The Witch of Blackbird Pond: Module Four Part One

Speare, E.G. (1958). The Witch of Blackbird Pond. New York, NY: Dell Publishing.

Summary: 

We first meet our heroine, Kit, when she is traveling to live with her aunt in Wethersfield, Connecticut.  She is leaving behind the only home she has ever known on the island of Barbados after her grandfather's death.  Once she arrives, it does not take her long to realize that they do things very differently in Connecticut.  She stands out in every way, from her beautiful clothes to her impetuous actions.  Her aunt, uncle, and two cousins take her in, but she never fells truly home.  She feels trapped and lonely, until one day she runs to the meadow by Blackbird Pond for solace and makes an unlikely friendship with a witch.

My Evaluation: 

The Witch of Blackbird Pond gives a terrifying and fabulous view of the real fear that was felt towards "witches." I think that books like this that bring old feelings like these to life are excellent. It is easy enough to read about witch hunts, but this book makes you feel what they felt. This brings that world to life more than any cold, hard facts ever could. It is easy for readers to relate to the main protagonist Kit, and by the end of the book you have a begrudging understanding of the Puritans and why they were the people they were. The story is lively, and I found myself waiting with baited breath to see what happened with Nat and Kit.


Review:

Darlene. (2012, February 1). Re: Book Review: The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare [Web Log Message]. Retrieved from http://darlenesbooknook.blogspot.com/2012/02/book-review-witch-of-blackbird-pond-by.html

I read this book aloud to my children, which won the 1959 Newbery Medal. The story takes place in 1687.

Katherine “Kit” Tyler lived with her grandfather in Barbados on his large plantation. When he died, Kit sold everything to pay the workers and to not leave any debt. Unfortunately, that left her with nothing. She decided to travel by ship to Connecticut to live with her aunt and uncle.

When Kit arrives, she learns that things are very different in the Puritan settlement than she is used to. It is hard for her to become used to this way of life, but she manages because she is a strong and fiercely determined girl!

Kit becomes friends with an old woman named Hannah, who has been ostracized by the Puritan community because she is a Quaker. The Puritans call her “The Witch of Blackbird Pond.” Kit feels a sort of kinship with her and, even though she has been forbidden by her uncle, she visits Hannah as often as she can. The only other person to be brave enough to visit Hannah is Nat Eaton, a sailor who brings goods to Hannah whenever he returns to the settlement. Hannah found Nat in the meadow by her house when he was a young boy in the same manner that she found Kit: sobbing! Just as she had done with Kit, she had invited Nat back to her home for some blueberry cake and to cuddle her cats. The kindly woman was, and continues to be, such a comfort to him!

In the meadow by Blackbird Pond, Kit finds a young girl named Prudence. Just as Hannah had done to her, Kit invites Prudence back to Hannah’s house explaining that it is a safe and loving place for her to visit. Kit was taught by her grandfather to read, although it was practically unheard of at that time for a girl to have learned this important skill. She taught Prudence not only how to read but also to write in cursive.

When sickness befalls the community and the children start dying, the residents decide that the Witch must be to blame! Kit risks everything to get to Hannah’s house before the mob, and she and Hannah hide in the bushes watching while the mob burns down her house and searches for her. Luckily, Nat’s boat returns the following morning and he takes Hannah aboard and brings her to live with his aunt in a town where she will be safe.

Although Hannah escaped safely, Kit was arrested for helping and consorting with a witch and was accused of even being a witch herself! Who will come to Kit’s defense?

We loved this book! Kit is a fabulous character. She faces adversity with such admirable strength. This is our second book by Speare (we previously read The Sign of the Beaver), and we love that Speare’s protagonists are non-judgmental and have acceptance of those who are different.

This book also inspired a lot of discussion about Puritans, Quakers, and the Salem Witch trials.

MY RATING: 5 stars!! We loved it!! Highly recommended!

Glencoe Literature Library. (n.d.). Study Guide for the Witch of Blackbird Pond. New York, NY: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. Retrieved from http://www.glencoe.com/sec/literature/litlibrary/pdf/witch_of_blackbird_pond.pdf

The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Speare’s second novel, is grounded in New England

history.  Speare had read stories about English children sent from Barbados to New England for schooling. She researched Connecticut history, especially that of her adopted town

of Wethersfield, to add accurate historical details to the story. She also based one of the characters in the novel on her real-life aunt, who was physically impaired. 

