Girls Under Pressure by Jacqueline Wilson

Girls Under Pressure by Jacqueline Wilson is a great novel for adolescent girls who are just struggling through high school or who want someone to relate to. The story is about Ellie and her two best friends Magda and Nadine. Ellie is the girl that thinks she is too chubby and just wants to be like her super slim friend Nadine. This book tackles some very sensitive real life issues as Nadine gets a chance to model and Ellie becomes obsessed with the way she looks. This leads her to resort to bulimic habits and she starts to exercise more and eat less. In the end she realises she can be herself and her body image is not that important, however this novel is not for everyone as it could induce wrong ideas about changing your body image and the realities that come with the world of modelling.

The story follows the traditional narrative style where the climax is when Ellie has starved herself to the extent that she is passing out and everyone is getting worried about her. This novel contains some really big issues that adolescent girls face as they get older and feel as though they must be a certain way to be accepted. The moral of the story is quite clear however the concepts the book describes could be misunderstood for normal occurrences and could send some teenage girls down the wrong path.

This novel is aimed at older adolescent girls as this is the age range that could handle the problems portrayed in this story. There is a definite moral to this story and it is an important one. Girls should not worry so much about the way they look and simply be themselves.

Stories to Eat with a Banana by Jackie French

Stories to Eat with a Banana by Jackie French is great children’s novel that is a collection of stories based on the main character, Prudence, and in many cases her best friend Phredde, who is a fairy, or rather a phaery. Each story is written around the notion that a civil war broke out in a land called Ruitania and now many mythical creatures and beast that lived there were forced to flee, a lot of them came to Australia. The creatures in the stories include trolls, vampires, dragons and of course fairies.

Most of the stories are written in the traditional style of narrative in which the author explains the setting then there is a build-up of conflicts leading into the climax of the story and then the problems resolve at the end. However some of these stories are different as even though they are all different tales they somehow connect and use information from the story before as they set the scene. This is not always effective as some of the stories become stale and uninteresting as there is not always suspense or a problem to be solved. The way it is written however, is very characteristic of the writing style Jackie French uses and can easily be enjoyed by many children. 

This novel would be aimed at children in upper primary as it is relatable to this age range as it is written in a way that is easy to read and sounds a lot like someone talking rather than writing. It’s a great book for children that want a simple and funny read that invokes such imagination and encourages creativity.

Blogalot Discussion- Week 4

This week we investigated the different text types that can be used while writing. We all brought a text type to class and discussed where we found it and whether or not this was typical or abnormal. The text type that was most prominent was procedures, as they are simply things like recipes, building instructions and other step by step pieces of writing. Another text type that we all seemed to recognise and brought in to share was a recount. A recount is a piece written in the past tense that depicts something that happened or a sequence of events. The last text type that was brought in to share was an information report. In this text type information is portrayed in an academic and factual manner, everything that is written about is proven or is based on fact.

After discussing the different text types we started to consider whether it was truly important for students to learn about these text types in school. We discussed how it was important for students to learn about the different text types but that teaching them about them could create potential for concerns. On the one hand students should know how to write in these different text types as this will assist them in writing in the future, that is, high school, university and other recreational activities. However, teaching students how to write according to these text types can in many ways squander their creativity and cause them to lose their will to write using their own imagination and rather write to suit the text type instead.

As a group we agreed on many ideas but were indifferent about others. In some ways we thought students should know about text types however we believed it would affect student’s creative writing if they felt pressured by the text types. We all agreed to different extents that it was important for students as some thought they could be well educated in writing and reading without a great knowledge of text types.

Silly Billy by Anthony Browne

Silly Billy by Anthony Browne is a children's picture book that is about 'Billy' a young boy cannot sleep because he worries too much. He worries about hats and shoes and giant birds until his grandma comes up with a solution to fix all his worrying. She gives him worry dolls to do all the worrying for him.

The book uses very little text and is driven by the illustrations. The illustrations start of very dark often being just black and white, this depicts the scared and lonely feeling Billy has as he lies in bed worrying. Towards the end of the book the illustrations become warmer and brighter with colour as Billy's grandma come to the rescue. Yellow and orange are used more towards the end to depict happiness and joy. One of my favourite illustrations is where billy is being dragged out of his bed by a giant bird who has one of his arms in its mouth. This really gives you a sense of what Billy is thinking about and why he is worried.

The story is narrated in a third person style with the author commenting on Billy's thoughts and feelings. As I mentioned before the text is very simple and not very descriptive, using almost no adjectives the text leaves a lot of room for the illustrations.

It is a fun little book that I am sure many children could relate too. It could be used in kindy, preschool or possibly early primary school. Students could make their own worry dolls and talk about what makes them worry the most.

