I really enjoyed our discussion today on Holes and I wish we got to spend more than one day on this book. To be honest, while I was reading this novel I did not "read into" any part of the story in detail. I read it as just a fun read, as some of you did as well.
As we said that this book was "clean" and had a nice, connected ending, I think that some of the points Sachar might have been trying to make are not so clear and, unlike the plot, may be open-ended. A topic that we discussed today (somewhat) and I think would be interesting to discuss in more detail (as an open-ended question) is race.
When the question, "What was Sachar trying to say about race?" was brought up, I started thinking of different reasons, but I still couldn't come to an answer. I decided for my blog I wanted to share a few specific examples that stuck out to me when thinking about this.
The instance that stood out to me was when the first Stanley Yelnats (a white man) went to Madame Zeroni (essentially a black woman) for help. I know I might be taking this way out of context and going too far with it, but here I thought that Sachar might be trying to make a point about slavery. Back when slavery was legal, white people essentially turned to black people for “help” to benefit their own lives. I saw this paralleling with Stanley Yelnats as he turned to Madame Zeroni to benefit his own life, but did not bother to help her in return when she asked for it, just as slaves were mistreated.
Another incident that stood out was Stanley carrying Zero up God’s Thumb. Again, I might be reading in to this too much, but I thought that Sachar might have included this to show that white people have helped black people, which is contradictory to the previous message. In this situation, I thought Stanley carrying Zero paralleled the Civil War when the whites in the north fought for the freedom of slaves. (I think you could take this even farther by saying that The Warden and her staff represent the south during the civil war who was trying to keep the slaves oppressed).
As those two instances specifically stuck out in my head and they contained different (but related) messages, I asked myself one more question that I will leave you with to ponder:
When thinking about the specific instances of situations where race is prevalent in the novel, do you think these instances complement each other, or do you find them to be somewhat contradictory?
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Dicey's Song
“There are no fantastical elements,” is the conclusion I settled on to justify my persistent uneasiness while reading Dicey’s Song. Every book we have read previous to Dicey’s Song has had at least a glimmer of fantasy to it that provided the reader with hope for a happy ending that eventually ensued. This was not the case for Dicey’s Song; Voigt bluntly sets a tone of realism without fantasy in the first sentences of the book when she says, “And they lived happily ever after. Not the Tillermans,” spurring the initial feeling of uneasiness for the reader.
A series of “why?” questions followed after I came to that conclusion: Why does the absence of fantasy make this novel uncomfortable to read? Why are such deep/dark issues addressed in this novel? Why are these kinds of serious issues addressed in any literature for children? Why does most children’s literature use fantastical elements when addressing these issues?
The last question didn’t stop prodding my mind, and eventually led me to think about Korney Chukovsky’s From Two to Five, a guidebook to the language of children. Something he addresses in this guidebook is the fact that literature intended for audiences as young as infancy (such as nursery rhymes) parallel child-made fantasy. (“Cute things” that kids say are considered child-made fantasy as they are creative but also have a specific meaning. Kids make statements that seem funny or fantastic, but those statements are actually showing their understanding of reality in addition to the extent that they are able to differentiate between what is accepted as real or not. An exaggerated example is a child might say that a serial killer is a person who kills someone with cereal, which as adults we know is false, but they believe it to be true as it is their understanding of the term).
It seems to me that the idea of mirroring child-made fantasy in literature carried on to a lot of children’s literature and matured along the way. What I mean by saying child-made fantasy “matured” is instead a child having a fantastical understanding of a specific phrase/term, an older child may now have a fantastical understanding of a specific issue/topic. (I know this probably sounds confusing, but stay with me!).
My theory that child-made fantasy has “matured” in a way that it is incorporated in children’s literature is seen extensively in our novels with the issue of growing up parentless. Pippi Longstocking and Peter Pan are probably the two best examples of this mature child-made fantasy about this topic as they display (for the most part) the consequences of growing up parentless in an innocent light. Pippi and Peter are happy-go-lucky characters that do just fine without parents and have elaborate adventures or experiences that a child with parents would never have (such as not attending school or flying to Neverland). As growing up parentless is a rather serious and deep topic, usually with devastating consequences, Dicey’s Song is the only novel that accurately portrayed it as such. Though the intended audience for this book was children, Voigt was blunt and did not include fantasy to sugar-coat growing up parentless. So while these novels all addressed the topic of growing up parentless, Voigt was the only author who did so without fantasy.
