Literature Reading Reflections

Children's Lit LLS 443

Literature Reading Reflections

In my reading this week I have been reading a book The Land I Lost: Adventures of a Boy in Vietnam (Harper Trophy Book) by Quang Nhuong Huynh and Vo-dinh Mai. This book is about the life of a boy growing up in Vietnam. His life is very different than a lot of other kids. He lives in a small village in Vietnam where the families work rice fields. Their lives are rural and peaceful other than looking out for the dangers of the jungle. Then they are interrupted by war. This book got me thinking a lot about what people experience in life, and where people come from. How each person has a story and we don’t always know where the people around us come from. As a teacher I think about the kids in my class and what their story is. I would recommend this book highly to help students understand that where we come from and who we are matters. Our story is important to the world.

I've been reading a book by Susan Cooper called the The Dark Rising. This has been a great fantasy book and it is similar to Lord of the Rings and Narnia. Young will Stanton is the main character in the book and on his 11th birthday he realizes that he is different and finds out he is a warrior with great power to fight the dark side. In this book time and space interchange with one another and will has to find signs that will help him defeat the Dark.

The Hangman's Curse by Frank Peretti is a book of suspence and fantasy. The book has a lot of spiders in and they are not freindly. The theme in this book is about bullying and what happens when justice is taken into the wrong hands.

This book is a great story of coming out of childhood into adolescence. Even thought the story was written in the setting of the 60's there is a lot of reality that one can realte to in it. There are a lot of experiences we all go through and I know that I could see my self as the main character of this story alomost like looking in the mirror.

Prime Time

All of the Prime Time sessions were great. I thought this program was a worth while cause. It is good when families read together and it is good to come together with other families and share thoughts and ideas on the books that were read for the week. I have enjoyed taking my own family to Prime Time and also wathcing Frances tell stories.

Story Telling Festival.

The story telling festival was really good. I thought that the story tellers did an awesome job. They really kept the audience captivated, and made the listener connect to the story in some way. The best story teller I thought was Kevin Kline. Through all of his physical challenges he takes what life has given to him and made something good from it. I enjoyed hearing his life stories.

Race Siminar

This was an interesting presentation. I think it was informitive yet I was a little distubed by it. I don't consider my self as a racist yet I almost felt as if I were one by the time Dr. Allen had finished. I don't say that negatively I just felt as though there were a lot of things that were brought out about racism that lurk in the shadows and are not so visible as it were a few decades ago. On the positive I think that it did reiterate the fact that as a teacher one must be aware of what is said and how it may affect the student. The same is said of books one must be aware of what is read and make sure that it is not race and culurally biased, and if it is then an explanation of why it was written, or the authors point of veiw must be givien.