have today, it is not surprising that the idea of a world without these issues should come up. I can’t figure out though how they got everyone to see everything in black and white, but then everyone had to take a pill for stirrings. Obviously there has been some genetic something going on. They could suppress the brain from seeing color and feeling love and pain, but could not suppress the feelings of wanting. It seemed to me like the idea was thrown into the story after. The stirrings never go beyond dreams for Jonas, and it does not contribute anything to the story that is incredibly significant. I think it is a great topic for discussion though. With all young children, the beginnings of feelings toward the opposite sex are an issue. I do not agree with the books message to suppress these feelings however. I get that maybe the author is saying to wait until you have the wisdom and understanding to better comprehend these feelings before acting on them, like when Jonas decided to stop taking the pills, but the overall message of hiding feelings is upsetting to me. That should not be something we teach children. They need to be taught to understand the feelings, then to control them on their own.