After these thoughts, I returned back to my question of why does most children’s literature use fantastical elements when addressing these issues, and I think the answer is because the authors want to address serious societal topics/issues in children’s literature in order to make children aware of them, and the inclusion of fantastical elements when addressing them allows that awareness, but it is innocent as it is not a full understanding yet.
I personally like the inclusion of fantastical elements when addressing serious topics in kid’s literature because I feel like a full understanding of the devastating reality these topics present is not necessarily appropriate (on some levels) for young readers in many cases.
A series of “why?” questions followed after I came to that conclusion: Why does the absence of fantasy make this novel uncomfortable to read? Why are such deep/dark issues addressed in this novel? Why are these kinds of serious issues addressed in any literature for children? Why does most children’s literature use fantastical elements when addressing these issues?
The last question didn’t stop prodding my mind, and eventually led me to think about Korney Chukovsky’s From Two to Five, a guidebook to the language of children. Something he addresses in this guidebook is the fact that literature intended for audiences as young as infancy (such as nursery rhymes) parallel child-made fantasy. (“Cute things” that kids say are considered child-made fantasy as they are creative but also have a specific meaning. Kids make statements that seem funny or fantastic, but those statements are actually showing their understanding of reality in addition to the extent that they are able to differentiate between what is accepted as real or not. An exaggerated example is a child might say that a serial killer is a person who kills someone with cereal, which as adults we know is false, but they believe it to be true as it is their understanding of the term).
It seems to me that the idea of mirroring child-made fantasy in literature carried on to a lot of children’s literature and matured along the way. What I mean by saying child-made fantasy “matured” is instead a child having a fantastical understanding of a specific phrase/term, an older child may now have a fantastical understanding of a specific issue/topic. (I know this probably sounds confusing, but stay with me!).
My theory that child-made fantasy has “matured” in a way that it is incorporated in children’s literature is seen extensively in our novels with the issue of growing up parentless. Pippi Longstocking and Peter Pan are probably the two best examples of this mature child-made fantasy about this topic as they display (for the most part) the consequences of growing up parentless in an innocent light. Pippi and Peter are happy-go-lucky characters that do just fine without parents and have elaborate adventures or experiences that a child with parents would never have (such as not attending school or flying to Neverland). As growing up parentless is a rather serious and deep topic, usually with devastating consequences, Dicey’s Song is the only novel that accurately portrayed it as such. Though the intended audience for this book was children, Voigt was blunt and did not include fantasy to sugar-coat growing up parentless. So while these novels all addressed the topic of growing up parentless, Voigt was the only author who did so without fantasy.
After these thoughts, I returned back to my question of why does most children’s literature use fantastical elements when addressing these issues, and I think the answer is because the authors want to address serious societal topics/issues in children’s literature in order to make children aware of them, and the inclusion of fantastical elements when addressing them allows that awareness, but it is innocent as it is not a full understanding yet.
I personally like the inclusion of fantastical elements when addressing serious topics in kid’s literature because I feel like a full understanding of the devastating reality these topics present is not necessarily appropriate (on some levels) for young readers in many cases.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
A Pirate's Life For Me!
“I’m going to be a pirate when I grow up,” she cried. “Are you?” p160
I found these lines to be a very interesting way to end Pippi Longstocking. They made me ask myself, “Is Lindgren trying to say something about pirates and their behavior? Or considering Pippi’s background with pirates is she trying to indicate something about pirates’ influence on behavior – what one sees as “acceptable” or “unacceptable” behavior?”
