The novel "I'm Not Scared" explores the playful and interesting world of childhood through the eyes of a nine year old kid. In the hot, dry summer of 1978, Michele, the main character, and his friends have nothing better to do than play new games and dares. Their small town Aqua Treverse only occupies four houses. Michele and his friends usually ride on their bikes across the deserted countryside, while the adults stay indoors shielding from the enormous heat. This gives the children the freedom to do anything they want.
Like any other gang in the world, this one has a leader as well. His name is Skull and he's only 12 years old. Skull would not even stop at forcing a girl to expose her private parts to the whole gang just to prove he is the leader and everything has to be done his way. After being falsely punished, Barbara has been ordered to do the forfeit. To spare the fat girl who tags along a humiliating forfeit, Michele decides to do the forfeit as a result of harsh demands by Skull. This is the first time in the novel that Michele uses his heroism and sticks up to Skull. He knows that Skull is cruel and that he asked for too much. Michele is smart and knows that he can't fight Skull by himself but would have to involve the whole gang. Therefore he calls upon a second vote on the forfeit so he can do it instead of Barbara. The gang of course backs up Michele.
As a result of accepting the forfeit, Skull decides that Michele explores an abandoned farmhouse in a remote location. Michele unaware of what he is about to get himself into, rather carefully climbs and crosses the farmhouse. Realizing that he was lucky to land on soft material after his jump from the house, he discovers a hole. As he uncovers it, he finds out that a boy occupies it. Due to the limited time he had to investigate the situation as the gang was closing down on him, he decides to keep it a secret. Michele knows that Skull would declare himself responsible for finding the boy and therefore he decides to keep it a secret. After all it's finder's keepers. He feels threatened by Skull and doesn't want such a big discovery to be taken away from him. I mean we all want to be appreciated for our good deeds but telling the others will make it only worse.
In the murder mystery “Scared to Death”, there are several suspects to who had scared Marcus Farley to his death. The suspects to the mystery are Claire, the faithful housekeeper; Tom Paisley, the Scottish medium; Sasha, Marcus’s Australian model wife; and Rachel, who is the younger sister to Jane Farley and had been in London for 27 years. Jane was Marcus’s daughter, who committed suicide and is claimed to have been a ghost. Marcus Farley read a threatening letter that was stabbed into the door with a knife, which caused him to have a heart attack and die. He could not find his nitroglycerin pills in the medicine drawer. Claire had the motive, opportunity, and the means to kill Marcus Farley.
The idea of childhood innocence is one that could be interpreted in many different ways. Yusef Komunyakaa’s “English”, Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”, Peter Tait’s “Too much information destroys childhood innocence”, and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road are all pieces that demonstrate how childhood innocence is preserved. In “English”, Komunyakaa describes a boy who sees an airstrike during a war and thinks it is a celebration because no one has ever explained the concept of war to him. “Harrison Bergeron” demonstrates a society that is very conservative about the knowledge they allow its civilians to obtain. Peter Tait’s article on preserving childhood innocence exposes the truths about social media and the easy access kids
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...
Woolfe, Zachary. "A World of Childhood Innocence Intersects With a Grown-Up Reality." The New York Times. N.p., 13 Oct. 2013. Web. 15 Dec. 2013.
Senick, Gerard J., and Hedblad, Alan. Children’s Literature Review: Excerpts from Reviews, and Commentary on Books for Children and Young People (Volumes 14, 34, 35). Detroit, Michigan: Gale Research, 1995..
In societies across the world it is clear that many children never have a ‘childhood naivety’ due to events, circumstance or even people in their lives. I have chosen to explore the theme “the tragic premature loss of childhood innocence.” We are shown this theme in the novel The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, the film My Sister’s Keeper directed by Nick Cassavetes, the film Slumdog Millionaire directed by Danny Boyle and the novel Goodnight Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian.
It seems that there are always new and improved devices being released to the public for entertainment and assistance. However, Louv sees that children should not be so reliant on touch screens and portable gaming; they take away from what should be a lively and interactive childhood. Last Child in the Woods reveals the problems with separating children from nature. Louv lengthens simple descriptions, poses rhetorical questions, and provides vivid imagery to help the reader connect with his own beliefs. His goal is to help stop the never-ending stream of media from taking away carefree and simple childhoods from the younger
Inevitably, there comes a point in everybody’s life at which they have an experience that completely alters their view of the world. This moment is when one loses his or her innocence, or comes of age, and he or she realizes that they do not live in a utopian Golden Age. Parents are charged with the monumental duty of protecting their children’s innocence, but everybody inescapably grows up. This experience can be anything from an embarrassing situation at school to coming within seconds of death. In the short story “Ambush” by Tim O’Brien, the author tells the true story of his daughter confronting him and asked him if he had ever killed anyone. In an effort to be a good parent and protect the nine-year-old’s innocence, the author does not share with her the story he goes on to tell to the reader. He explains how many years ago, he was serving in the army and was taking a shift guarding his troop’s campsite when all of a sudden, a young man from the opposing army came walking up the trail. Without a second thought, O’Brien killed the boy with a grenade, and he lost his innocence after realizing he had killed a defenseless man without hesitation. Tim O’Brien develops Ambush as a coming of age story through the use of literary devices.
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.
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.
The target audience for this remediation is children around the ages of 5-8 at a reading level of 3. The purpose of this remediation is the idea that a classic story can be changed to suit the views of a child. This story tells about how children should not judge other children based on their gender, but on their personalities and similarities. The book mainly uses stereotypical versions of boys and...
Children who grow up in small towns often desire nothing more to leave the place they are confined to. Everything is remarkably mundane, strikingly predictable, and they yearn to feel the thrill of the unexpected that living in a city provides. However, there are key life lessons one can only experience in a small town. With just over 4000 inhabitants, one cannot make a trip to any store without meeting two, or ten, familiar faces. Constant interaction makes a person uncomfortably friendly. They are willing to talk to anyone sitting on a bus, waiting in line, or standing in a bathroom. In addition, these circumstances foster a trusting nature. In fact, there are few people in a small town that could not be trusted. Of course, the trust and friendliness allowed for a lot of freedom as a child. Parents never thought twice about allowing a child to venture out with friends or spend hours running around playing make-believe. Children have to supply their own entertainment, only increasing the independence they have. While they spend their lives wishing to get out of that town, they grow up to realize how it truly impacted the person they have
Children are seen as adorable, fun loving, and hard to control. Ida Fink uses a child in “The Key Game” to be the key to this family’s life. The setting is placed during the start of World War II; Jews all around were being taken. Fink uses a boy who doesn’t look the traditional Jewish, “And their chubby, blue-eyed, three-year-old child” (Fink). As they read on the emotional connection is stronger because there is a face to go with this character. Fink draws a reader in by making connections to a family member the reader may know. A blue-eyed, chubby child is the picture child of America. A child in any story makes readers more attached especially if they have children of their own. The child is three way too young to be responsible for the safety of the father, yet has to be. Throughout the story, we see how the mother struggles with making her child play the game because no child should be responsible like
The idealized reality that the narrator dreams of at each point in his life is reflected in the author’s language use. The description of childhood escape contains clichés found in children’s adventure books, such as "keep cool," "the old right hook," and "dirty dogs." As an adolescent, the descriptions are more mysterious and sexual, including references to Dracula and to rape. The descriptions as an adult are the most casual and slangy, suggesting a decline in the narrator’s intellect, the result of complete indifference. At this point he sees reality for all that it is, and finds this unfulfilling compared to his earlier idealizations.
I think it was at its peak from about the age of twelve to roughly