In 1959 she won the Newbery Medal for The Witch of Blackbird Pond. Every member of the Newbery Medal committee voted to award the yearly prize to the novel. Such complete support for one book is rare. In her Newbery acceptance speech, Speare described the philosophy that has guided both her writing and her life: "I do not believe a historical novel should gloss over the pain and ugliness. But I do believe that the hero . . . should on the last page . . . still be standing, with the strength to go to whatever the future may hold."  Speare was once inspired by a writer who said, “History is people.” This “personal approach” to history is apparent in The Witch of Blackbird Pond.  The main character, Kit Tyler, is orphaned when her much-loved grandfather dies. Kit travels from the island of Barbados in the Caribbean Sea to Wethersfield, Connecticut. She hopes to find a home there with her aunt and uncle, settlers from England. Kit finds her new world to be very different from the one she left behind, and she must struggle long and hard to fit in. Her relatives are Puritans who have come to America to live according to their religious beliefs. The novel itself takes place when Wethersfield is still a fairly new settlement and survival is a challenging task. The place where Kit was raised in Barbados was a more established community with different ideas about religion and social behavior.  In reading the novel, you will also “meet”

many other people from the seventeenth century. Some, like “the witch of Blackbird Pond,”

become Kit’s friends and help her to adjust.  Others fear Kit because she is different from

them. Many critics have praised the novel for its portrayal of colonists. One critic says: The strength of this book lies in its . . .well-drawn characters. They are neither wholly good nor wholly bad but a very human mixture.  Other critics speak glowingly of the vividness of the novel’s historical setting. Speare spent over a year researching the novel to make it realistic and historically accurate.  Wethersfield is a real place in Connecticut, founded by Puritans in the 1600s. Other events in the story, such as the colonists’ efforts to preserve their charter, really did occur. Some of the characters in the story are based on real people as well.  For many readers, however, the most interesting part of this novel is its themes.  They include the ideas of loyalty and justice.  As Kit bravely tries to understand her adopted community, she must often ask herself, Whom must I be loyal to? What is the right, or just, action to take?

My Suggestions for Use in a Library Setting:

I would use the Witch of Blackbird Pond as the basis for a Halloween event at the public library.  Excerpts of The Witch of Blackbird Pond would be read each week leading up to Halloween, and on October 30, we would have an event which involved discussion of the book and a look at what the witch craze was truly about.

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers: Module Three Part Two

Gerstein, M. (2003). The Man Who Walked Between the Towers. Brookfield, Connecticut: Roaring Brook Press.

Summary:

In The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, we meet young, ambitious, tight rope walker Philippe.  When we come into his life, he has just set his sights on a new challenge...the Twin Towers (the tallest buildings in New York City).  He knows from experience that he will never be able to gain permission for his endeavor, so one night, he surreptitiously goes to the roof before the buildings are completed.  With the help of friends, he places the cable on which he will walk.  Just as dawn breaks, he begins his walk on a cable that is a quarter of a mile from the ground.  I hope I have whetted your appetite to see how the historic walk ends and what becomes of Philippe.

My Evaluation: 

Considering all of the tragic memories that are now associated with the Twin Towers, this story is a beautiful capturing of happier memories.  The vivid illustrations make you feel like you are experiencing the walk with Philippe - especially on the fold-out pages.  I love it when authors bring obscure stories to light.  So many intriguing stories just like this would be forgotten without someone to bring them to life for future generations.  It can be very difficult at times to address places (such as the Twin Towers) that have such tragic associations, yet this author graced us with this happy story and gave a very respectful and touching memorial at the end of his book.  Well done.  I would highly recommend this read.

Review:

Robinson, L. (2003, November). Mordicai Gerstein The Man Who Walked Between the Towers. Horn Book Magazine, 79(6), 763-764.

"Once  there  were  two  towers side  by side....  The  tallest buildings  in New York City."  Another September 11  book? No-and yes. Gerstein's story takes  place  in 1974,  when the World  Trade Towers'  construction wasn't  quite finished.  Philippe  Petit, the French street performer  and high-wire walker,  couldn't resist the  temptation  to dance between  the twin towers.  "Once the idea came  to him he knew he had to do it! If he saw three balls, he had to juggle. If he saw two towers,  he had to walk!  That's how he was."  Gerstein is in top form, pulling the reader into his story with  a  conversational  style  extended  by  playful  pen  and  paint illustrations. Like Petit, Gerstein  conceals much careful planning behind an  obvious  enjoyment  of  his subject.  As  the  book starts,  rectangular paintings are set well inside the edge of each white page. When Philippe and his co-conspirators,  disguised as construction workers, toil through the night setting up the wire, the area between the illustrations' borders and  the  edge  of  the  page  fills  with a  gray-blue  wash,  providing  the visual equivalent of foreboding background  music. As dawn breaks and Philippe  gets  ready  to  step onto  the wire,  the blue  fades  away.  Now we're ready to be exhilarated  and terrified-and on two successive foldout pages, we are. The first heart-stopping  image shows Philippe from above  as he moves to the middle  of the  wire. The tiny buildings below him seem terrifyingly  distant while on the far right his destination, the top of the tower,  is shown with exaggerated perspective,  taking  our eye down, down, and off the bottom of the page. Next we see the same scene from the  ground with  the book turned on its side. People  on the street look up in surprise  and fear while a cop calls for assistance.  The denouement takes  us back  to solid ground  and back to  the rectangle-on-white illustrations.  Philippe  is  arrested,  as  we  knew  he  would  be,  but  the kindly judge sentences him to perform in Central Park. Finally,  the last pages bring us to the present ("Now the towers  are gone"), showing the current empty skyscape.  "But in memory,  as if imprinted on the sky, the towers  are  still there."  And  so  they  are  on  the  last  page,  translucent against the clouds,  with a tiny Philippe  on his wire connecting  the  towers to each  other and the past to the present.

