The Adventures of Marco Polo by Russell Freedman

Marco Polo told people that he saw snakes with legs.  I have never heard of snakes with legs so this makes me question if he made up a lot about an adventure he went on. However, he could have seen another creature and called it the wrong name.  I was always told in school that Marco Polo was an early explorer.  This book is making me question if that is really true.  I finished the book and the author still questions if Marco Polo was a fraud.  I was hoping to find out the answer at the end of the book and that did not happen.  The author states that his discoveries are still debated today but that he has changed the way that many people think about the world.  I would not recommend this book because it was very boring to me.  I had a difficult time reading and understanding the book because of the language.  The pictures included in the book were not very interesting to me and did not add to the story.  I think that in order to really understand the book it would be necessary to have a lot of background knowledge of Marco Polo and how life was like back then for the early explorers.  The book does not really include any elements of adventure or excitement.  The book did not make me interested and if it doesn't interest me I don't think it will interest my students.  This book was in the library under Juvenile Biography but I think that it would be too difficult for children to read the book.  I would have placed the book under an adult biography section.  The part that I liked most about the book were the large maps that were included and how it helped show the distance traveled.  I am still having a difficult time understanding where Marco Polo traveled because I haven't learned much about Europe, India and China.  I think one of the main reasons for why the author wrote the book was to give children information about Marco Polo and to have the readers question if he really saw everything that he claims he did.  Back then there was no way to validate if someone really traveled where they said they did.  If it was written in books people believed that it was true.  There is nothing in the book that I can relate to and I think that is part of the reason why I did not like it very much.  Children have a difficult time relating to things that happened a long time ago and I feel that this book will be difficult for them to relate to because of that.  I would not use this book in my classroom unless I was teaching high school students that had background knowledge about that time period.

WINTER'S BLESSINGS

Pretty little snowflakes

 Falling to the ground;

Here is one, there is one,

 Everywhere they're found

See them fall so gently

 Through the frosty air,

Every little snowflake

 Has its beauties rare.

Soon the ground is covered

 With the pretty snow,

Then we see the snowbirds

 Flying to and fro.

Happy little creatures —

 Do not reap or sow,

Yet the Master feeds them,

 Even in the snow.

I think it would be important if I was teaching this poem to a class in Florida that the students have background knowledge about snow.  I would also have to explain to children that have grown up in Florida that in certain places there are distinct seasons in which the winter is very cold and snowy.  I would probably have my students watch a video that shares this information to the students so that they can gain some background knowledge before reading the poem.  Many children in Florida have never seen snow so it would be important for them to watch a video and get information about how snow works.  To me, the poems moral is that every snowflake is different but beautiful.  This relates to people because every one of us is different and beautiful.  It teaches children that it is alright to be different.  I think students would really enjoy this poem because it talks about snowflakes.  I would have my students create snowflakes on their own.  When every student in a class makes a snowflake all of them will look different which is what the poem talks about.  I would have the students hang up their snowflakes on the wall so that everyone can see how they are all beautiful even though they are all very different.  

A Day's Work by Eve Bunting

Spanish workers do not always get that much money in one day ($60.) Many times they make less than minimum wage.  The bosses are not usually that nice offering a straw hat and saying have a nice day.  It is a stereotype that a Spanish person is a gardener or landscaper.  I like how it included the grandfather not being a professional gardener and making a mistake by taking out the flowers instead of the weeds.  This experience relates to my life because in the Bahamas my parents hired a Bahamian to weed our house and they took out all of the plants instead. What my parents thought were flowers were not what the Bahamians thought.   Different cultures and countries have different ideas of what is a flower and what is a weed.

The book said, "Francisco gave a hop of excitement."  I think the author meant to write hope of excitement.  I looked up the author because I thought it may have been a Spanish to English translation issue but the author is from Ireland.  This makes me question the credibility of the author.  An author writing a book about the Spanish workers that did not personally go through it themselves can be unreliable.

I like how it included a few Spanish words.  This allows the students to understand that it is talking about the Spanish culture.  This also teaches the children a few Spanish vocabulary words.  I think the purpose of writing the story was to teach children about the work that some Spanish workers do.  I really like the grandfathers character because he was such a honest guy.  I also think it was written to teach children that being an honest and fair man in life is the right thing to do.  

Reference

Bunting, E. (1994). A Day's Work. New York: Clarion Books.

The Three Little Pigs different versions of the story

	The Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf By: Joseph Jacobs	The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs By: A. Wolf	The Three Little Gators By: Helen Ketteman
Characters	Three little pigs, the wolf, the pigs mom	the wolf, the three little pigs	Three little gators, the boar, the gators mom
Setting	The pigs mom's house, the little pigs houses	The wolf's and pig's house	The gator's houses, the gators mom's house
Plot	The little pigs mom had to kick the pigs out of her house.  The first pig bought straw and built a house out of it.  The big bad wolf knocked on the door and blew the house down and ate the little pig.  The second pig made a house of sticks and the wolf blew the house down and ate the second little pig.  The third pig made a house out of bricks and the wolf couldn't blow it down.  The wolf tries to trick the third pig but it doesn't work.  The wolf goes down the chimney and the third pig cooked and ate him for dinner.	The wolf needed a cup of sugar for his recipe so he goes to ask his neighbors the three little pigs.  He has a bad cold so he sneezes and blows the houses down by accident.  The pigs end up dead so he eats them.  The police catch him breaking into the last pigs house and send him to jail.	The gators mom kicks them out of her house.  One of the gators builds his house with rocks.  The second gator made a house of sticks.  The third gator made a house of sand.  The boar tried to get in the house and bumped himself right into the sand house.  The first gator runs to the next house.  The boar also got into the stick house.  The two gators run to the last house.  The boar couldn't get into the rock house so he went through the chimney and fell on the barbecue grill and was grilled to death.
Theme	Hard work and patience pays off.  The good always win against the bad.	You should never believe what you hear because it may not be true.	Hard work and patience pays off.  The good always win against the bad.
Point of View	The three little pigs perspective	Wolf's perspective	The three little gator's perspective

            The Three Little Gators reflects a cultural difference from the Three Little Pigs.  The Three Little Gators includes the Southern culture such as using animals that live in the south instead such as the gators and the boar.  Also, the book talks about the gator being cooked on a barbecue grill instead of in a pot.  Both books include the animal going into a chimney.  I don't think that many houses in the South have a chimney.  When listening to the video the children's accent that reads the book aloud is also southern.  The book includes phrases like younglings, gator skins, and rump a bump bump.  The universal theme is the same in both books although the way it is told and the animals used are different.  

This blog is for my Children's Literature class.  I will be using this blog to reflect on what I am reading in this class.  I will include passages that were meaningful to me and include my reactions towards the text.  As a child I remember my parents always reading to me before bedtime.  Once I was old enough to choose the books on my own, my mom and I would go to the public library every week and I would pick out many books to check out.  I believe my childhood reading experiences had a positive influence on my current love for reading.  I am looking forward to learning more about children's literature in this class.