I was required to read three books as part of my lit circle assignment in my C & I English Language Arts class: "The Crazy Man" by Pamela Porter, "The Red Tree" by Shaun Tan, and "How Smudge Came" by Nan Gregory. However, I found myself reading far more. And you know what? I enjoyed it! Look what happens when you take the time to open a book...
Gregory, N. (1995), & Lightburn, R. (Illustrator). (1995). How Smudge Came. Red Deer, Canada: Red Deer Press. This was my least favourite text of the three (The Red Tree and The Crazy Man), only because I felt the story was “flat,” but it is a heartbreaker. I think its message is that while we may look/act different/be in different stages of life, we still have feelings. Even Jan, who’s near the end of his life, feels joy when he holds the puppy. I kept thinking back to my children’s literature university classes and the idea of children being powerless in an adult world. Cindy is powerless when the adults find out about the puppy and they tell her to “be reasonable.” Cindy comes up with the idea of keeping the puppy and has it all figured out because she’ll “take him to work with me” but the adults “drown her with their words.” The child’s voice is never heard. No adults even ask her if she has a plan! More powerlessness happens when the adults knock on her bedroom door “the door opens. They never wait for her to answer.” I really enjoy the illustrations in this book. Some of the pages appear to be done from the perspective of a child. (adults look giant and go beyond the page) It’s a nice reminder of how the world looks through a child’s eyes. Cindy “looks” different. She also has a different living arrangement than the nuclear family (something to keep in mind with Mother’s and Father’s Days around the corner). She doesn’t live with her family but appears to be a group home, and works at a place called Hospice. What’s Cindy’s story? The reader never finds out. Some writing activity possibilities: • Where did Smudge come from? Students could write a prequel that tells Smudge’s story. • If you could have any pet what would it be and why? (I think there’s a science GLO that deals with this in elementary… animals and their needs or habitats or something?) • Extension activities: Could also look at the SPCA. Do volunteer work there? It’s a great option for families who can’t have a pet for various reasons (live in an apartment, finances) enjoy the companionship of animals. Do a fundraiser or collection of donations for SPCA? Make this a school-wide activity? Ask SPCA what it needs…. Papertowels, blankets? Also look at how animals do visit places such as nursing homes and hospitals. Arrange a visit from the group (after checking for kids with allergies)? I found this interesting tidbit online: Title: Canadian Multicultural Picture Books. Author(s) Bainbridge, Joyce; Pantaleo, Sylvia; Ellis, Monica Publication Date: March 1998 Notes: Paper presented at the Annual Spring Conference of the National Council of Teachers of English (Albuquerque, NM, March 19-21, 1998). Educators have a particular interest in multicultural education and the use of literature as an avenue for the exploration and celebration of diversity within Canada. There is a need to understand the interdependence of all people in a global culture and an urgent need for peace and understanding. Five works of children's literature "Very Last First Time" by J. Andrews, "Ghost Train" by P. Yee, "How Smudge Came" by N. Gregory, "Red Parka Mary" by P. Eyvindson, and "The Moccasin Goalie" by W. Brownridge) depict a wide range of minorities and issues of discrimination--age, gender, physical and mental disability, and ethnicity. Research has shown that storybook reading accompanied by discussion can significantly improve a child's acceptance of difference. With this in mind, it is up to individual teachers to select multicultural books for their classes, and allow time to discuss the issues that arise from them. Picture books can spark discussion in learners of all ages! Porter, P. (2005). The Crazy Man. Toronto, Canada: Groundwood Books. I think this is a terrific text to use on the prairies! So many students will relate to the small-town farm life depicted in the text. Themes include hope, resilience, and prejudice. This text is also a perfect fit for cross-curricular studies. The non-fiction aspects such as Tommy Douglas and treatment of the mentally ill in the 1960s lend themselves well to a web quest or historical mini lessons. The treatment of the Chinese girl Mei reminded me of Fred Wah’s Diamond Grill. The prejudice that Mei’s family faces made me think about what Wah calls a “hyphenated identity” and how we go about constructing racial identity. Does Mei ever fit into the community or is she destined to live a life as someone who’s always considered an outsider? Similarly, Angus knows he is different, but I am curious to know exactly how different he is. When out-of-town farmers come to check on the experimental crops, they don’t treat Angus as an oddity. We know he’s been poisoned by his mother, but why don’t the other farmers treat him as an “other”? Skipping ahead to How Smudge Came, the reader never learns what makes Cindy different. She looks as if she has Down syndrome. Maybe my questions relate to our human nature to want to classify everything around us, like when the robot in Pixar’s WALL-E (2008) finds a spork in the garbage dump and can’t decide whether to put it with the spoons or forks. On another note, Shaun Tan worked as a concept artist for the animated film Wall-E. I heard about this book at Lit Fair in 2013, so I knew about it being one with free prose. For that reason, it’s a great book for students who say they don’t like reading. There are only a few words on each page, so it’s not as intimidating of a book without a single break in the text. Some aspects of this text trouble me. I feel it was irresponsible for Emaline’s father to leave to pursue his American Dream in the railyard. One of my lit circle members suggested that perhaps he has a mental illness as well. This is one possible answer. With Angus moving in the house, I thought there is an opportunity to discuss the definition of family. And, can you imagine the small-town gossip that followed his sleeping inside the house? How did Joey’s father get Angus inside the truck? Angus is a big guy, and knows Harry doesn’t like him. The text doesn’t explain this. I wonder what life in the town will be like once Harry’s case goes to trial. These sorts of events tend to pit, rather than unite communities. Will Emaline’s new family be even more ostracized? I love the teaching idea that my group came up with concerning forgiveness. Once students discuss how Angus puts his angry thoughts about his mother in a basket and lets them float away, they do the same with their own angry and harmful thoughts. The text is full of so many great quotes that I’d love to see students have a sort of book where quotes are listed on one side of the page and they write their thoughts about the quotes on the other side. The teacher can provide some quotes to discuss and then blank pages give students space to write their own quotes: • “Because at school she seemed cold as a mountain with a lump of snow on the top of her head that never melted.” (Porter 27) • “You have to protect them a little, and then cut them back hard. It sounds harsh but adversity makes them thrive.Then they’ll reward you by blooming their hearts out.” (Porter 86) • “I didn’t like being called Hopalong. And if the man on the tractor could hear the names people were calling him, I’d a bet he wouldn’t like it either.” (Porter 44) As a post-reading activity, students could continue the story through Emaline’s father. They could also retell the story through the POV of another character. The Red Tree is ideal for symbolism, but The Crazy Man can be used to explore this, too. Angus always eats from the “same plate. Same chip on the side. Mum keeps it separate” (58)? Is it because the plate is looks different from the others or is damaged but is still useful? Chipped plates are often discarded but they still have value and serve a purpose. Tan, S. (2001). The Red Tree. Melbourne, Australia: Arthur A. Levine Books.