Rochman, H. (November, 2003). Books for the Young. Booklist, 100(5), 498.

Here’s a joyful true story of the World Trade Center from a time of innocence before 9/11. In 1974 French trapeze artist Philippe Petit walked a tightrope suspended between the towers before they were completed. Gerstein’s simple words and dramatic ink-and-oil paintings capture the exhilarating feats, the mischief, and the daring of the astonishing young acrobat. He knew his plan was illegal, so he dressed as a construction worker, and, with the help of friend s , lugged a reel of cable up the steps during the night and linked the buildings in the sky. As dawn broke, he stepped out on the wire and performed tricks above the city.  Gerstein uses varied perspectives to tell the story—from the close-up jacket picture of one foot on the rope to the fold-out of Petit high above the traffic, swaying in the wind. Then there’s a quiet view of the city skyline now, empty of the towers, and an astonishing image of the tiny figure high on the wire between the ghostly buildings we remember.

My Suggestions for Use in a Library Setting:

I would use this book as an opening for a presentation in the library by a child physiologist on how to deal with tragedy.  The talk would focus on children and how joy can still come out of despair and heartache.  It could even be a starting point for a series of talks by leading experts in the community.

The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses: Module Three Part One

Goble, P. (1978). The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company.

Summary: 

The story commences by telling us of the importance of the horses to Native Americans.  It then transitions to the girl who loved the tribe's horses.  We learn how she cared for them and loved them until the day of the storm.  The horses stampede in fear and carry her far away until she is quite lost.  It is then that she meets the wild horses and their beautiful leader.  Her family searches far and wide for her, and when they find her and bring her home, she becomes ill with the heartache of leaving her horses.  The girl's family allows her to return to her horses, and she reunites with her family once a year when she brings them a colt.  Read this wonderful story to discover the surprise ending.

My Evaluation:

The first thing that drew me in while reading this book was the beautiful, classic, Native American illustrations.  They set the stage perfectly for the excellent story.  The writing has a lovely flow that draws you along to the surprising conclusion.  I feel that it is important to note that "the girl" is never given a name, so she could be anyone.  Girls that read this book could insert themselves into the story of a girl being wild and free with her horses.  The author also includes a Native American song about a horse and a dream about a stallion that Black Elk experienced.  It gives another welcome look into Native American culture.

Reviews:

Bowker: Books in Print. (2011). Annotations: The girl who loved wild horses. Retrieved from http://libproxy.library.unt.edu:4874/default.ashx 

"There was a girl in the village who loved horses... She led the horses to drink at the river. She spoke softly and they followed. People noticed that she understood horses in a special way."

And so begins the story of a young Native American girl devoted to the care of her tribe's horses. With simple text and brilliant illustrations. Paul Goble tells how she eventually becomes one of them to forever run free.

Davis, M. (2010, June 27). Re: Genre 2 The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses by Paul Goble [Web log message]. Retrieved from http://litforchildrenandyoungadults.blogspot.com/2010/06/genre-2-girl-who-loved-wild-horses-by.html

Through his words and paintings, Paul Goble tells a beautiful story of a Native American girl whose heart leads her on a life-changing journey. This folktale embodies the conventional elements of traditional tales with its transformational motif (from human to horse) and cultural relevance. The setting is simple, yet clear and provides the perfect foundation for the events that play out. As with many folktales, readers see time pass in the blink of an eye, as years pass with nothing more than the turn of a page. Goble does an excellent job of highlighting the human nature of the wild horses through their ability to “talk” to the girl and take her in as one of their own. Remaining true to the Native American culture, the author ensures that the importance of the natural world is emphasized through the words of his tale and, ultimately, the ending events. Adding further authenticity, Goble incorporates Native American heritage through the inclusion of two traditional songs.

My Suggestions for Use in a Library Setting:

This book would be an excellent way to begin having art classes in the library.  Every Caldecott award book shows different examples of the ways that art is incorporated into literature, and this book is no exception.  The Girl Who Loved Wild Horses would be used to introduce the idea that different cultures have different styles, learning what those styles are, and learning their significance.

