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The impact of children's literature in our society
Heroism and literature essay
The impact of children's literature in our society
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The Cay is a novel by Theodore Taylor. The book’s plot revolves around a twelve-year-old boy, Phillip, who, although American-born, is living on the Caribbean isle of Curaçao due to his father’s job with an oil company. However, World War II is raging, and Phillip leaves the island aboard a steamer with his mother. The steamer is torpedoed by a Nazi German submarine, and Phillip is rescued by an elderly West Indian named Timothy, who pulls him aboard a life raft. The two float to a deserted cay, which they struggle to survive on, all the more so after Phillip goes blind because of a head injury sustained during the ship’s sinking.
A major, vital element in any adventure novel is the inclusion of a hero or heroine. In The Cay, Phillip is the hero. This twelve-year-old boy is the main character in the story, and his struggle for survival is portrayed as the main problem in the book. Phillip is “made” by the author, Taylor, into a character a Deer Creek seventh-grader, or any other American middle-schooler, can relate to. The aspect of Phillip that is the easiest to relate to ...
A lighthouse’s piercing beam of light shines over the murky land, providing respite—albeit brief—from the harsh battering of the neighboring terrain. Trouble, by Gary D. Schmidt, wraps this picture eloquently in the form of a compelling and captivating contemporary fiction book. Trouble primarily centers around a boy named Henry Smith, who never really understood the formidable potential of the omnipotent entity Trouble in his safe and idyllic life. Henry had always fallen into the dark shadow of his brother, Franklin, as a result of Franklin’s physical prowess. “…especially since he could never hope to match the records that Franklin—Franklin Smith, O Franklin Smith, the great lord of us all, Franklin Smith—had put up on the wooden Athletic Records panels for his rugby play.” (7). Henry’s brother, however, was extremely arrogant, and put his brother down at every chance he got, which causes Trouble to appear. “‘You do that climb, you have guts…you don't have any guts.’ Franklin punched his arm. Too hard. Then he laughed and walked away.” (38). Although the word “Trouble” usually brings to mind pictures of kids attempting to pull their parents’ hair out, it strikes the Smith family in a very different way: with the death of their Franklin due to being run over by Chay Chouan, a Cambodian immigrant. The family is utterly devastated with Trouble’s unforeseen arrival. “And his father hadn't shaved—which was, Henry thought, the first time that had ever happened.” (11). Having been promised to be taken to Mount Katahdin, the tallest mountain in Maine, right before Franklin had died, Henry takes the news the worst. His thoughts completely revolve around Katahdin, and how he would hike it at any cost, if just to...
In the book, Mattie starts out as a lazy teenager who needs to be told what to do by her over controlling mother, but throughout the story, she becomes more responsible and adult-like. For example, at the start of their adventure, Mattie leaves P...
At the beginnings of the 1900s, some leading magazines in the U.S have already started to exhibit choking reports about unjust monopolistic practices, rampant political corruption, and many other offenses; which helped their sales to soar. In this context, in 1904, The Appeal to Reason, a leading socialist weekly, offered Sinclair $500 to prepare an exposé on the meatpacking industry (Cherny). To accomplish his mission, Sinclair headed to Chicago, the center of the meatpacking industry, and started an investigation as he declared“ I spent seven weeks in Packingtown studying conditions there, and I verified every smallest detail, so that as a picture of social conditions the book is as exact as a government report” (Sinclair, The Industrial Republic 115-16). To get a direct knowledge of the work, he sneaked into the packing plants as a pretended worker. He toured the streets of Packingtown, the area near the stockyards where the workers live. He approached people, from different walks of life, who could provide useful information about conditions in Packingtown. At the end of seven weeks, he returned home to New Jersey, shut himself up in a small cabin, wrote for nine months, and produced The Jungle (Cherny).
In the small southern town of Cold Sassy, Georgia, at the turn of the twentieth century, teenage boys had to grow up fast. They were not in any way sheltered from the daily activities of the town. This was especially true for fourteen year old Will Tweedy. Olive Ann Burns’ first, and only completed novel, Cold Sassy Tree, tells of young Will’s coming-of-age. His experiences with religion, progress, and death in Cold Sassy escorted him along the path to manhood.
After hearing a brief description of the story you might think that there aren’t many good things about they story. However, this is false, there are many good things in this book that makes it a good read. First being that it is a very intriguing book. This is good for teenage readers because often times they don’t willingly want to read, and this story will force the teenage or any reader to continue the book and continue reading the series. Secondly, this is a “good” book because it has a good balance of violence. This is a good thing because it provides readers with an exciting read. We hear and even see violence in our everyday life and I believe that it is something teenagers should be exposed to. This book gives children an insig...
From this critical analysis, I have experienced a new insight on Treasure Island. My idea of a quest before reading Gary Carey’s analysis was a rough adventure the protagonist forgoes only to obtain a treasure. Now, Carey has provided a further definition to the term quest. It is a tale of hardship, courage, and one’s place in the world. The quest story is often an analogy of the protagonist’s salvation and life’s purpose. I agree that Jim finds himself through the other characters as well as through perilous adventures.
