Final Reflection

For those that have read my blogs and didn't realize that this was for a class then I guess you know now. When I started this class I had always enjoyed reading and I had always enjoyed writing. The big thing was I just seemed to lose my desire to do so. Since the class, and not counting the books that I read for the class, I've read about 5 books in my free time. I even started to write a couple of books, which I've scrapped all but one of them. The class has really gotten back into reading and writing and I feel that the most important thing that I relearned in this class was that these activities can really be a lot of fun.

Of course that's not the only thing that I had learned in the entire class. This class itself was set up to give it's students many details of things that they could do in their own classrooms instead of the old fashion book reports. We did things such as journals, multiple presentations, poetry boards, and many other things. I really enjoyed preparing and presenting. I also rather enjoyed writing the journals as it helped me discover writing blogs and I have a new hobby of reviewing literature, which I plan on continuing on a different name after I read books.

Bridge to Terabithia

Author: Katherine Paterson
Book: Bridge to Terabithia



Summary of the book:

This was actually one of my favorite books. It goes to show you what kind of interesting books that you can find in the young adult's section even if your not a young adult anymore. This is also a movie, but I'm content on not watching the movie just because I feel like it would ruin the book. I feel that way towards many movies that were made after a book though as they just don't leave as much to the imagination like this book can do.

The book is about a boy named Jess who is your everyday middle class to lower class boy. He lives on a farm and has many chores to do. He has several sisters and the family as a whole doesn't have much money to spend. Jess tends to daze of in class and starts to doodle. I guess I can say the only difference between him and I were that his doodles were actually quite good.

One day a girl moved in next to him named Leslie. At firs Jess and Leslie didn't quite hit it off, but eventually Jess became friends with her and even allowed her to run a race with the boys that Jess had been training for all summer long.

One day they figured that they needed their own place to go to escape the real world. They found a place in the woods and named it the land of Terabithia. The only way you could enter this world was to swing on a rope over the river. It wasn't magical if you entered in any other way.

Here they had many adventures and they even started taking their adventures outside into the real world by playing tricks on the mean girls at school. One rainy day Jess's teacher, who he had a big crush on, took him out to an art museum. He was having the time of his life. When he got back home he had found out some terrible news that would change his life. To find out what this terrible new is your going to have to read the book yourself.

Critique:

When talking about Modern Fantasy books this one really fits the style. It's very imaginative and it allows it's readers to escape reality for the time being. It also contains these things, which are very important to Modern Fantasy books.

It provides vivid descriptions of characters, setting, and action by giving us sensual details: the colors, sounds, textures, tastes, and smells of the fantasy worlds.

It engages the hearts of the reader by grounding the story in reality and the human condition: humor, joy grief, pride, shame, hope, and despair. (It rather shows this well with the funny stories throughout the book, the pride of Jess wanting to be the fastest boy, and the sad ending)

It maintains consistency by abiding by the rules established in the fantasy world. Veering from the rules causes the reader to stop and speculate about the viability of the story, preventing suspension of disbelief.

Other:

I also made a little animation/sales pitch of why you should read this book. It can be viewed here.

Al Capone Does My Shirts

Book: Al Capone Does My Shirts
Author: Gennifer Choldenko

Summary of the book:

First off I was very excited to read this book as I when I was younger I heard stories from men who actually met Al Capone when they were children. They said that Al Capone would through them money from his car as he drove by. I also really enjoyed the mafia genre movies and stories throughout my life as well. The book was set up like a bunch of diary entries of a twelve year old boy named Moose Flannigan. Moose and his family had recently moved to Alcatraz, which is a federal penitentiary. They have moved there because his father received a job there.

His sister, Natalie, has autism and really gets most of the families’ attention. At first Moose really doesn’t like the idea of living in Alcatraz, but he slowly adapts to it and starts to enjoy it. He even gets use to his sister getting more attention and even starts to become friendlier to her. Later in the book Moose writes a letter to Al Capone to ask if he could help get his sister, who was having trouble getting into high school, get into high school.

This is another type of book that you are going to have to read to find out the major details as I just think it’s one of those books that you should read on your own. If you want to find out if she actually gets into high school and all of the other details of the story then go to your local library and pick it up!

Critique:

This is another good young adult book that can teach some valuable life lessons. Some of these lessons would include accepting people for who they are even if they are different such as how this had happened with Natalie, Moose’s sister. There is also the fact that peer pressure can influence others into doing things that aren’t right and how bad the ending consequences can be.