Millions of Cats: Module Two Part Two

Gag, W. (1928). Millions of Cats. New York, NY: Coward-McCann Inc.

Summary:
Millions of Cats begins with a very old, lonely couple.  The very old woman asks the very old man to find a cat to keep them company.  He goes on a journey and finds a hill covered with "hundreds of cats, thousands of cats, millions, and billions, and trillions of cats," which is the story's famous line.  He can't decide which one is prettiest, so he brings them all home.  The very old woman tells him that they cannot keep them all, and the cats must decide among themselves who is prettiest.  Read the story to find out the surprising and poignant ending.


My Evaluation: 
This is a book that my mother has often used in her teaching, and I have always felt it is an excellent story.  While I was doing research on this book, I discovered that it is actually considered by many to be the first modern American picture book.  It truly set a high standard.  The language is easy for children to pick up with the repetitive line "hundreds of cats, thousands of cats, millions, and billions, and trillions of cats."  The pictures are beautifully crafted, and the story is a fun jaunt with a lesson at the end.


Reviews:


Bird, E. (2009). Top 100 Picture Books Poll Results. School Library Journal. Retrieved from http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/afuse8production/2009/05/05/top-100-picture-books-poll-results-9/

Top 100 Picture Books Poll Results (#9)

May 5th, 2009

#9: Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag (1928)
94 points (16 votes, #5, #2, #8, #7, #6, #3, #6, #5, #9, #2, #7, #3, #7, #3, #5, #5)

Because when I read it as an adult, I was transported directly back to Miss Rita Lewandowski’s kindergarten class and anything that can do that must be powerful. – Jim Averbeck

Not only was this a ground-breaking picture book, but it has one of the best refrains ever. – Faith Brautigam

I think I like it because the cats so improbably eat each other all up. I spent lots of time trying to figure out how they could do that. – Sherry Early

Who would have thought that a tale of cannibalistic felines would turn out to be one of the greatest storytime classics of all time?

With its 1928 publication date, Millions of Cats came close to becoming the oldest picture book on this list.  It was narrowly beaten by The Tale of Peter Rabbit (cheekily published in 1902).  However, according to 100 Best Books for Children, this title has the distinction of being the American picture book that has continuously been in print the longest.  Take THAT you wascally wabbit!

The synopsis of this book’s plot from B&N reads, "An old couple is lonely – if only they had a pretty white cat! The old man finds a hill covered with cats and brings them home. His wife points out that they cannot possibly keep them all. The cats get in a fight over who gets to stay, and the couple is left with a scrawny little kitten. With love, the kitten becomes the most beautiful cat in the world."

Was Millions of Cats the impetus that brought about the Caldecott Medal?  Possibly.  As Minders of Make-Believe puts it, "when librarians awarded Millions of Cats a Newbery Honor, they chose to recognize the book’s distinction while apparently not feeling quite right about giving the literature prize to a picture book.  It may well have been then that the idea for a companion award for illustration was born, although it would be another decade before the Caldecott Medal became a reality. . ."  Remember, the first Newbery Award was given out in 1922.  It wouldn’t be until 1938 that the Caldecott would come along as well.

Wanda Gag, of course, is one of those artists that rocked the bohemian scene.  Ernestine Evans of Coward-McCann (coward?) attended one of Gag’s art shows and saw the potential there.  Minders says, "When Evans contacted her about the possibility of their working together on a picture book, Gag in her diary at first belittled the project as something to be executed rapidly, for the money.  She soon would decide otherwise and conclude that she had stumbled onto a major new pathway for her artistry.  Many another graphic artist of her generation – including some inspired directly by Gag’s example – would come to the same conclusion."  100 Best Books for Children supplements this information with an additional note.  Apparently even before Evans came along, Gag had been working on this book.  But in 1922 and 1923 she was unable to locate a willing publisher.  After Evans showed interest, "Gag returned to her 1923 manuscript and extensively rewrote it; in the process the refrain ‘Cats here, cats there, / Cats and kittens everywhere, / Hundreds of cats, / Thousands of cats, / Millions and billions and trillions of cats’ became more pronounced with each revision."

That kind of revision has meant that the picture book itself is hugely influential, even to this day.  After all, it has been noted more than once that the 2009 Caldecott winner In the House of the Night appears to be a kind of ode to Gag’s style.  Certainly the two books have their similarities.  Just look at the cats!

Harayda, J. (2009).  Wanda Gag's 'millions of cats' - an american classic for children. One-minute book reviews. Retrieved from 

http://oneminutebookreviews.wordpress.com/2009/07/25/wanda-gags-millions-of-cats-an-american-classic-for-children/

Millions of Cats. By Wanda Gág. Putnam, 32 pp., varied prices. Ages 6 and 

under.