While reading Pippi Longstocking I found myself wrestling with the question, “what does it mean to behave?” I found myself getting excited with Tommy and Annika when they were about to play with Pippi and frustrated at the same time because of the same reason – Pippi does not behave. It is exciting to be around someone who essentially is a rule-breaker and does things differently, but at the same time it could be annoying and irritating. Then I realized, Pippi doesn’t behave according to my social norms and culture. She behaves according to herself. Then I thought, “How did she form was it acceptable/unacceptable behavior without parents around for most of her life?” which led me to think about a few different behavioral theorists, specifically Pavlov, Skinner, and Bandura, and applying their theories to Pippi’s behavior. From this perspective, it is obvious why Pippi “doesn’t behave” according to me (and our society), but why she thinks she does behave.
You all remember Pavlov and his salivating dogs. What was he trying to prove? He used classical conditioning to show that behavior is learned through association. If you remember every time he fed his dogs, he rang a bell. He did this consistently to the point that when he only rang the bell, the dogs would salivate (expecting to be fed). Pippi learned some behavior from pirates when she was younger, but they are really the only people and environment she has ever been associated with.
Skinner associated learning behavior with rewards or punishment – you learn from the consequences of your behavior. Again, Pippi didn’t have parents to reward or punish her behavior; she essentially had to be her own parent and therefore behaved as she pleased.
Bandura formed the Social Learning Theory, which emphasizes that behavior is learned through social interaction and modeling is the primary method of learning for humans (an example of modeling just to give you a better understanding would be a child sees his parents always on the phone, so he will pick up the phone and pretend to carry on a conversation, just like his parents). Again, Pippi acts accordingly as she sees fit, but this made me wonder what kind of behavior she might be modeling that she picked up on from being around pirates?
Basically these three men all formed theories that revolve around a central theme of behavior. That behavior is all stimulus-response. The main stimulus-response Pippi got with her behavior came from being on the sea with her father and other pirates. They basically formed the norm for the foundation of her behavior, and when she lost them at sea she built her own behavioral norm off that foundation, which in our society is unacceptable behavior.
The reason I linked this together was because everytime Lindgren writes about Pippi misbehaving, she usually associates it with pirates. For example, Pippi asked Annika in reference to being invited to her mother’s coffee party “What if I can’t behave myself? …You can be sure I’ll try, but I have noticed several times that people don’t think I know how to behave even when I’m trying as hard as I can. At sea we were never so fussy about things like that.” P117 And again at the coffee party Lindgren writes, ‘“You must never come here again,” said Mrs. Settergren, “if you can’t behave any better than this.” Pippi looked at her in astonishment and her eyes slowly filled with tears. “That’s just what I was afraid of,” she said. “That I couldn’t behave properly. It’s no use to try; I’ll never learn. I should have stayed on the ocean.”’ P129
I found these lines to be a very interesting way to end Pippi Longstocking. They made me ask myself, “Is Lindgren trying to say something about pirates and their behavior? Or considering Pippi’s background with pirates is she trying to indicate something about pirates’ influence on behavior – what one sees as “acceptable” or “unacceptable” behavior?”
While reading Pippi Longstocking I found myself wrestling with the question, “what does it mean to behave?” I found myself getting excited with Tommy and Annika when they were about to play with Pippi and frustrated at the same time because of the same reason – Pippi does not behave. It is exciting to be around someone who essentially is a rule-breaker and does things differently, but at the same time it could be annoying and irritating. Then I realized, Pippi doesn’t behave according to my social norms and culture. She behaves according to herself. Then I thought, “How did she form was it acceptable/unacceptable behavior without parents around for most of her life?” which led me to think about a few different behavioral theorists, specifically Pavlov, Skinner, and Bandura, and applying their theories to Pippi’s behavior. From this perspective, it is obvious why Pippi “doesn’t behave” according to me (and our society), but why she thinks she does behave.
You all remember Pavlov and his salivating dogs. What was he trying to prove? He used classical conditioning to show that behavior is learned through association. If you remember every time he fed his dogs, he rang a bell. He did this consistently to the point that when he only rang the bell, the dogs would salivate (expecting to be fed). Pippi learned some behavior from pirates when she was younger, but they are really the only people and environment she has ever been associated with.
