Confusion in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

After finishing the book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, I felt a little confused. The first half of the book seemed to flow better and have more organization than the second half. When the reading is difficult it is hard to enjoy what you are reading. The part where I began to wonder what was going on was in chapter 9 when the dutchess took Alice to meet the mock turtle and the Gryphon. This whole "scene" with the history of his life and the demonstrating of the dance seems to be completly irrelevant from the rest of the book. However, the whole book seems to be crazy and somewhat irrelevant so maybe that is the point. If this book is hard for me; a 21 year old college senior, to understand, how in the world is a young child supposed to understand it? I feel I may be over analyzing the story and because young children don't normally do this it is easier for them to comprehend.

Junie B. Jones and that Meanie Jim's Birthday

For my third outside reading I chose to read the book Junie B. Jones and that Meanie Jim's Birthday. The basic storyline is about a little girl, Junie, who seems to get herself in trouble alot. One day while she is at school, she makes fun of a boy named Jim and he tells her she is not invited to his birthday party that weekend. This upsets Junie because she does not want to be the only one in her class not invited. After they get in a fight and are sent to the principals office, Jim's mother makes him give Junie an invitation. In the end, Junie realizes she really does not want to go to the party and would rather play with her grandad instead. The moral of the story is that it is ok to be different and to be the only one not at the party. I think that these types of stories are good for kids to read; however, the one thing that bothered me was the grammar style Barbara Park used. She wrote the story from Junie's point of view and therefore used incorrect grammar such as "B is my bestest letter". I think this might teach kids the wrong way to write and speak correctly.

Identity in Alice's Adventures in Wonderladn

After reading the first half of the book, it is obvious that Alice is faced with identity issues. These issues are different from those that Ella felt in the book Ella Enchanted. In that book, Ella knew exactly who she was but was unable to express herself because of her curse. In the book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Alice is confused and does not know who she is anymore. The main issues Alice has are size, her lack of remembered knowledge, and how she is being perceived by others. In chapter 6; however, she learns she can control her size changes to her advantage this issue seems to disappear. I predict that Alice will shead the other two indentity issues also.

Creative Writing

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Aubrey. Aubrey had a mommy and a daddy. One day, Aubrey's mommy told her she was going to have a baby brother or sister. This news worried Aubrey because she had never had a brother or sister before. A few months later, Aubrey's mommy was ready to have the baby. The whole family got into the car and drove to the hospital. While mommy was having the baby, Aubrey asked her daddy "Will mommy still love me even when the new baby comes?" Daddy told her "Of course mommy will still love you. Nothing will ever make her stop loving you." After mommy was done having the baby, Aubrey got to visit her and her new baby brother! Mommy gave Aubrey a big hug and a kiss and told her how much she cared about her. Now Aubrey would have a whole other person to love and she was happy.
Moral: Just because mommy has another baby does not mean she will love you any less.

-I decided to do a creative short story on this because I am the oldest child and I remember being scared when my mom told me i was going to have a baby brother. Even though the story is short it was difficult to write because you have to make sure the reader (young children) will be able to comprehend it. I have a new found respect for children's literature authors.

Love You Forever

The second outside reading book i choose was called Love You Forever by Robert Munsch. It is a short picture book but holds alot of meaning. Even though it is meant for children, adults can relate to it as well. It is about a young woman who holds her baby son and sings a lullaby to him. It goes "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, As long as I'm living, My baby you'll be". This is a story of how that little boy goes through the stages of childhood and becomes a man. To me it represents the enduring nature of parent's love and how it crosses generations. No matter what you do, your parents will love you.

Ever After

In class we talked about how the writer of Ever After was a male, and more importantly a father of two girls. We then discussed the importance of this role and reasons why he wrote the story the way he did. I have found other reasons, on top of the ones we talked about in class.
-In this Cinderella, the father was present and more importantly played a postive role in Danielle's life. The writer probably did this to show his daughters it is good to have a strong relationship with your father.
-Danielle is a very strong minded individual in this film. She is very capable of taking care of herself as well as others and is not relient on the prince to sweep in and save the day. This was written to show his daughters the importance of self-relliance.
-Also, Danielle was extremely loyal to her family and those that she loved. This showed the writeres daughters to always trust and love her own family and not to take them for granted.