By Janice Harayda

Thirty years ago, an editor asked Maurice Sendak if he thought picture books were better in the past. Yes, he said, “there was Wanda Gág.” More recently, I asked the children’s author Jan Brett which artists had influenced her work, and she gave a similar answer: “Of course, there was Wanda Gág.”

Gág (rhymes with blog) was to picture books what Julia Child was to French cooking – the first American star in a field that has exploded in her wake. And just as Mastering the Art of French Cooking remains a standard-bearer for a generation, so does Gág’s Millions of Cats, first published in 1928.

Gág’s masterpiece is so unassuming by today’s measures that if you came across it on a library shelf, you might overlook it. Except for the cover, all of the illustrations are black-and-white. The book is relatively small, just over half the size of a typical book by Chris Van Allsburg, with a horizontal format. It has only two human characters — an old man and woman with no children – who might have stepped out of the story of Abraham and Sarah.

But Millions of Cats combines tenderness with powerful themes, including the human longing for companionship and the struggle to survive in the natural world, and it does so in a story 3- and 4-year-olds can understand. The old woman believes a cat would ease the couple’s loneliness, and her husband sets out to find one. But each cat he sees is so pretty, he goes home followed by what looks like a feline peace march. The horde inspires the refrain:

Cats here, cats there,

Cats and kittens everywhere,

Hundreds of cats,

Thousands of cats,

Millions and billions and trillions of cats.

The old man and woman can’t keep them all, so the cats compete for survival, except for a frightened and “very homely little cat” that others see as no threat and ignore. That is the cat that the couple come to see as the “the most beautiful cat in the world.”

Gág’s beautiful pen-and-ink drawing flow across gutters and move her story forward in waves instead of boxes that can make a book look flat or inert. Many of her details recall both folktales and her Bohemian ancestry – a kerchief, a tunic, a tidy fieldstone cottage encircled by flowers. And her humor comes not from visual gags but believable emotions, such as the old man’s astonishment on seeing the “millions of cats” for the first time. All of it makes for a book that a child can read again and again with delight. Millions of Cats was the first American picture book that had both popular and literary success, and it’s still one of the worthiest of its honors.

Best line: “Millions and billions and trillions of cats.”

Worst line: Some critics say it’s illogical that the text suggests that the cats “have eaten each other all up” at the end of their fight while the pictures offer no evidence that they have done this. I think that this view is too literal and the fight is a metaphor for the Darwinian struggle for survival. How “logical” was it for all those millions of cats to follow the old man home in the first place?

My Suggestions for Use in a Library Setting:

This book would be perfect for use on the 100th day of school.  You could have the students come in and read the book aloud having them read the repetitive parts with you.  Then, discuss the book with the students and write out 100; 1,000; 1,000,000; 1,000,000,000; 1,000,000,000,000 and have the students identify which is which.

The Outsiders Module Two: Part One

Hinton, S.E. (1967). The Outsiders. United States of America: The Viking Press.

Summary:

The book is narrated by the Eastside "greaser," Ponyboy.  The book begins with him walking out of a movie and introduces the main antagonists, the Westside "socials or socs", when they jump him while walking home.  Ponyboy's gang comes to his rescue and we are introduced to his two brothers and the four other members of his group.  These boys make up his family, and we witness their triumphs, trials, and losses through Ponyboy.  By the end of the book, Ponyboy's losses have changed him, but he has realized the love that he has for his brothers and that he is not defined by the way he has grown up.  We learn that he is the one who "authored" the book. 

My Evaluation:

There is often a stigma on books that we are required to read in school.  Maybe it is because they are required, or maybe we lose faith in our teachers choices after we are forced to read Lord of the Flies.  Regardless of why, I have not picked up this book since my brother was required to read it in school.  Shame on me.  As soon as I picked it up, I could not put it down.  Most of my favorite books are ones that you feel like transport you to another place and time, and you feel what the characters feel.  The lingo that the "greasers" used was fascinating (tuff, rumble, heater, etc.), and it was mind boggling to learn about this world in the 1960's.  A world where fourteen-year- old boys don't think anything of smoking, and most disputes were settled with violence.  Beyond the historical significance, I felt that the book had such a strong message that no one should be judged by where they grew up, how much money they have, what they look like, etc.  What truly matters is who that person is and who they can be.  When I was doing research and found out that The Outsiders has been banned in some schools and libraries.  The book doesn't glorify violence and crime, it shows it for the travesty it really is, and how many lives it takes away.  It also gives us a glimpse into that kind of mindset, so we can understand why these things happen.  I can understand that young children shouldn't read this book, but the book has so much to say - it seems so very wrong to silence it.

