{"id":103,"date":"2006-09-27T10:38:48","date_gmt":"2006-09-27T14:38:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/?p=103"},"modified":"2007-09-15T10:43:20","modified_gmt":"2007-09-15T14:43:20","slug":"the-verdict-is-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/the-verdict-is-in\/","title":{"rendered":"The verdict is in…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was the first Bagels n\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Books book group.\u00c2\u00a0 A great, enthusiastic bunch of fourth and fifth graders, a dozen bagels that rapidly and magically disappeared into eight mouths, and a lot of talk about The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 Guess what?\u00c2\u00a0 The kids didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like the book much.<\/p>\n

These kids are well-versed in how to discuss literature, and though there were a few groans when I said it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not enough to just say you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like a book, that you have to give specific reasons, they all provided clear and definitive reasons for why they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like the book.\u00c2\u00a0 One girl said it was too easy and it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take her very long to finish the book.\u00c2\u00a0 A boy chimed in that he read the book in, like, an hour.\u00c2\u00a0 Another girl said that there is no point to the book.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ah-ha!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 I thought to myself, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Maybe they haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t delved deep enough into the book and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like it!\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 But no, this girl went on to say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I mean, I understand that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about Edward learning to love and getting back to Abilene, but what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the point of that?”<\/p>\n

A\u00c2\u00a0different boy, and the girl beside him, complained that the book didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have enough action.\u00c2\u00a0 They mentioned that Kate DiCamillo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s other books have action and excitement, and that The Tiger is Rising<\/em> and The Tale of Despereaux<\/em> are books that they enjoyed reading.\u00c2\u00a0 Other kids agreed vigorously to this comment.\u00c2\u00a0 One girl was brave and spoke up to say that she LOVES the book because of the language and style of DiCamillo\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s writing; she also commented on the cyclical nature of the storyline and had as many bookmarks marking places in the text as I did.\u00c2\u00a0 Future English major, guaranteed.<\/p>\n

I\u00c2\u00a0used Aidan Chamber\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s technique of writing likes, dislikes, puzzles, and patterns on a big sheet of paper, trying to keep my mouth shut about my own opinions in order to let the kids fully express their thoughts.\u00c2\u00a0 Had we had more time together (our actual book discussion only lasted for a half hour), I could have gone on to guide the group to a deeper discussion of the book.\u00c2\u00a0 But I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m still not sure that I would have been able to change the minds of those kids who strongly dislike the book; and that was never my goal.<\/p>\n

What fascinates me most is that a lot of the negative adult commentary I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve read about the book has focused on it being too sad for children, too emotionally wrenching.\u00c2\u00a0 The kids yesterday really weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t bothered by the sadness in the book, they were annoyed by the lack of action.\u00c2\u00a0 They had wanted a book that was going to take them on journey; I mentioned that well, Edward Tulane does go on a journey, and most of the kids just rolled their eyes at me.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a REAL journey!”<\/p>\n

Two things come to mind: this book is a very different type of fantasy than the fantasy that prevails in the publishing world today (I hesitate to say it: the Harry Potter type of fantasy).\u00c2\u00a0 Most of the kids in the book group yesterday are probably used to action-based fantasy with magic and heroes and sparks and blood.\u00c2\u00a0 Edward Tulane can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t speak or act, and thus passively endures all that happens to him, except for the growth within him of a heart and the ability to love.\u00c2\u00a0 His physical strength doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t change, and he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t accomplish great physical feats in the process of learning to love; he simply learns to love.<\/p>\n

The other thought that comes to mind is that any reader, young or old, has the ability to skip those parts of a text that he or she either isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ready for or just doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to deal with.\u00c2\u00a0 I do this all the time: when reading the sixth Harry Potter, I knew that someone was going to die, so I purposefully read the end first to find out who so that I wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be held captive by the suspense of the book.\u00c2\u00a0 Perhaps the kids in yesterday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book group don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to read about loss and sadness, or perhaps they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not ready for stories that deal with those issues in depth, and so the book seemed, to them, to be boring.\u00c2\u00a0 It didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t address their concerns, and it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t appeal to them.<\/p>\n

Notably, though, it was loved by one group member, the girl who was adept at locating subtleties in the text and who possessed the most sophisticated literary vocabulary.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll go out on a limb here and say that she was ready for the text, and thus loved it.\u00c2\u00a0 Ready for the text, and also interested in what the text had to say.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The right book for the right child at the right time.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 No one book can appeal to everyone.<\/p>\n

At the end of the hour, I presented the book group members with seven books to choose from for our next meeting in October.\u00c2\u00a0 The choices were: The Tale of Despereaux<\/em>, The Diamond in the Window<\/em>, Love That Dog<\/em>, Half Magic<\/em>, Room One: A Mystery or Two<\/em>, The Penderwicks<\/em>, and The Search for Delicious<\/em>.\u00c2\u00a0 The winner was:\u00c2\u00a0 Half Magic<\/em> by Edward Eager, coming to the\u00c2\u00a0library on October 24th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was the first Bagels n\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 Books book group.\u00c2\u00a0 A great, enthusiastic bunch of fourth and fifth graders, a dozen bagels that rapidly and magically disappeared into eight mouths, and a lot of talk about The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.\u00c2\u00a0 Guess what?\u00c2\u00a0 The kids didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like the book much. These kids are well-versed in … Continue reading The verdict is in…<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,5,7,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-groups","category-children","category-childrens-literature","category-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}