Hear My Cry

""Baby, you had to grow up a little today. I wish...well, no matter what I wish.  It happened and you have to accept the fact that in the world outside this house, things are not always as we would have them to be.""  This quote is from the book Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, the selection for this weeks class and was stated by Mama Logan to her daughter Cassie.  These words resonate with readers like myself, African Americans, who as young children were themselves little Cassie's.  Children who innocently questioned the status quo, often recognizing the wrongness of it, and suffered the consequences.  These words reminded me of the words my own father shared with me as a young girl first suffering the humiliation of being referred to as a "nigger".  My father told me, rather matter of factly, that I was no better than anyone else, certainly no worse, but equally as good.  He explained that sometimes people fear what they don't understand and can't control.  He explained that people behave the way they do because they feel powerless, and that sometimes all they know how to do well -is hate.  My dad explained to an eight-year-old, third grade student, that 'outside our home' was a harsh world, that cared very little about a young girl's feelings or innocence.
That is why novels such as Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, have an important and proper place in Children's literature.  While the novel is realistic fiction, it could easily be non-fiction.  These stories are real and passed down in the oral tradition.  I heard similar stories from my grandparents after my own experience with racism.  My grandfather James was born in 1902 and my grandmother Julia in 1914, so you can imagine the struggles they had raising their nine children in the backwoods of South Carolina during the great depression era the book is set in, on their own ten acres I might add.  I'll not digress to much, but I think it necessary to say, for many, land ownership affords people a sense of pride and satisfaction they might not have otherwise experienced.  That was true of my family and certainly true of the Logan family in the the novel Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.  I get that, and understand why it was hard for Cassie's character to not know her place.  She was equally as good as her white counterparts. 
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, is classic literature and succeeds on many levels to impart historical knowledge in an engaging narrative.  It should be required reading. 

Connectedness

I really enjoyed this week's reading of The Birchbark House.  While I realize that the book is a work of fiction, I felt an overwhelming sense of connectedness to Omakayas story.  This is the sort of literature that I'd want my children to read, but not just read, to experience, as I did.  I began reading the acknowledgment (something I don't usually do) and was pleased to learn that the author, Louise Erdrich, is a decendant of the Ojibwa peoples, somehow that gave the novel more weight, made it more authentic.  I especially enjoyed Erdrick's plea to the reader to 'speak the Ojibwa girl, Omakayas, name aloud so as to honour her life.  As I did, Omakayas became more real.  The character was totally relatable, and easy to identify with. Her character is very well developed.  Many parents will recognize the sibling dynamics at play within the novel.  Omakayas character was humerous, honest, but at the same time flawed, all which contributed to the stories believeablity.  She was very much a child, possessing the feelings, rational, and reactions of a child, which makes the character endearing to readers.
Similar to Little House on the Prairie, The Birchbark House is packed with lots of  informational about the day to day activities of the Ojibwa tribe, without being boring.  This I believe is accomplished because Endrick crafts a story where both the main character, her family, and the reader by extension all feel connected.  Omakayas and her family are connected to each other.  They are connected not simply through blood or marriage, but joined and linked together with one another and the land for survival.  The family is an interdependent unit, everyone has a clearly defined role and sees the importance of fulfilling that role.  Omakayas and her family co-exist with the land and respect all life on it, from the least to the greatest.  This people are not dwelling in fear, infact they have a remarkable connection to all the animals. They take only what is necessary for survival.  They eat to be sustained, they store up for the winter, and are not wasteful.  Every part of the animal is used for nourishment, clothing, blankets, etc., anything that cannot be used is ceremoniously buried.  The author presents the tribe in a very respectful and dignified manner, these people are not savages.
This novel is an excellant tool for teaching about native cultures and perhaps the native peoples' attitudes respecting forced migration to reservations.  I appreciated that the whites were not portrayed unfavorably, they needn't be.  That is one very noticeable strength of the novel.  The family survives inspite of trying circumstances.  Omakayas herself is a survivor, she becomes one with nature and those who nurture her.  Her survival is connected to theirs.  This reader inturn feels deeply connected to Omakayas and her family especially after the loss of the baby boy Neewo (I got up from reading to go kiss my sleeping 2 year son Christopher) because not matter our differences, death is always mankind's common enemy.

After reading Little House on the Prairie I'm feeling nostalgic for the period in my life when I felt safe and secure.  For me, those were the years I spent with my grandparents, James and Julia Flint.  My grandparentss were very much my Charles and Caroline Ingalls.  They had a remarkable ability to make any difficult circumstance seem surmountable.  This book gave me that same feeling. I just knew that the Ingalls' would  fair well, despite contant danger.   Little House on the Prairie was a fast and easy read, a book that until very recently, I didn't know existed.  I wish I had been introduced to the series years ago as I spent countless hours, week in and week out, year after year, watching the television series of the same name.  Before reading this book, I mistakenly believed that theirs was a simplier time, a safer time, turns out I couldn't been more wrong.
Each chapter of the book presents its own set of very real dangers or difficulties.  The family faced the possibility of death repeatedly.  The courage required to leave one's established homestead for unsettled territory is now so poignant in my mind.  From the families decision to move, to crossing the creek, to believing themselves to have lost Jack the dog, they had to make constant adjustments.  Life was not simple, infact, I believe that it may have been harsher.  It is so easy to take things for granted today. I've never given any thought to what people in the past slept on.  This book made me realize that they stuffed their own mattresses.  I know that this fails in comparison to say, building ones own logcabin home, but just the same, for me this is enormous.  I wouldn't have survived anypart of this journey. 
The threat of wolf attacks, the fear of Indians, screaming panthars, individually these things are overwhelming to me, collectively, they seem unbearable. The Ingalls and families liked theirs confronted these dangers everyday.  Though they didn't have a right to this territory legally, I admire their desire to settle it. Their American dream is not very different from our own, we all want to benefit from the work of our own hands.  We want to build homes and have occupancy, live in peace and security with our neighbors, and be happy in the pursuit of these dreams.l