Reviews:

Peck, D. (2007, September 23). 'The Outsiders': 40 years later. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/23/books/review/Peck-t.html?pagewanted=all

‘The Outsiders’: 40 Years Later

By DALE PECK

Published: September 23, 2007

Few books come steeped in an aura as rich as S. E. Hinton’s novel “The Outsiders,” which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. At a time when the average young-adult novel was, in Hinton’s characterization, “Mary Jane went to the prom,” “The Outsiders” shocked readers with its frank depictions of adolescents smoking, drinking and “rumbling.” Although other pop culture offerings had dealt with these themes — most notably “Rebel Without a Cause” and “West Side Story” — their intended audience was adult. By contrast, “The Outsiders” was a story “for teenagers, about teenagers, written by a teenager.” Hinton’s candid, canny appraisal of the conflict between Socs, or Socials, and Greasers (for which one might substitute Jets and Sharks), published when she was 17, was an immediate hit and remains the best-selling young-adult novel of all time.  Long credited with changing the way Y.A. fiction is written, Hinton’s novel changed the way teenagers read as well, empowering a generation to demand stories that reflected their realities. In fact, in the novel, the need for a representative literature is a central aspect of 14-year-old Ponyboy Curtis’s existential crisis. The book’s famous statement of theme, “Stay gold,” is of course a reference to Robert Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” and then there’s the not-quite-believable assertion that the novel was written as a “theme” for Ponyboy’s English class: “Someone should tell their side of the story, and maybe people would understand then and wouldn’t be so quick to judge.” Despite its obviousness, this device strikes me as crucial to the book, providing a context for the occasionally clunky deus ex machina and foreshadowing, not to mention the sometimes workmanlike prose. To an adolescent, the clunkers probably reinforce the authenticity of the book’s voice, but the framing device establishes that unpolished authenticity as an aesthetic construction.

One suspects, however, that it was accidental here, or unconscious, just as it’s likely that Hinton’s echo of the testimonial frame Salinger used in “The Catcher in the Rye” (“If you really want to hear about it”) wasn’t consciously intended, nor was Hinton’s literalization of Holden’s “If a body catch a body coming through the rye” into the rescue of a group of children from a burning church. In fact, what struck me most as an adult reader (and sometime Y.A. novelist) is the degree to which “The Outsiders” is derivative of the popular literature of its time, sometimes obliquely, as in the Salinger parallels, sometimes more directly. Hinton once said that “the major influence on my writing has been my reading” and names Shirley Jackson as one of her favorite writers. The literal truth of this statement is borne out in these two passages taken from the opening paragraphs of “The Outsiders” and of Jackson’s “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” (1962).

First Jackson: “I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had.”

And now Hinton: “I have light-brown, almost-red hair and greenish-gray eyes. I wish they were more gray, because I hate most guys that have green eyes, but I have to be content with what I have.”

Although such a strong resemblance between two works would probably be viewed with suspicion in this time of heightened alertness to plagiarism, this and other echoes strike me as crucial to the success of Hinton’s novel. They soften the challenging nature of the book’s subject matter by wrapping it in references, tropes and language familiar to its adolescent readers, even as they alleviate the fears of those readers’ too-earnest parents. Right after the Jackson echo, for example, Ponyboy’s older brother, Sodapop, is characterized as “16-going-on-17.” A quotation from “The Sound of Music” would seem out of place in a novel rife with “blades” and “heaters” and teenage pregnancy, but it’s hard to deny after Ponyboy’s immediate assertion that “nobody in our gang digs movies and books the way I do.”

Indications of Ponyboy’s, and Hinton’s, love continue throughout. Randy Anderson’s “If his old man had just belted him — just once, he might still be alive” sounds a lot like James Dean’s “If he had the guts to knock Mom cold once, then maybe she’d be happy” in “Rebel Without a Cause,” while the scene in which Dallas Winston waves around a gun until the cops shoot him is a cross between the climax of that movie, when Sal Mineo is gunned down for brandishing a weapon that (like Dally’s) is unloaded, and Natalie Wood’s famous “How many bullets?” speech from “West Side Story.”

Going right down the honors English syllabus: Ponyboy and Johnny curl up together for warmth like Ishmael and Queequeg in “Moby-Dick.” Pony’s admonition to himself —“Don’t think” — is as Hemingway “code hero” as it comes. Johnny’s half mechanical, half sublime parsing of Frost’s “Nothing Gold Can Stay” is reminiscent of Mick Kelly’s response to Beethoven’s Fifth in “The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter.” And of course Pony, witness to and chronicler of his friends’ demise, could be the Midwestern cousin Nick Carraway left behind. If there’s a reference to “To Kill a Mockingbird,” I can’t find it, save perhaps in the Boo Radleyesque names (although Hinton has said that “Peanuts the Pony” was the first book she ever checked out of the library, so who knows). The text even presupposes judgments about appropriate reading material for a 14-year-old: “I’d read everything in the house about 50 million times,” Ponyboy informs us, “even Darry’s copy of ‘The Carpetbaggers,’ though he’d told me I wasn’t old enough to read it. I thought so too after I finished it.”