Eric by Shaun Tan

Shaun Tan is an amazing author whose dominant style is that of picture books which deal with social, historical, cultural and political issues. Eric by Shaun Tan was originally released as a mini story in a compilation type book called Tales from Outer Suburbia. However due to its great success and interest from the public it has now been re-released in its own pocket sized book.

This is Eric!

He is a quirky little hand sized foreign exchange student who lives with a suburban family for a period of time. The story plays with ideas about the cultural differences and misunderstandings that can be present in everyday life for many foreigners. In Eric's case this includes doing and saying unusual things such as living in the pantry and asking why a drain hole looks like a flower.

It is a cute little story which has simple images compared to Tan's normal style of illustrating. The text tends to drive the story and is told from a first person narration style from a young boy who is part of Eric's host family. The story does not have any conflicts or any real setting but is still so fascinating. Eric appears all of sudden then disappears all of a sudden but you never known anything more than the brief time he spent with the host family, you do not know what came before or after his visit. The reader is open to imagine the finer details of Eric's existence and you wish you new more because he is such a loveable little creature!

Perhaps the greatest delight I received from this book is the type of person or animal that Eric represents. To me Eric is someone who comes into your life for a short period of time but leaves you with an amazing gift you can share for a lifetime. If you read the story you might understand what I mean by this... but that is the best thing about Tan, he is open to interpretation!...

Blogalot Discussion - Week 3

Today we discussed the different types of narration, story shapes, story plots and conflict types within literature.

From our analysis of the chosen books we found that they all generally follow some sort of setting, action, conflict, climax, resolution, conclusion format. Without this sort of story shape a book is not engaging or very interesting to read. An example of a book that does not have a very exciting story shape is The Great Round-The-World Balloon Race by Sue Scullard.

This book starts of with a setting as you are introduced to the characters and then the balloon race starts, they travel around the world and conclude with them winning but there are no celebrations. At no point is there any conflicts that take place, there is some bad weather but the main characters do not engage with it. Due to there being no conflict or climax this book is quite dull.

The book is based on the story plot of voyage and return and is done in an unintrusive narration style from an objective point of view. This makes for a pretty standard text that is not very engaging to read.

Another book we looked at was the autobiography The Long Hard Road Out Of Hell by Marilyn Manson. It was interesting to see that in an autobiography each chapter is a new story being told by the author about their life and therefore each chapter has its very own setting, action, conflict and climax. However in this case the climax does not resolve and the next chapter starts the cycle again.

We concluded that it is important to have conflicts and resolutions to make the text interesting. We also felt that the basic story shape is used the majority of the time because it is an effective method of keeping the reader engaged and it is fundamentally what makes or breaks a book.

Green Eggs and Ham written by Dr.Seuss is a timeless classic written in the 1960’s but is still loved by children today. Sam is a comical character who tries to present ‘green eggs and ham’ to his friend who does not want them. He does so in many funny and rhyming ways, trying to entice his friend who constantly denies them, without even trying them. This ends with Sam’s friend eventually giving in to his persistence and trying the eggs. To his and Sam’s delight he loves them and the book closes with a happy ending.  

It is an amusing, tongue twisting rhyming book, which would be very fun for children between the age of 6-10(and even older people, I personally love reading the book as fast as I can as a personal challenge). The illustrations are simple and cartoonish, and the story has little context. The text read aloud is amusing. Strictly a bright mix of basic colours are used but put together to make a strange world which is used in most Dr. Seuss books. The book could be used in intermediate English as the tongue twisters will provide and next step challenge to students who have past the basic learning levels of reading.   

Green Eggs and Ham, Dr.Seuss

The Red Tree

The Red Tree by Shaun Tan Is quite an artistic piece and can be read over and over due to its strong theme and the uplifting piece of hope it shows even throughout all darkness. Life can often be too much, and for this unnamed young girl, it certainly is. Her life, filled with darkness, loneliness and sadness can often seem unbearable and depressing. But even through this all there is a ‘red tree’ right where she imagined it would be.

This can be viewed as quite a heavy book, due to its obvious themes of darkness and depression. It would be aimed at children in upper primary, possibly older because of this. Symbolism within the book is exceptional; the illustrations are gripping and capture emotional very well. The simplistic text does just enough to assist in the portraying the emotion within the pictures. If I found it gripping I assume it could be used for students throughout high school also, it represents the hardships of life and how hard it can be. To get the ‘have hope’ idea in a student’s head I think this is quite a good introduction.

An image from The Red Tree

Introduction

I am a pre service teacher studying a Bachelor of Education, specialising in English and Physical Education. To me being a teacher has always been more than a career choice, I am very enthusiastic about teaching students and I cannot wait to have a class of my own. I look forward to extending my teaching knowledge further throughout my course especially in my specialised subjects English and Physical Education.