Skinner associated learning behavior with rewards or punishment – you learn from the consequences of your behavior. Again, Pippi didn’t have parents to reward or punish her behavior; she essentially had to be her own parent and therefore behaved as she pleased.
Bandura formed the Social Learning Theory, which emphasizes that behavior is learned through social interaction and modeling is the primary method of learning for humans (an example of modeling just to give you a better understanding would be a child sees his parents always on the phone, so he will pick up the phone and pretend to carry on a conversation, just like his parents). Again, Pippi acts accordingly as she sees fit, but this made me wonder what kind of behavior she might be modeling that she picked up on from being around pirates?
Basically these three men all formed theories that revolve around a central theme of behavior. That behavior is all stimulus-response. The main stimulus-response Pippi got with her behavior came from being on the sea with her father and other pirates. They basically formed the norm for the foundation of her behavior, and when she lost them at sea she built her own behavioral norm off that foundation, which in our society is unacceptable behavior.
The reason I linked this together was because everytime Lindgren writes about Pippi misbehaving, she usually associates it with pirates. For example, Pippi asked Annika in reference to being invited to her mother’s coffee party “What if I can’t behave myself? …You can be sure I’ll try, but I have noticed several times that people don’t think I know how to behave even when I’m trying as hard as I can. At sea we were never so fussy about things like that.” P117 And again at the coffee party Lindgren writes, ‘“You must never come here again,” said Mrs. Settergren, “if you can’t behave any better than this.” Pippi looked at her in astonishment and her eyes slowly filled with tears. “That’s just what I was afraid of,” she said. “That I couldn’t behave properly. It’s no use to try; I’ll never learn. I should have stayed on the ocean.”’ P129
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Potter Parallels
I can't help but to completely immerse myself into this novel every time I read it. Not only because of the magical world it allows my imagination to roam in, but more so because of the parts of the story that are reality and I secretly long for. Hogwarts, flying broomsticks, spells and charms don't have meaning to me without Harry's “muggle” side. Hero aside, Harry is so much of what we are or what we wish to be.To some extent everyone experiences friendships, family, school/learning, failure and/or success. Life, if you will. For me, certain parts of the novel that address these things are what I consider to be achievable for my own life, hence why I said I secretly desire it. Harry has an unbreakable bond with Ron and Hermione and though I have awesome friends I get the feeling that Harry, Ron, and Hermione's friendship is stronger than any bond I have with my friends. Naturally I desire to have a friendship like theirs and therefore I get very involved in their friendship in the book, so much that I consider myself to be in that friendship and experience the bond that I crave, but don't have in reality.
Also, Harry is constantly striving to make his parents proud. Even though they aren't alive, he usually considers his parents before making decisions. This applies to my life as well. I am always trying to please my parents because I find a sense of self-worth in how successful they deem me to be. This allows me to further embrace the novel as I crave to please my parents the way Harry pleases his. For instance, at the end of HP and the Goblet of Fire, when Harry duels Voldemort and briefly sees his parents, they tell Harry what to do when to connection between the wands break. During that quick conversation, you can see that his parents love him and are very proud of him, and secretly (or not secretly?) I think most children desire to make their parents feel the way Harry's parents feel about him... proud!
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Intro
Hi! My name is Lauren, I am a biology major planning on graduating this May in hopes of going to PA school (physician’s assistant) in August of 2011. I am the second oldest of 5 with all brothers, no sisters! I am a new mommy – I have a beautiful 3 month old baby girl, Isabela, who is absolutely adorable and I posted a picture of her with my mom's (her grandma's) glasses on that my younger brothers took and another picture of her at Chritmas.
My favorite children’s book is probably Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. I had just finished 7th grade when I read it and I remember it occupying most of my summer as my best friend had moved away and she was really my only friend at that time. I loved disappearing into the world of Harry Potter and Hogwarts and I think the Goblet of Fire is my favorite due to its release during that specific time of my life with my best friend moving away and such. I guess you could say I felt like Harry, Ron, and Hermione were my replacement friends (as nerdy as that is).
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