The intertextual musings come to a head when Johnny tells Pony that Dallas reminds him of the Southern men in “Gone With the Wind,” which the two boys have been reading to combat boredom while they hide from the police. In Johnny’s view, Dally’s refusal to turn in his friend Two-Bit for vandalism is like the Confederate rebels’ “riding into sure death because they were gallant.” Pony initially rejects this reading, but something about it nags him: “Of all of us, Dally was the one I liked least. He didn’t have Soda’s understanding or dash, or Two-Bit’s humor, or even Darry’s superman qualities. But I realized that these three appealed to me because they were like the heroes in the novels I read. Dally was real. I liked my books and clouds and sunsets. Dally was so real he scared me.”

This is good stuff — great stuff for a teenager. Dally’s “realness” is made apparent by characters in a book; by contrast, the other members of the gang, who’ve limited themselves to playing roles they’ve picked up elsewhere, are suddenly seen as less real, enabling Pony to understand why, at the beginning of the novel, Cherry Valance shyly declared, “I kind of admire him.” What goes unsaid until the end of the story is that Pony, like Dally, needs a book to explain him, but is forced to write it himself.

In his introduction to “Slow Learner,” Thomas Pynchon remarks that the appropriate “attitude toward death” that characterizes serious fiction is usually absent in young-adult literature; but one feels “The Outsiders” would pass Pynchon’s test. Dally is fearless, which Pony recognizes as heroic but also foolish. That Dally’s death scene is a mesh of two of the most enduring moments in American cinema is beside the point. The question is not where the material comes from (“West Side Story” is based on “Romeo and Juliet,” after all, and James Dean’s antihero is a latter-day Bartleby or Raskolnikov) but what the writer does with it. The test comes when Ponyboy sums up the conflict between Socs and Greasers as “too vast a problem to be just a personal thing.” Salinger couldn’t get away with that line, and neither could Pynchon, because their books are too idiosyncratic, too distinct. But Hinton, earnest teenager that she was, wrote to reveal the universality of her Greasers, just as Wright and Ellison did for African-Americans, or Paley and Roth did for Jews.

Each time I came across another borrowing, the success of her strategy was impressed upon me. And at the same time I was reminded of 19-year-old Kaavya Viswanathan, who was flayed last year for borrowing excessively from various sources for her own novel. If some high-minded, plagiarism-wary reader had persuaded S. E. Hinton to remove all references to the books and movies that inspired her, “The Outsiders” probably wouldn’t have slipped past the internal (let alone official) censors that governed ’60s adolescence. Forty years on, we may see the seams of its gilding, but the heart of Hinton’s groundbreaking novel is still, indisputably, gold.

Wyatt, M. Book review: the outsiders. Retrieved from 

http://family.go.com/entertainment/article-csm-117702-book-review--the-outsiders-t/?CMP=KNC-YahSSPFamily

Book Review: The Outsiders

Juvenile delinquents are fully and humanely developed here.

By Monica Wyatt

What Parents Should Know

The story and characters grab most teenager's attention.  This is far from great literature, but it's highly successful with reluctant readers and with most teenagers.

Common Sense Media Review

Many teens say this is the first book they ever enjoyed reading, even though it's often required.  S.E. Hinton wrote it when she was only sixteen years old, and her insight into teen angst may explain why adolescents identify with Ponyboy so strongly.

Readers find plenty of action here and an idyllic view of friendship, a major concern for teens.  The dialogue sounds like what we'd expect from 1960s Southwestern teenage delinquents, such as "Shut up talkin' like that" and "Didya catch 'em?"  Adults appear in the book only briefly; this is a teenage world, and Ponyboy spends most of his time trying to figure it out.  

However, the story doesn't rise much beyond pulp fiction, possibly another reason young readers enjoy it.  Hinton gets her characters out of certain murder convictions by suddenly turning them heroes, saving little kids from a convenient fire.  Johnny sacrifices himself to atone for his sin.  Ponyboy broods about everything, emerging ready for life.  But don't dismiss this book because of its lack of literary pretensions.  In the battle to get teenagers to read, it's a nuclear missile.  Teenagers love this book; it teaches them that they can enjoy reading, as Ponyboy already knows.  S.E. Hinton also wrote That Was Then, This Is Now, Tex, and Rumblefish.  A superior treatment of real street kids is Ineke Holtwijk's Asphalt Angels.