Children have often been viewed as innocent and innocent may be a nicer way to call children naive. Since children’s lives are so worry free they lack the knowledge of how to transition from being a child to becoming an adolescent. Their lack of knowledge may be a large part of their difficulties growing up, which could be a few rough years for many. In books like the boy in the striped pajamas the story is told from the point of view of a little boy, this way we get a full view of how innocent he is. In this book the writer shows the reader first hand how a child viewed the holocaust and how his innocence cost him his life. Then in books like the perks of being a wallflower Charlie is a teen whom is struggling with the transition from being a child to becoming an adolescent. In this book the writer gives a first hand look at how difficult it can be to transition into an adolescent. Charlie has many difficulties in this book; he is in search of his identity and how to fit in.
...ror of Pecola’s first sexual experience: her father rapes her), and a difficult marriage situation (caused by his own drunkenness). The “bads” certainly outweigh the “goods” in his situation. Thus, the reader ought not to feel sympathy for Cholly. But, Morrison presents information about Cholly in such a way that mandates sympathy from her reader. This depiction of Cholly as a man of freedom and the victim of awful happenings is wrong because it evokes sympathy for a man who does not deserve it. He deserves the reader’s hate, but Morrison prevents Cholly covered with a blanket of undeserved, inescapable sympathy. Morrison creates undeserved sympathy from the reader using language and her depiction of Cholly acting within the bounds of his character. This ultimately generates a reader who becomes soft on crime and led by emotions manipulated by the authority of text.
Our journey starts in the year 1853 with four Scandinavian indentured servants who are very much slaves at the cold and gloomy headquarters of the Russian-American fur-trading company in Sitka, Alaska. The story follows these characters on their tortuous journey to attempt to make it to the cost of Astoria, Oregon. Our list of characters consists of Melander, who is very much the brains of the operation as he plans the daring escape from the Russians. Next to join the team was Karlson, who was chosen by Melander because he is a skilled canoeman and knows how to survive in the unforgiving landscape of the Pacific Northwest. Third was Braaf, he was chosen because of his ability to steal and hide things, which made him a very valuable asset to the teams escape. Last to join our team is Wennberg who we know is a skilled blacksmith who happens to hear about their plan and forces himself into the equation.
Norton, D. E., & Norton. S. (2011). Through The Eyes Of a Child. An Introduction To Children’s Literature. Boston, MA, 02116: Eight-Edition Pearson Education
There are three older boys, Ralph, Jack, and Piggy, that have an effect on the group of younger boys. The Main character Ralph, changes throughout the novel because of his role of leadership and responsibility, which shapes him into a more strict but caring character as the group becomes more uncivilized and savage. At the beginning of the story, after the plane crashed on the island and the boys are accounted for, Ralph feels very free and absent. He finds a lagoon with warm water, and just like any other twelve year old boy, he goes for recreational swimming. Whizzoh!
Fiction Studies 49.3 (Fall 2003): 443-468. Rpt. in Children's Literature Review. Ed. Jelena Krstovic. Vol. 176. Detroit: Gale, 2013. Literature Resource Center. Web. 11 Mar. 2014.
A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid presents the hypothetical story of a tourist visiting Antigua, the author’s hometown. Kincaid places the reader in the shoes of the tourist, and tells the tourist what he/she would see through his/her travels on the island. She paints a picturesque scene of the tourist’s view of Antigua, but stains the image with details of issues that most tourists overlook: the bad roads, the origin of the so-called native food, the inefficiency of the plumbing systems in resorts, and the glitches in the health care system. Kincaid was an established writer for The New Yorker when she wrote this book, and it can be safely assumed that majority of her readers had, at some point in their lives, been tourists. I have been a tourist so many times before and yet, I had never stopped to consider what happens behind the surface of the countries I visit until I read this essay. Kincaid aims to provoke her readers; her style of writing supports her goal and sets both her and her essay apart. To the reader, it sounds like Kincaid is attacking the beautiful island, pin-pointing the very things that we, as tourists, wish to ignore. No tourist wants to think about faeces from the several tourists in the hotel swimming alongside them in the oceans, nor do they want to think about having accidents and having to deal with the hospital. It seems so natural that a tourist would not consider these, and that is exactly what Kincaid has a problem with.
The book entitled Mariquita A Tragedy of Guam was written by author Chris Perez Howard in honor of her mother Mariquita Aguon Perez. The book covers the pain and sufferings of Guamanians through World War II from the perspective of one family. The book covers a period of time a little under a decade, beginning in 1938 while Guam was under Naval Administration.
Novels of the 1950s such as Crucifixus Exam by Walter M. Miller, Jr. had a very complex style of writing that was almost poetic and often focused on something small with very much detail. On the other hand later writings like James Patterson’s Maximum Ride have almost all child characters who are quite relatable for anyone 10-17 years old. The writing is also very young, straightforward, and direct to the readers for a much more “kid-like” reading experie...