Laura Numeroff

One of my favorite children's literature authors is Lauran Numeroff. While surfing the web the other day I ran across her website and I thought it was the cutest thing ever! I was surprised to find out that she is not only an author, but also an artist. There are some pictures of her work on her site. A few things I learned about Laura through her web site are she was born in Brooklyn, New York, her books are published in many different languages, and she usually writes (or works on projects) for at least 6 hours each day. Some of the books Laura Numeroff is famous for are If you Give a Mouse a Cookie, If You Give a Pig a Pancake, and What Mommies do Best. If you would like to check out the website the URL is http://www.lauranumeroff.com/index.htm.

Educational Children's Books

I babysit a 3 year old boy named Cole each week. His absolute favorite thing to do is watch the Disney channel in the mornings. After we watch his shows, he always grabs a book and has me read it to him. One morning a few weeks ago, we were watching a show called Little Einstein’s when Cole turned to me and said “this is just like my book!” He then went and grabbed his book and sure enough it matched the show we were watching. I think it’s incredible that a child as young as 3 has the ability to recognize the similarities between educational books and the shows he watches on TV. Both the book and the show teach simple things such as colors, numbers, shapes, and sounds. I think that this recent change in children’s literature to be more educational is having a great impact on young children. Instead of hearing simple fairy tales or stereotypical bedtime stories, children now have the opportunity to learn while they are having fun. I think it’s wonderful!

Ella Enchanted: The Book VS The Movie

After finishing the book and then watching the movie Ella Enchanted, the differences were very apparent. I only found a few important similarities between the two which I have listed below:
SIMILARITIES:
-Ella is still cursed with obedience yet still demonstrates her rebellious side.
-Prince Char recognizes right away that Ella is not like other girls and this draws him to her.
-Ella’s love for Char is what breaks her curse.
-The story ends happily ever after
Although there are these few similarities, the differences outweigh them in large amount. Some of the differences are small such as how Char and Ella meet. However, here is a list of major differences I recognized.
DIFFERENCES:
-Ella’s father is only seen for a very small amount of time. Ella also respects and loves her father in the movie.
-The king in the movie is King Edward which is Char’s uncle and he is very evil. The king in the book is King Jerrold which is Char’s father and is pure at heart.
-The language barriers seemed to be a major theme in the book while everyone spoke the same language in the movie.
-Ella is told she must kill Char in the movie but is able to disobey this order because her love breaks the curse. She ultimately saves him rather than him saving her.
I think the major reason the movie is so different than the book is to keep the audience’s attention. Although it is interesting to be able to read all the letters Ella and Char write to one another, watching that in a movie might not be as exciting. The movie puts a modern spin on the book and although it was very different, I still enjoyed it. Also, I found it funny that during one of the scenes in the movie a Giant blames the Grimm’s Brothers for stereotyping fairy tales.

Ella Enchanted - Part 1

The character Ella in the book Ella Enchanted is somewhat similar yet very different from the classic Cinderella character. Some of the ways they are similar are their names (in part), the fact that there are two girls harassing her, and the loss of her birth mother. Although there are these similarities, Levine has made Ella significantly different in many ways. For example, the biggest difference is that Ella has a curse put on her by a fairy rather than a blessing as in the original tales. Another difference is that Olive and Hattie are simply girls she is going to school with rather than her stepsisters (but there is foreshadowing they might eventually become related). Some other differences are she was sent off to finishing school, there are all sorts of fairy tale creatures instead of just fairy godmothers and magical animals, and she and the prince interact with each other much more. I think the changes Levine made were great. She kept the basic idea of Cinderella but gave it her own twist. This story has kept me interested because it is not as predictable as the original tales were.

Where the Red Fern Grows

I was in elementary school the first time I read the book Where the Red Fern Grows. I chose to read it over again for one of the outside reading assignments. The basic storyline of the book is about a boy, Billy, who has “dog fever”. He saves all his money until he finally has enough and buys two hound dogs, Old Dan and Little Ann, to go hunting with. Billy and the dogs are unseperable throughout the entire book. He loved his dogs more than anything else in the world. They did everything from hunting coons to playing in the woods together. In the end, Old Dan was injured while saving Billy from a bobcat. This injury resulted in his death. Little Ann died shortly after. Billy buried the two together and there grew a red fern, hence the name of the book. In class we talked about how authors sometimes use animals to describe human behavior. I think that Wilson Rawls used the dogs to help introduce the concept of death to children in a gentle way. It is never easy for a parent to explain death to children so by reading this book, the child can learn about losing something, or someone, you love and how to cope.