Tuck Everlasting

Tuck Everlasting is set in the late 1800’s. Winnie Foster is from a perfect and overprotecting family. Winnie at times fees like a prisoner in her own home because of all of the rules. One day Winnie decides to run away from home into the woods. Winnie runs into Jesse Tuck at the spring (the spring makes you live forever if you drink from it). Winnie decides to go with the Tucks but it could be seen as if they were kidnapping her in other people’s eyes. Winnie instantly loves the freedom she has. Jesse and Winnie start to have romantic feelings for one another. Jesse really wants Winnie to drink water from the spring so they can be together. A man in a yellow suit finds Winnie and is going to take her home when he ends up being killed by Mae. Mae is sentenced to death but if that were to happed the family secret of immorality would be discovered. Winnie helps to free Mae with the Tuck’s. The Tuck’s must flee. Winnie is offered to go with them but she declines. Jesse gives Winnie a bottle of the spring water to drink in a few years and he promises to come back for her. However, Winnie ends up pouring the water on a toad. Years later, the Tuck’s returns to find Winnie grave but they come across the toad!!

I really liked this book.
It dealt with the circle of life and how one thing can change the rest of your life. If I was put in Winnies shoes I would not have drunken the water either. This book really confronts the issue of living forever (because many children think about it… I know I did) and how it might not be all it's cracked up to be.
I thought it was odd the Winnie was only an eleven year old girl when all of this happened to her. At times I forgot how young she truly was. I would think that the story would be for someone a tad bit older.

Cookie Monster and Kermit

I found this clip of Cookie Monster and Kermit the frog off of www.youtube.com. I think it is a cute way to get young children of many ages interested in poetry. Cookie monster is conducting the lesson on poetry and Kermit is the one that is actually pointing out the rhyme scheme. Kermit says, “When a word sounds alike, like frog and log.” Cookie Monster acts irritated with Kermit (but in a funny was) so this makes children laugh and have fun with the lesson. But Cookie Monster is not supposed to say anything about cookies. Of course, Cookie Monster says cookies and the clip ends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uQWvFtGKHU

Poetry Continued

Whenever I was in seventh grade we did a great deal on poetry in my English class. I was not too fond of poetry back then and I never really have been. I guess now that I am getting older and now that I am taking this class I am really starting to appreciate literature. Poetry and I (along with literature in general) are now friends. But anyways back to seventh grade poetry, My English teacher made the whole class memorize various poems like Joyce Kilmer’s Trees, Emily Dickinson’s I’m nobody! Who are you?, and many more. I did not really enjoy it then but now when I was reading them I loved how I could quote them. It makes me think about how you said in Alice in Wonderland, Carroll used many things that the girls would have known but we have lost. So after reading those poems, I was like “oh I remember this” and so on. So I get how it was for the girls to read the book.

Poetry

Out of all the poems that we were supposed to read for Friday’s class, I was particularly drawn to the two by Jack Prelutsky. I have never heard or read any of his poems before. Prelutsky’s The Spaghetti Nut was absolutely fun to read. I really enjoyed the tongue twisters and the puns in The Spaghetti Nut. In Prelutsky’s other poem, Homework! Oh, Homework! I appreciated this one just as much if not more. I enjoyed the rhyme scheme of this work which the second stanza happened to be A, B, C, B, D, E, F, and E. Not only did I read the poems that were assigned in class, but I also went through the book and I came across a few that I already knew; for example, Joyce Kilmer’s Trees, Emily Dickinson’s I’m nobody! Who are you?, and of course Shel Silverstein’s Sick.

The Mitten

The Mitten is a Ukrainian folktale that was adapted and illustrated by Jan Brett

A little boy named Nicki wanted a pair of “snow white mittens”, so he asked his grandmother, Baba, to crochet him a pair. At first Baba told Nicki no because if he dropped on in the snow he would never find it. However, Baba eventually came around and made Nicki his mittens. But of course, Nicki ended up dropping his mitten into the snow. One after another, various animals from the woods packed themselves into the tiny snow whit mitten. Each animal that entered was a little bit bigger than the last. Suddenly, a tiny mouse jumped on the bear’s nose, which tickled him dearly, so the bear sneezed. With the sneeze, all the animals flew out of the mitten. The mitten when flying through the air, and Nicki caught it in his hands. But, Nicki is puzzled at how much larger the mitten now is.

Illustrations:
- The illustrations are beautiful
- They are Ukrainian paintings. I cant tell this because of the clothing of the little boy and his grandmother, by the house structure, the furnishings inside the house, and the borders on each page
- On the left side of the border there is a whole where you can see Nicki looking for his mitten and on the right side you see the animals pilling into the mitten
- The illustrations are in great detail
- I suppose the book is set sometime in the past

The Princess and The Goblin

The Princess and The Goblin was an excellent book. I really enjoyed this book. At first, I was disturbed by the grandmother. However, after talking out how the book was about good viruses evil, I see that the grandmother was not supposed to be creepy in any way what so ever. The goblins are supposed to represent evil and the grandmother is supposed to represent good. MacDonald shows the evil of the goblins by confining them underground, making them ugly, and making their sounds utterly unbearable. Also, the grandmother is visually shown as good because of her beauty, her kindness, and of course her constant need to help Irene. I wonder is good will out shine evil. I haven’t finished the book, but I am almost positive that the goblin’s plan will not work. I guess I will have to read to find out.

Alice

Alice in Wonderland is also recognized as a work of satire—at many levels. As you read the book, make note of places where it satirizes things such as society, politics, and education. Pay attention to who is the subject of satire. Ask yourself how adults, children, authority figures, etc. are presented in the story. We will be considering what the purpose of the satire seems to be, how it functions within the story.

In Alice in Wonderland there are numerous places where Carroll uses satire. There are many parodies in many of the verses (since children were taught didactic, Carroll plays with this), in the turtle’s education, the trial (judicial system), and politics in the caucus race. I thought it was really funny when the mouse goes on telling the driest thing he knows to dry of himself and all of his friends. Most of the characters in Alice in Wonderland appear to be adults, but many of them do not act that way. Adults usually manage order in stories, that that is not clearly the case in Wonderland. Adults seem to be the confusing. Alice has to figure out Wonderland by herself, because the adults make no since.