This could be a great book to use if you notice things like this happening in your class where people are picking on other children for being different or if there are children being pressured into doing things that they shouldn’t be by their peers. The book is also pretty fun and very enjoyable to read so I would highly recommend this for a classroom or just for a fun book to read on your own.

each little bird that sings

Book: each little bird that sings
Author: Deborah Wiles

Summary of the book:

Unlike the other books I have read and reviewed, this one is 247 pages long. The other books that I had read were somewhere around 20 pages and down. This book is more for a younger adult then it is for a child. Not only because of the length of the book, but also because the book is very sad and just wouldn’t seem to be something that a younger child should read. The story is about a ten year old girl, Comfort Snowberger, who has attended 247 funerals in her life. I saw two things that were sort of ironic in this situation as there were 247 pages in the book, which matches the 247 funerals that she had attended. The second thing that I noticed was that her first name was Comfort and that in the book she knows how to serve others who are attending a funeral or in other words comfort them.

The reason that she has attended so many funerals is because her family owns a funeral home. One day the funerals are a bit more personal to the family as her great-great-aunt Florentine dies. Comfort has to call on all her resources for surviving sadness as she faces the death and funeral of Aunt Florentine. Throughout the book Comfort is having a very difficult time in life. Her cousin peach comes into the picture and “ruins” every family occasion and her best friend even stops talking to her. What she really wants to do is spend time wither her dog, which actually ends up being one of her closet friends.

I won’t give away spoilers like I have in my other book reviews simply because I feel that this is a book that you should read on your own and find out what happens. The biggest thing that I got out of the book was that life is going to be full of sad and disappointing things, but what really matters is if you learn ways of dealing with these things and accepting them.

Critique:

I guess the only complaints about the book, if you can even call them that, would be that the entire story is very sad and it never really has the happy ending that I would assume children books to have, but yet again it is more for a young adult then it is a child.

It really does teach some valuable lessons that I talked about before. Another good thing that it can teach would be how it’s not exactly how you die, but more of how you’ve lived your life, which I think is a very valuable lesson at almost any age that is aware of what death truly is.
One of the most realistic fiction style books are about death so this really fits the description.

Also these types of books should teach some sort of lesson about life to young adults and this also does this very well as I already mentioned. Another thing that can be related to realistic fiction books is the fact that it may be questionable if you want your child or children reading this book because of the topic of death and whether or not it would be suitable.

Website evaluation

Website Evaluated: The Children's Literature Web Guide

Accessibility

Does the page take a long time to load?

The site basically loaded instantly as I finished typing it in. This was on wireless internet at college, but the website looks very friendly to those you have dial up connection and don’t have the luxury of faster internet.

Are the images big enough for children to see?

There was really only one image on any given page of the website and I wouldn’t really even consider it an image as it was a picture of words or text. It was big enough to see, but not very appealing at all.

Is there a picture on the page that you can use to choose links?

See section above.

If you go to another page, is there a way to get back to the first page?

Some of the links that you clicked on brought you to places where you could find access to a back button, but most weren’t the easiest to find and some didn’t contain one at all. Of course you could always use the back button on the browser though.

Usability

Does the title of the page tell you what it is about?

The title states, “The Children’s Literature Web Guide”. It sounds pretty self-explanatory to me.

Is there an introduction on the page telling you what is included?

The introduction is very hard to find as it’s towards the very bottom of the page and you actually have to click on it. Sounds like it’s a bit of work to find something that should be at the beginning.

Are the facts on the page what you were looking for?

They go along with what the site says it’s going to give you.

Would you have gotten more information from an encyclopedia?

Following each link you would get more information, but if you were looking for something specific then I would suggest an online encyclopedia.

Would the information have been better in the encyclopedia?

I think there would have been more specific information in an encyclopedia.

Do the pictures and photographs on the page help you learn?

They don’t help at all. Not because the pictures are bad, but more because the pictures are nonexistent.

Does the page lead you to some other good information (links)?

This is actually what the site is made for. There are many links doing exactly this. Some links actually don’t work anymore though.

Credibility

Was the site developed by a reputable company (.com or .net), educational institution (.edu), or organization (.org)?

N/A

It actually ended in .ca instead of the usually ending.

If the site is developed by an individual is the author’s name and e-mail address on the page?

The authors name is included on the bottom of the website along with the email address.

Is there a date that tells you when the page was created or updated?

There is a date along the bottom of the page even though it hasn’t been updated in 8 years.

If there are photographs, do they look real?

N/A

If there are sounds do they sound real?

N/A

Does the author of the page say some things you disagree with?