My Suggestions for Use in a Library Setting:

Books such as The Outsiders can be wonderful teaching tools for children for things outside of the library.  I believe this book could be used as a catalyst to have a number of speakers come to the library to talk to students about bullying, hazing, and violence.  If the library coordinated it with schools in the area, it could be a field trip to the library for the kids and a learning experience.  Bullying, hazing, and violence are all very controversial issues in schools now, and I feel that the school administration would appreciate this opportunity to instill in the children the harm of these activities.

The Runaway Bunny: Module One

Brown, M.W. (1942). The Runaway Bunny. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers. 

Synopsis:
The book begins with the little bunny informing his mother bunny that he is running away.  He tells her all of the things he will turn into so she can't bring him home (such as a sailboat to sail away), and his mother tells the little bunny the things she will turn into so he won't run away (such as the wind to blow the sailboat wherever she wishes).  The book ends with the little bunny deciding it would be better to just stay home with his mother bunny.


My Evaluation:
The Runaway Bunny is, in my mind, lesser known than her wildly popular book Goodnight Moon.  It is, however, written in a similar style with the repetitive nature of the writing (if you become this, I will become this, etc.).  Nevertheless, it is a book that I feel both children and adults would enjoy.  I think children would enjoy the fun idea of turning into other things like a sailboat, or a fish, or joining a circus as a trapeze artist.  The pictures are lovely, vivid, and would really capture children.  Mothers can relate to this story well because the mother bunny is one of the central characters, and she personifies many of the characteristics of motherhood - protection, love, and the willingness to do anything to keep their child safe.  I feel that this book could be used as a teaching opportunity for a mother to her child to show that the child is safe and loved.  I would highly recommend that you pick it up.


Reviews:


Bird, E. (2009). Top 100 Picture Books Poll Results. School Library Journal. Retrieved from http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/afuse8production/2009/04/07/top-100-picture-books-poll-results-75-71/. 

#73: Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown (1942)

18 points (4 votes)

Touching story without being too sentimental. – Crystal Barringer

And isn’t security so important? There’s good reason children tuck themselves right into a parent’s arms when they read this story. – Jean Reidy

When Michael Rex began parodying classic children’s literature with his own books, the first title he chose to make fun of was Goodnight Moonby Margaret Wise Brown.  Goodnight Goon has been quite the bestseller, and he’s now following it up with none other than Runaway Mummy.  A play on?  You guessed it.

Runaway Bunny constitutes yet another divisive children’s title.  Many people (most?) would say that it’s a sweet and comforting tale of a parent’s unconditional and eternal love for their child.  But there is a segment of the population that finds the book disturbing.  Some feel that the bunny is honestly trying to make a break for freedom, but that its mother is preventing this escape, and crushing its spirit.  The book can be read a number of different ways, but generally it’s still a very well regarded picture book title.

Said Bethany Miller Cole of Children’s Literature about the book, "Clement Hurd’s black and white and colorful, dream-like illustrations grace spreads throughout the book, bringing to life perfectly the imagination of the young and the depth of love a parent has for a child. Children and the adults who love them will treasure this story."

Rooks, P.J. The Runaway Bunny. Best Children's Books. Retrieved from 

http://www.best-childrens-books.com/runaway-bunny.html

The Runaway Bunny
Children's book review by P.J. Rooks

Ages 2+

The Runaway Bunny, written by Margaret Wise Brown (most famous for Goodnight Moon) and illustrated by Clement Hurd, is a sweet story that tells the tale of a little bunny's imaginative plans to run away. He will become a hidden crocus in a garden, a rock in a mountain and a fish, among other things.  For each of these plans, however, his mother has a "foiled-again" response -- she will become a gardener, a mountain climber, a fisherman, etc.

There is no plan too wild or far-reaching that this little bunny's mother will not come searching for him -- truly a story of unconditional, all-reaching, all-surviving love.

In the end, the little bunny decides he can stick it out with Mom since trying to run away would just be a waste of his time anyway, so Mom offers him a carrot and the deal is done.

Runaway Bunny is not the sort of book that I would probably have picked up on my own. It was recommended by Edward Hallowell in his book The Childhood Roots of Happiness.

Webmaster's note: I think any book we're still talking about 66 years after publication has received classic children's literature status.

There is a similar story, this one a little less sweet but a bit more fun, about Baby Boo Boo, a little mouse who has a problem with his birth status among the meek and mild. Big Bad Bunny, written by Franny Billingsley and illustrated by G. Brian Karas, is another cute adventure in maternal love.

My Suggestions for Use in a Library Setting:

I think it often happens that an author is well known for one book, and many of their other books, which may be outstanding, are passed over.  I would have a different featured author every week in the library that we would celebrate.  In this case, I would use Margaret Wise Brown (famous for Goodnight Moon) and feature her other books including The Runaway Bunny, The Sleepy Little Lion, The Color Kittens, etc.