When I initially read this picture book, I didn’t know what to say. I was left speechless from a mixture of shock and admiration. One of the things I struggle with as an ELA teacher is wrapping my head around the idea of text beyond print text. I think that’s a side effect of university English classes where students read, reflect, write, and repeat. When I read The Red Tree, the text wasn’t the focus, but the illustrations. For me, this picture book was a powerful reminder that some things can’t be expressed with language. I found myself looking at the page with the large crying fish hovering over the girl who’s walking down a street and thinking, “Yes! This is how it feels!” The text on that page, “darkness overcomes you,” just doesn’t express the feeling the same way the illustration and its nameless little girl walking in this fish’s shadow does. My first university English paper was on the fallibility of language. To push that idea further, this text could serve as an example of one of the limits of language. I was familiar with Shaun Tan’s work because I’d seen The Rabbits (1998), his partly allegorical fable about colonization, used in my Social Studies C & I course. I found that picture book left me with an uneasy feeling because there is no resolution (It ends with the question: Who will save us from the rabbits?). I can’t remember where I read it, but The Red Tree received mixed reviews, with many adults calling it a dark and depressing work. I wasn’t left with that impression at all. The tree at the end offers a message of hope and serves as a reminder that there is a bright spot at the end of dark days. I didn’t pick up on the red leaf that appears on every page until I read about it, and I had to go back and look for it. How clever! (Hello, symbolism lesson.) The bright spot is there but sometimes you really have to hunt before seeing it, and if you’re not purposefully looking for it, you may miss it. I like that the girl is nameless and never speaks. That makes it much easier to make her every reader. I’d be interested in Tan’s choice of red-coloured hair for his character. It makes her an outcast and an anomaly. She’s not an “every girl” if she has red hair. In a patriarchal society, why did he choose to use a female character? Are the depression rates higher among girls than boys? Tan says at http://www.shauntan.net/books.html: The Red Tree began [as] an experimental narrative more than anything else: the idea of a book without a story. I've always loved Chris Van Allsburg's classic picture book ‘The Mysteries of Harris Burdick’ (1984) which is a great example of word-picture enigmas, exhibiting partial fragments of unknown stories and leaving the reader to use their imagination. It has no sequential narrative, which is something a picture book is ideal for – you can open it at any page, go backwards or forwards, and spend as much time as you wish with each image.” I found out about The Mysteries of Harris Burdick at literature fair and I love it. The story behind the book itself is intriguing, but the If the illustration of the nun in the flying chair doesn’t give you the shivers, well, we can’t be friends. I love the idea of using the book’s images as writing prompts. I can picture me using this book the same way (no pun intended). The images would be great for a quick write or prediction tool. The non-traditional text in this book opens a door to SLOs that explore experimenting with form. Some automatically assume that picture books only cater to young readers. This book shatters that assumption. The red-haired girl reminded me of Kathleen Smith (@KikkiPlanet), the red-headed Edmonton blogger and Twitter user. She typically tweets about Alberta politics and on Christmas Day about drinking “mimosas on the patio in beef glasses … at Grandpa’s house.” Then on Dec. 30 she posted: “Today I lost my youngest son, my beautiful boy. Our hearts are broken. We thank all of you for your kind messages.” Mackenzie (Mack) Thomas Pawluk killed himself four days before his 19th birthday. His grief-stricken mother took to social media to publicly confront her son’s suicide. In the Jan. 6, 2015 National Post, Smith said: “One of the first things the funeral director asked was, ‘Are you keeping the suicide part of it quiet?’ … “We were going to talk about it. We were not going to be ashamed. When it is suicide, we whisper. We don’t with cancer, or accidental deaths. But when it is suicide people put a hand over their mouths and say, ‘Well, you know — you heard what happened.’” She went on to say that she hopes by speaking out that it will help erase the stigma around suicide. I think this picture book, suitable for all ages, erases the stigma around saying, “I’m not OK.” On Jan. 10, the Calgary Sun ran a news story about a Calgary teen’s Twitter campaign raising big bucks for mental health. A high school student created a viral social media initiative that supports the Canadian Mental Health Association. He said: “high school is a high-stress, high-anxiety time — every day in our society, it’s important to address this issue.” This picture book is a great way to get the conversation started. This teen’s story also highlights the positive power of teens on social media, as we more often than not hear about the negative. I now own a copy of this book. What a great tool to have on hand on Blue Monday or during the Bell Let’s Talk campaign! |
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I tweet my reading recommendations using #mssimsreads, but sometimes 140 characters isn't enough. This spaces gives my longer reviewers a place. Feel free to share your great reads! Archives
September 2016
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