One of my favourite things to do is to listen to music, listening to it to either make or break my day at times. I am also quite a soccer fan, and I have played since I was 10.

I enjoy reading autobiographies of famous people; one I am reading currently is “The Long Hard Road Out Of Hell” by Marilyn Manson. I enjoy books such as these because you can see the ‘human’ side to people society basically worship and obsesses over.

A Day To Remember, one of my favourite bands.

The Worst Princess by Anna kemp & Sara Ogilvie

The Worst Princess by Anna Kemp & Sara Ogilvie is a fantastic children's picture book. This book is based on the story of Rapunzel but with a new take on the original story. The princess still has long hair, lives in a tower and wants to be saved by prince charming, but is prince charming coming to save her and is he really all that charming. This book goes against the stereotype of a princess. The Worst Princess is a princess who rides a DRAGON!!! yes a dragon! and she doesn't mind getting a little bit of dirt under her nails!

This book has amazing water colour pictures which utilize a lot of different textures. The pictures are fun and quirky just like the words and could tell the story all by themselves. The book is written in rhyme which provides an entertaining literature experience. I would recommend this book to people of all ages. It would be especially useful for younger children or as a teacher resource to raise contradictions in gender stereotypes and question the typical fairy tale story plots.

The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader by C.S.Lewis

The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader by C.S.Lewis is the fifth book in The Chronicles of Narnia fantasy series (also a movie series) which also contains The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrode perhaps the most well known book in the series. This was the third book I have read in the series and it was by far the most enjoyable, the other two being The Horse and His Boy and Prince Caspian. It is an oldie but a classic as it was first publish in 1952, this means the style of writing by the author feels different to that of today's books.

The main drive for this book is an epic quest that takes place in the magical mystery realm called Narnia which is joined to our world via a wardrobe. Wierd and wacky things take place in Narnia, not to mention amazing wars between humans, animals, elfs, dwarfs and other creatures.

It is written in a third person narration style with the author being intrusive on all thoughts and feelings of the characters and providing his own opinion at times which adds to the fun.  You really get to know all the characters personalities really well as you have access to their thoughts and feelings so you can almost judge what they will do at times. The book is quite short and therefore does not provide detailed and descriptive writing constantly. It has a fast paced storyline which jumps around from place to place and character to character sometimes following two separate story lines.

The storyline is that of a quest and has a follows a setting, action, conflict, resolution, conclusion format. There are many minor conflicts throughout the book that are based on character vs character or character vs monster interactions. As the story does have a final conclusion it is able to be read separate from all other books in the series.

The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader is suitable for all ages and is quite a easy read. I would recommend it as the book to read in the Narnia series after The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.

Uno's Garden by Graeme Base

Uno's Garden by Graeme Base is a picture book about a man who ventures in to the forest and decides to live there. Eventually a lot of other people find they love the forest and start to move in until their are no trees and no animals left. It is a great book for younger children as it raises awareness of pollution, over population and conservation. It also involves some mathematics so children can see the imbalance between animals and trees and buildings. The illustrations in this book are amazing, they are so creative and imaginative. There are many imaginary animals living in this wonderful looking forest with crazy names that will make them giggle. 

Base starts off by setting the scene in the forest and then begins to create a build up to the climax of the story in which the people realise they do not like living without trees around them. It then resolves as Uno finds the last of the animals in his garden, which he managed to save, and his children begin rebuilding the forest.

This book is great as it conveys a message about pollution and the development of cities on forest lands. The little bits of maths helps children understand numbers in the context of balancing the number of animals, plants, buildings and people in one place. I would recommend this book for children of 2 up to 10.

Inheritance by Christopher Paolini

I have been reading Inheritance by Christopher Paolini. This book is the last of installment of the Eragon series. It is a thrilling adolescent novel that follows the story of Eragon, a young boy who is destined to be a dragon rider and defeat the evil king Gallbatorix. The way that Paolini writes has really mesmerized me as he writes with such attention to detail, one can really lose themselves in the scene and feel as though they are part of the story themselves. It is set in an imaginary land that seems to be of a medieval type of era. In this land there are monsters, elves, dwarves, spell-casters, healers, an evil empire and of course a few dragon riders. The way that Paolini has described these creatures is riveting in the way that he explains every feature. His imagination seems limitless as he writes about great battles and amazing animals  but he is able to bring it back to relate to the reader by writing about everyday occurances in the warriors and village folks lives. The image that is created of the characters really makes the story seem like a possibility in real life even though it is obviously a fantasy novel.

This series is aimed for teenagers however Inheritance is the thickest book of them all and would take dedication to finish, for that reason it seems aimed at people in their late teens but can be enjoyed by people older of course. All in all it is a really good read and I would recommend it to anyone who loves to read fantasy novels.