The Cay

The German Navy attack and Phillip Enright and his mother decide to evacuate the island. However Mr. Enright (Phillip’s father) is forced to stay there. Phillip and his mother take a Dutch Freighter so they can eventually get to Virginia. The ship is torpedoed and Phillip is separated from his mother. Phillip is knocked unconscious but when he wakes up he is on a raft with an African American man and a cat. The African American’s name is Timothy. Timothy rescued Phillip from the attack. Phillip has a horrible headache because of trauma from the attack. So, Timothy takes care of Phillip by catching fish from them and building the much needed shelter. Whenever Phillip wakes up he cannot see at all. Now, Phillip must rely on Timothy for everything. Phillip really struggles with this because for one Timothy is African American and two Phillip feel as if Timothy treats him like a child. Thy soon find a cay to live on. Phillip and Timothy spend a lot of time together and after awhile Phillip begins to change his thoughts about African Americans and him and Timothy become friends. Soon Timothy gets sick and there is a hurricane coming. They tie themselves to a palm tree to keep from being blown away. After it passes, Timothy has many injuries because he shielded Phillip. Eventually, Timothy dies. Phillip buries Timothy. A few weeks later Phillip is rescued from the island. He has surgery and gets his vision back. Phillip wishes to go back to the island to see Timothy.

This book was so sad! It made me cry so much. I really enjoyed reading it though. I read it when I was in the 5th grade and I loved it so much I decided on reading it again for this class. I liked reading it again because I understood certain parts better and the prejudice that went on in the book. Like Phillip didn’t like African Americans because of his mother. I would recommend everybody to read this book.

Sing Song

I enjoyed reading Christina Rossetti’s Sing Song. The discussion in class was very helpful. I did not notice the cycles that took place in the book but after Professor Robinson pointed them out I started to flip through my book and it became quit obvious that they occurred. I guess it helps to have someone point things out to you. I felt that the death poems were in a way out of text for this particular book but whenever professor Robinson said that many children died not too long after they were married it made sense to me. Another thing I noticed before class was the poem on page 29. The poem uses the names of Minnie, Mattie, and May. I instantly thought of the poem by E.E. Cummings.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

Christina Georgina Rossetti was born on December 5, 1830 in London. Rossetti was home schooled by her mother. Rossetti’s family had some incredibly hard financial times, which made her suffer from a nervous breakdown. Rossetti nearly married a few times but decided to end them both because of religious differences. Rossetti began to write a awfully early age (7) but she did not publish any of her works until she was 31 years of age (which was Goblin Market and Other Poems). Many people read her poems in unlike ways (as most poems are of course). Some may see her poems are simple but that if false, they are complex and challenging. Many of her poems deal with gender roles in the Victorian period. Rossetti continued to write for most of her life. Most of Rossetti’s poems were devotional writing and poems written for children. At 63 years old, Rossetti developed caner and Grave’s disease and died the following year on December 29, 1894. In the 1970’s Rosstti’s work became widely popular.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina_Rossetti
I practically summed up the article of the web site above.

Horton Hears a Who

I watched Horton Hears a Who last night and I absolutely loved it. It kept to the book very well and it of course added bits too. Whenever I was watching it I could not help finding many messages or metaphors about Christianity and God. The movie is a HUGE metaphor about faith in something even if you can not see it or hear it. In the movie when the mayor was trying to describe Horton to the whos in Whoville, he makes Horton sounds as if a God that we cannot see. Also, if Horton was a sort of God then he was no doubtable “saving” humanity in two ways. First, he was saving them from death and destruction and also he saved them because they finally believed in God Almighty. I went to Christianitytodaymovies.com and I found this:

The film also acts, equally inadvertently, as a model of religious conviction. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for," says the writer of Hebrews, "the evidence of things not seen." Contrasting the words of Hebrews 11:1, Sour Kangaroo tells Horton, "If you can't hear, see or feel something, it does not exist." But Horton is persuaded. He knows that the Mayor and the Whos of Who-ville are real, despite not being able to see them. In the same way, Horton's immensity actually makes him invisible to the microscopic Mayor. When trying to describe Horton to the rest of the Whos, the Mayor frequently employs the sort of language one uses to describe a God who has yet to make himself visible to us.

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.