They really don’t say much as most of the site is just links to other related sites or other helpful sites.

Does the page include information you know is wrong?

Not that I know of.

Giggle, Giggle, Quack

Book: Giggle, Giggle, Quack
Author: Doreen Cronin
Illustrator: Betsy Lewin

Summary of the book:

The book is very short, explaining why my summary of the book will also be rather short. One day Farmer Brown decided to go on vacation so he left his farm, along with the animals, in charge to his brother Bob. He was given a list of things to do with the animals on certain days and was also warned to keep a close eye on Duck because he liked to cause trouble. Duck ends up replacing the "to do list" with his own to do list. On Tuesday the duck wrote down that it was pizza night so the animals had pizza to eat that night. Wednesday was bath day for the pigs and they were to have a nice bubble bath and to be dried in nice towels. Thursday night was movie night.

Farmer Brown decides to call home to check up on the animals and he heard the nose of the animals in the background. This made him realize that they had done something they weren't suppose to and he comes back early from his vacation upset at the animals.

Critique:

I saw the good in this book and the bad at times. I was a little disappointed at how little content it had, but it would fine for younger children. The last couple of pages contained little to no words and there seemed to be a lot of in between story parts missing which makes it a tad hard to put together.

That being said it does make it a wonderful book to predict for a couple of reasons. The first reason being as it doesn't contain many words and the children can predict or come up with what they think is going on within the story based on the pictures. This, along with the great pictures, makes for a good picture book to share with a class room. The second reason it's a great book for predicting is because it has a repeating pattern to it. Every time the animals got away with tricking Bob they would say something such as, "Giggle, Giggle, Cluck."

A wonderful project to do with this book would be a project where the children could make up notes that could have been left to Bob if his brother hadn't caught the animals and came back from vacation. The notes start on Tuesday and end on Thursday, which leaves Friday through Monday left for this creative and fun project.

In conclusion, I would highly recommend this book to younger children if you wanted a book that would be great for predictions and a neat little project to follow. The pictures were great and could almost tell the story by themselves as they do later in the end of the book.

Edward and the Pirates

Book: Edward and the Pirates
Author/Illustrator: David McPhail


Summary of the book:

After a young boy name Edward learns how to read he can’t seem to stop reading. During breakfast he reads the cereal box, seed catalogs in the winter, the inscriptions on monuments, and many books. Whenever he would read the books the characters would come alive and he would be right in the stories themselves. When he read about the racing dogs in the North Pole he was right there helping the dogs go along. He would help Robin Hood when he would become surrounded by enemies. He helped Joan of Arc and even saved her from a warrior with a battle axe. Edward even swore he saw a tyrannosaurus outside his window when reading about dinosaurs.

One day, at the library, Edward found a book about Pirates named Lost Pirate Treasure, and decided to take it home with him as the library closed. When reading the pirate book he put himself right in the middle of the story by imagining that he was controlling the pirate ship. That night he noticed that his bed was surrounded by pirates and they wanted his book to find some treasure. Edward explained to them that he couldn’t because it was the library’s book and he needed to return it when he was done.

The pirates didn’t appreciate this at all and did everything from begging him, bribing him, and even threatening to make Edward walk the plank. Edward didn’t give them the book though and he stood his ground. All of a sudden Edward’s mother, who had an odd resemblance to Joan of Arc, and his father, who looked a lot like Robin Hood, burst into the room fending the pirates off. All of this made Edward feel sorry for the pirates and he ended up giving them the book. Because they didn’t know how to read Edward ended up reading the book to them.



Critique:

First off, I would like to comment that this book would be great for a read aloud. It has wonderful pictures which take up most of the page, which allow students to have a visual to go along with the adventurous story. Not only is it a great book for you as a parent or teacher to read to the children or child, but would also be a great book to assign a student to read to another group of students as its language is very student friendly.

The story towards the end can be interpreted in a couple of different ways. The first thing that came to mind was that he ended up falling asleep while reading the book and even though it doesn’t say anything about it perhaps the ending was simply a dream that he was having of what he had read. This would explain why his parents appeared as some of the characters that he had read about before. The other way that it could have been interpreted was that he really was just imagining all of it and when he was getting a little into his book his parents came in to see what he was up to. Personally, even though the book doesn’t state what happened, I would think of it as a dream.

This book really does teach how books can really engage one’s imagination. It teaches that all it really takes is something to read and a great imagination and you can be anywhere in the world doing whatever you want. It gives reading a very fun and magical feeling and it’s important to give reading that impression to younger/beginner readers.