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The importance of children's literature
The importance of children's literature
What is the significance of literature for children
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Children have a way with words as writers have a way with ink. Maxine Clair’s “Cherry Bomb” uses literary devices to characterize memories from the narrator’s lively fifth grade summer. Clair uses figurative language like imagery, childlike diction, and hyperboles to captivate her memories from an enchanting summer. First and foremost, imagery is utilized by Clair to guide us to comprehend that the narrator’s flashbacks aren’t all innocent and jubilant. The phrase, “the putrid-colored jacket my father wore when he got shipped out to the dot in the Pacific Ocean”, paints the picture that her father had worn a military badge at one point in time. By the word-choice of putrid and shipped out, it alludes to the fact that the girl despises how her
Setting expatiates the theme of loss of innocence. For example, the four major characters in this story are sixteen and seventeen years old, which is the age when teenagers prepare to end their childhood and become adults. Also, the Devon school, where the story takes place, is a place where boys make the transition to full adulthood, and so this setting shows more clearly the boys' own growth. Finally, World War II, which in 1942 is raging in Europe, forces these teenage boys to grow up fast; during their seventeenth year they must evaluate everything that the war means to them and decide whether to take an active ...
The symbols that stand out to understand the central concern of the poem are the camera, the photograph of the narrator and the photograph of the narrator’s grandmother. The camera symbolizes the time that has passed between the generations of the grandmother and the narrator. It acts as a witness of the past and the present after taking the photos of the narrator in the bikini and the grandmother in the dress. Her grandmother is wearing a “cotton meal-sack dress” (l. 17), showing very little skin exposure, representing
Ten year old Esther Burr creates a cheerful, reminiscent journal entry describing her day out with her father by using sophisticated word choice and an informal sentence structure. Burr’s purpose is to reveal her adoration for her father with flattering words and to also describe her day with such detail that she won’t forget it. She develops a complimentary tone in order to not only have a good memory of her father later in life, but also to appeal to her mother, who regularly reads her diary.
“Fiction is the truth inside the lie” (Stephen King). Figment of imagination helps improve brain connectivity and responsibilities which enables the brain to escape to a world of illusion. In a world of imagination students explore conflicts within the book. Anecdotes play a significant role in building the strategies used to deal with real world events. Ink and Ashes by Valynne E. Maetani, discusses how mistakes from the past has an impact on your life and may alter your future. Books intended to be read so that we as people can have a different mindset and perspective on things rather than just our own.
“We didn’t know we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun.” This quote by an unknown author gives us a unique vision of memories; it shows that memories are powerful. The most powerful can be made without recognition. The most powerful are made with excitement. Annie Dillard clearly portrays this idea in “The Chase,” a chapter in her autobiography. She tells the story of her rebellious childhood and one of the most heart-pumping events of her life - a redheaded man giving her a chase. With this, she demonstrates the need for excitement, fearlessness, and recklessness in one’s childhood. In order to convey this idea, Dillard not only employs fierce and vivid description, but she impassionedly transitions from spine-chilling tone to thrilling.
In the story, "Cherry Bomb" by Maxine Clair the author uses many literary devices to characterize the adult narrator’s memories of her fifth-grade summer world. One of the literary devices used constantly in the passage was imagery. Imagery is used to give readers insight of how summer felt to the fifth-grader of the story and helps understand the tone of the adult. “Life was measured in summers then, and the expression “I am in this world, but not of it” appealed to me. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but it had just the right ring for a lofty statement I should adopt” (Line 4-7). This quote from the passage best represents how the adult memories are reflected to the summer of her fifth-grade self. This passage gives imagery to the readers of a naïve character who believes everything that is said to her. The quote also let us know that
For a twelve year old, Douglas Spaulding, the first day of summer is magical. In Ray Bradbury’s, Dandelion Wine, he uses a variation of rhetorical devices to illustrate Douglas’ imagination of the first day of vacation.