Adventure Tales

It appears that children in the 19th century really lived!  Their lives were filled with such adventure.  Kipling's Kim left not a stone unturned.  The adventure story reminded me of a survey or humanities course on India.  I was constantly distracted in the readings because I wanted to know how much of what I was reading was historically accurate or make believe.  I found the reading complex and once again thought, "Wow kids were really reading this material."  Then I decided to step back and think about the adventure genre today and thought about the The Hunger Games trilogy.  I suppose as far as adventure goes, the best stories are able to take the reader to a world they would not otherwise know, while creating new vocabulary, alliances, and understanding of issues seemingly beyond their maturity. 

Then and Now

It is a strange thing, time that is, not simply the distant past but also the recent past.  It wasn't so long ago that I read this same collection of poetry for an another English class.  The poetry hasn't changed so it must be me.  Poetry is sometimes difficult for me to discepher which is one reason why I've always enjoyed Blakes's "Songs of Innocence", they have in the past been easier for me to understand.  Their meanings are clear.  And while I might not necessary agree with that message, I can understand it. 
As I examine this poetry as it relates to children's literature I focus directly upon conditioned and learned behaviors.  The selections we considered in "Songs of Innocence" would serve to reinforce the social hierarchy of the time.  They reinforce the master/servant relationship.  They reinforce the idea that humans are made in the image of God by likening human children to lambs.  Unlike goats, lambs are meek, mild  and teachable.  These are appealing qualites in and of themselves, but coupled with religion, the young child learner would be more inclined to want to develope these qualities.  Additionally, after repeated exposure to works like these, the young learner would be conditioned to believe that his or her station in life is exactly as God has preordained.  They expecially would be less inclined to raise objections and question authority.  The conditioning would have been from infancy and would be instilled in them by their very first caregivers and parents.
To some extent, we are all products of our environments.  These factors though are not all environmental in nature, they are deeply entrenched teachings that require an enormous amount of time to be overturned.  And because they have not been overturned our innocence is often lost to our experiences.  This week's readings help us see both the cause and the effect.

Puritan Power

The Puritans had no line of demarcation between their religious and secular life.  Everything for them seems to have been connected to their faith in God and his will for them while on earth.   Afterall, they were, according to John Winthrop, the "New Israel of God" in as much as their sojourn to the new world was preordained and the land that they were to inhabit, reserved for them.  They believed themselves to be the foundation of a new society of people who with God's blessings would represent him on earth.  The Puritans embraced scriptures such as the one found at Deuteronomy 5:33 which says "In all the way that Jehovah your God has commanded you, you should walk, in order that you may live and it may be well with you and you may indeed lengthen your days in the land of which you will take possession."  So it comes as no surprise to this reader that their view of children would also be a godly view, simply put, that 'children are an inheritance from God'.  They considered each child "a precious jewel" and took very seriously their responsiblity to bring them up in the fear and mental regulation of God.  Rather than criticize, I believe they are worthy of praise and imitation.
In the chapter From Alphabet to Elegy in Seth Lerer's Children's Literature book we are told "Alphabetic education was designed for success not simply in commerce or in culture, but in spirit. There was a kind of moral literacy to the Puritan movement, a sense that books could shape lives" (pg. 83).  What this says to me is summed up in the Holy Scriptures at Deuteronomy 6:6-9: "And these words that I am commanding you today must prove to be on your heart; and you must inculcate them in your son and speak of them when you sit in your house and when you walk on the road and when you lie down and when you get up.  And you must tie them as a sign upon your hand and they must serve as a frontlet band between your eyes; and you must write them upon the doorposts of your house and on your gates."  These words resonated with the Puritans.  The ways they educated their children indicates that there was no separation.  They made use of every opportunity to teach their children. That is powerful! I wish more parents realized that to instruct their children morally is to instruct them to be  better readers and writers.       

Fairy Tales and the female audience

I've just spent about three hours reading the required readings for my Children's Literature course which focused exclusively on many of the  fairy tales that I grew up either reading or hearing, with one major difference: they were not the Disney version.  So my initial reaction was 'Wow! was this stuff really for children?'  They only  fairy tale that didn't seem to be modernized or Disneyfied was that of Perrault's Little Red Riding Hood.   However, reading a fairy tale as an adult with the wisdom and maturity age affords, is a very different experience than having read it a young child or even adolesant.  For example, when the wolf invites Little Red Riding Hood to come get in the bed, my mind could not help but to conjure images of a sexual predator inviting a young and unsuspecting youth to join him in the bed.  Moreover, the wolf, like many modern day predators, seemed to have a rapid response for all the objections raised by Riding Hood.  The wolf assures her that everything is okay and her valid concerns are unneccessary.  What was even more alarming was how sly and cunning the wolf was in getting Riding Hood to share private information and so this fairy tale for me seems to be the most timeless of those considered in this week's unit.   I believe Little Red Riding Hood goes a long way in warning naive youngster of the very real dangers lurking about. 
Stories such as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, on the otherhand, seemed to espose lessons of what the ideal women looks like, sounds like, and behaves like, essentially, to win/gain/attract your own Prince Charming you must be quite, beautiful, and have a fairy godmother looking out for you.  Unrealistic certainly for our time period, but these fairy tales are still popular today and therefore impact the way young girls conceptualize 'beauty' and indeed their own selfworth.  Fairy tales definetly have a place in children's literature and I find I rather appreciate the graphic lessons that highlight that while you might 'live happily ever after', getting there is not going to be a breeze.