Number the Stars, by Lois Lowry

When I got to the end of Number the Stars by Lois Lowry and read the afterward, I was amazed how much of the details of the story were based on truth. Throughout the book, I had guessed that the main events - takeover by Germany, relocation of the Jews, people helping some escape, etc - were based on history. I was surprised that the handkerchief thing was real, as well as the story of the boy saying "All of Denmark is his [the King's] body guard." I can't imagine what guts it must have taken for him to say something like that to a German soldier at the time.
Another thing I kept trying to imagine with amazement was the bravery on the part of everyone. If I had been in their shoes, would I be able to lie straight-faced the way they did? Could I have jumped in the way Mama did, thinking fast and blabbering like an idiot to distract the soldiers? I noticed that a gender stereotype about the intelligence of women came up several times and was used to the advantage of those helping the Jews escape. When the mother was yammering about the casket and later Annemarie acted like an airhead, soldiers would say, "Stupid woman," and "dumb little girl." I don't think any guys could have pulled off the same stunt quite so well. Though I don't like the stereotype, I still think the women of the story used it to their advantage - they took advantage of the perceptions the soldiers had about them.
In the afterward, Lowry talks about Kim Malthe-Bruun, a young resistance leader who Peter seems to be based on. I wanted to learn more so I googled him:

• Lowry's typepad has some excerpts from letters written by Kim.

• Composer Param Vir explains on his website how his song "...beyond the reach of the world..." was inspired by Kim. He also has posted an excerpt from Kim's diary.

• A couple books: Heroic Heart: The Diary and Letters of Kim Malthe-Bruun and Kim, which appears to be in the original language.

• Parts of Heroic Heart are included in Children in the Holocaust and World War II: their secret diaries by Laurel Holliday, which looks like a good resource for further reading about how children's lives were during this time. The diaries are from children ages 10-18 from all over Europe, from Poland to Hungary to England. I'd like to take a look at this and see what I might use in my own classroom. I started reading the preview pages on Amazon, and already felt chilled - to think of being 10 years old and writing "Hitler has invaded Poland. We heard the bad news on the wireless..."
  

In teaching Lowry's book, I think it would be good to search for and read other information to learn more about the war and the Holocaust. Perhaps students could choose one of the things from the book that they found surprising and look for other true-to life examples. For instance, they might look for things similar to the handkerchief that destroys dog's smell, the pretend funeral, the rationing of coffee, the destruction of the country's navy. They could compare their findings to the book.
Throughout the book there is a recurring question of "what is bravery?" and I think students could explore this question themselves as well, maybe free-writing before and after the book about how they define bravery. Taking it one step further, they could ask a "what if?" question, answering something like how they would have acted in a chosen character's shoes or how they would act now if something similar happened in our country now.

Dogsong, by Gary Paulsen

I just read Gary Paulsen's Dogsong and several things jumped out at me. I really liked the square, grounded way of the sentences; the style of them seemed to fit the character's journey back to the way things used to be - a way of surviving off only what the land gives. In that time, there was a song for everything and everyone had a song, and in the story, Russel is returning to that way of life and along the way discovers his song.
It got me wondering what my what my song would be, and what makes up a person' song? All the ones in the story involved trials faced and things learned. I'd like to think every last one of us has a song, since every one of us has a story, and it seems the song just tells a person's story, plain and simple. There's no flowing artsy fluff of extra words, just "The deer was there. I was there. This happened. That happened." No melodrama, just the facts. The emotions were still there underneath the words, just not spelled out verbally. When people got up to sing their own songs they danced the emotions, and everyone seemed to understand because the story-song took them there, to the scene.
Another thing I thought was cool about the culture/old way was how death was viewed. When Russel goes to kill the polar bear, he knows he will die if it's meant to be or the bear will die if it's meant to be and provide Russel, Nancy and the dogs with food. Also, when Oogruk knows he's going to die he decides to do it looking out at sea. It showed total acceptance of dying...In the whole book, and apparently culture, dying is viewed as a natural part of life. It's done with acceptance and peace wherever or whenever it finds the person.
In teaching this book, I'd like to ask the students what they think about dreams. In Dogsong, the dreams Russel has and the reality he lives fold over into each other and become one. I think dreams are a very interesting discussion topic, and it would be interesting to hear other people's theories. I wonder, too, if dreams are viewed differently from culture to culture, and reading or researching other cultures in terms of dreams could be really interesting. Students could learn more about other aspects of Eskimo culture as well, and I think comparing it to their own culture could show them a lot about themselves and their own cultures.