The individual “in a ghastly suit of grey” presented by the persona has “lost his colour very far from here, poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry” after the war. This means a loss of blood, but symbolically “a loss of color” could mean a loss of personality and flair, as well as all the colors that make up himself leaving him only grey. His colors are lost ‘very far from here’ suggesting the his true and previous self is distant, lost on the grounds of war, or trapped deep inside of himself. If he has been lost far away it also makes him separated and distant from society because his colors are stranded in a depressing, forlorn world. The loss could also shows how he has been torn away and ruined both mentally and
O'Connor begins to paint the image of death with her presentation of the grandmother. As the family prepares for their adventure the grandmother carefully selects her attire. “A navy blue straw sailor hat with a bunch of white violets on the brim and a navy blue dress with a small white dot in the print. Her collars and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had pinned a purple spray of cloth violets containing a sachet” (O'Connor 267). The imagery of the grandmother’s impeccable attire foreshadows her position at the end of the story. When a person dies it is common that they are adorn in their best outfit. The grandmother has symbolically prepared herself for her eternal rest in a coffin as she is dressed in her Sunday best. O'Connor continues to incorporate the theme of death into the story, as she provides the readers with the reason for the grandmother’s ensemble, “in cares of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once she was a lady” (O'Connor 267). Symbolically the grandmother is walking down the path of death.
Imagery is widely used in O'Connor's story, which makes the characters and surroundings seem lifelike. In the depiction of the grandmother the reader can visual see the woman sitting in the car waiting on the others to arrive. "Her collar and cuffs were white organdy trimmed with lace and at her neckline she had penned a purple spray of violets containing a sachet." These are a few phrases of description that O'Conner used to describe the old lady. In the description of the scenery, O'Connor uses metaphors to create a more vivid image in the minds of the readers. As in this example of a field: "…various crops that made row of green lacework on the ground." Or "The trees were full of silver-white sunlight and the meanest of them sparkled." The reader might feel that he or she is riding in the backseat of the car along with the grandmother, June Star, and John Wesley. Perhaps he or she is reading a comic book or staring out the window admiring the scenery. Whatever the action that is taken place the readers feel a place in the story either living vicariously though the characters or by being a witness.
‘Some idea of a child or childhood motivates writers and determines both the form and content of what they write.’ -- Hunt The above statement is incomplete, as Hunt not only states that the writer has an idea of a child but in the concluding part, he states that the reader also has their own assumptions and perceptions of a child and childhood. Therefore, in order to consider Hunt’s statement, this essay will look at the different ideologies surrounding the concept of a child and childhood, the form and content in which writers inform the reader about their ideas of childhood concluding with what the selected set books state about childhood in particular gender. The set books used are Voices In The Park by Browne, Mortal Engines by Reeve and Little Women by Alcott to illustrate different formats, authorial craft and concepts about childhood. For clarity, the page numbers used in Voices In The Park are ordinal (1-30) starting at Voice 1.
The excerpt from “Cherry Bomb” by Maxine Clair is about an adult narrator’s memory of her fifth-grade summer. The narrator describes several events from the summer, specifically an incident in which her cousin loses his eye. The author uses syntax, imagery, and diction to characterize the adult narrator’s thoughts about her childhood.
The dialogue Crew has written between “old pa” and his grandson “we got chopped to bits at ypres” (Memorial, 1999) shows the brutal and slaughterus experiences “old pa” went through during the First World War. By Tan using the colour blue in “old pa’s” eyes, he accentuates the saddness, therefore showing a message that it is not only a book that is able to tell a story but it can also be told through people’s eyes. This allows the audience to connect on a deeper level with the realism and historical past of the war, as well as the past life expeiences in the grandfather’s stories. The use of the army camouflage colours in the illustrations is also a strong tool in suggesting to the children that this book has a direct connection to the army, soldiers, wars and battles. The images of the people, the soldiers and the women also add to the historical reality of the content of the
Sandra's tale brought back much nostalgia for my younger days. Those days when everything was much more simple and happiness came with almost no effort. Cisneros reminds the reader of infantile glee by repeating words, just like a kid would do. She writes, "please, please, please," and "and there! And there!, And there!…" making almost an alliteration of words that realistically depicts the speech of a child ...
In the poem The School Children, author Louise Gluck successfully creates for the reader an image of the children, their mothers and the position that they hold in their society. Her simple, yet descriptive words suggest a more in depth meaning that allows one to look past the simple story line of the poem and actually look into the entire situation the poem discusses. The story line simply tells of mothers who pick apples and send their children off to school with them, in hopes that they will receive an education in return. After completion of the poem, the reader comes to the realization that the apples are the center of the poem, around which the true meaning revolves. Through seemingly simple words, Gluck conveys a meaning to the reader throughout the poem that is camouflaged, so to speak, within the apples, as well as within her words.. Gluck’s use of simple diction and imagery deceptively display the powerful emotion, desperate hope, and passionate meaning held within the apples.