Boy by Roald Dahl

When reading Roald Dahl's memoir, Boy, one thing came persistently to mind: Ripping Yarns. Ripping Yarns is a set of parodies featuring Monty Python's Michael Palin and Terry Jones. The parodies are based loosely on Tom Brown's School Days (1857), and the first parody to come out was Tomkinson's School Days (1976), which explores the tortures and intricacies of English prep-school. Being a comedy, everything is extremely over-the-top, particularly the hazing and punishments. All new kids must fight the school bear hand-to-paw, the teachers and students are equally tortured and frightened by the official school bully, and Tomkinson's escape is brought to a halt when the school leopard finally tracks him down.

Then comes The 30-mile Hop, during which participants must hop on one foot over treacherous mountain terrain for 30 miles. When Tomkinson (played by Palin) survives and is proclaimed winner of The Hop, they reward him by appointing him New School Bully. Everyone stares at him a moment, waiting to see how he'll adapt to this change from the crushed to the crusher, and then he stands up very straight, looks down his nose at a younger kid, and says something very condescending and threatening, to which all students and teachers look relieved. It's pretty hilarious, but strangely, according to Dahl's memoir, it appears to be only an extreme exaggeration of the truth. Every little bit reminds me of Dahl's experiences at prep-school - there's brutal physical punishment; sadistic, superior upper-classmen; and a cruel pecking order in which physical accomplishment is one of the few ways a person might gain a better place in the hierarchy.

Another similarity between Boy and Tomkinson's School Days is perspective. In both, the hero of the tale is a boy who tends to be a victim at the hands of the people who make up the system that's in place. Neither boy would enjoy seeing their handiwork in perfectly straight bruises across younger students' backsides, and so neither is sadistic Boazer material. This makes me wonder - have any of the dark, grimacing, cruel little Boazers written memoirs about their school days? I wonder if they recall with glory or shame the way they invested their every moment in administering fear. In their hypothetical memoirs, would they gloss over or skip over or rewrite their behavior? I wonder if they would suddenly stop dead in their tracks, pen halfway to paper and realize, finally, that they might be psychopaths. Could any of them bear to look inward for half a second and ponder "How did I enjoy giving punishment and pain? How do I sleep at night?"

On a totally different note on this story, I started wondering if tales of prep-school days became to Brits something akin to our up-hill-both-ways accounts of school in ages past. I get this image of a British family, sitting around the supper table: grandpa is relating a toilet-seat-warming-in-freezing-weather tale, and the kids are paralyzed with shock and awe, spoons hovering between their plates and their mouths. Then, later, they decide it just can't be real. No way. Meanwhile, I'm at my grandparents, eating supper, and grandpa brings out the treacherous-trip-to-school tale and I don't believe a word. No way. BUT now I see Tomkinson's School Days wasn't far off from the actual English prep-schools described in Boy, so...maybe...just maybe, the legend of "up-hill-both-ways" isn't too far off, either. Maybe grandpas and grandmas everywhere really did get to and from school by mountain climbing into the wind while towing a heavy lunch pail (or something very similar in difficulty). I'm starting to think anything is possible. Haha, and perhaps I can cheesily add that that is the magic of Roald Dahl and his storytelling. :)

As far as teaching the book, I think it would be cool to read something by Roald Dahl either before or after this, so students can see the connections between the author's life experiences and his writing. It could also be really neat to have students write a short memoir of a single experience they've had. They'd be learning about the genre memoir and how it's different from autobiography, and they'd be writing about something they know. Writing about their own experiences and then getting to share the stories with each other could be a really fun time. Plus, if they know from the start that they will be sharing their stories with each other, I think they'd be more interested in working to make the story clear and interesting for their audience/classmates.

Beginning...

Blog numero uno for Teaching Literature in the Middle School. Looks like the novels and the class are going to be really fun and I'm looking forward to trying out this whole blogging thing. Hopefully I will eventually use more specific words than "fun" and "thing." :P

P.S. Please do pardon my texty emoticons. I do like to use them.