Response to Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? By Bill Martin Jr.

Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See? The title of this book alone explains that this book is a representation of differences. As humans, we all look at people, animals, places etc. and see their differences from one another. It is the idea that THIS IS OKAY that we struggle with. While reading Brown Bear Brown Bear the child is able to see a variety of animals, all different colors, shapes and sizes. While the child is reading the book they are receiving the message that all of the animals are different yet brown bear see's them all, and likes them all. It is a huge message that is being given in a subtle way. Many have probably read this book and never thought of such a thing. My favorite part of the book is the purple cat. A lot of the animals in the book are the color that we expect them to be, and then there is the purple cat! We are not used to seeing purple cats, but we see the cat, and we like the cat! We accept that the cat is purple in this book and we move on...it's that simple! :) This has always been one of my favorite picture books as well as one of my favorite authors. Eric Carle is an amazing illustrator which is a huge part of picture books. As stated in The Joy of Children's Literature, "With picture books, it is important to look and then look again, to take a more analytical view to find the source of our pleasure." I think this is easily done with Brown Bear Brown Bear What do You See? The illustrations intrigue you and allow you to analyze them without much thought, thinking to yourself...why is that cat purple?

Comparing and Contrasting America's Cinderella to Asia's Cinderella

                                   America                                         Asia


Title:                        Cinderella                                         Yeh-Shen: A Cinderella Story from China.

Characters:              Cinderella, evil stepmother, evil twins,     Yeh-Shen, stepmother, a fish, prince.
                               father, fairy god mother, prince.

Setting:                    The Castle/forest                                  Pond, festival

Actions:                   Cinderella attends the ball being            Yeh-Shen befriends a fish whom her stepmother 
                               dressed by her fairy godmother whom    kills, she keep the bones which are magical and 
                               has a magic wand, Cinderella looses     uses them to prepare for the festival at which 
                               her slipper, the prince finds it and they   she looses her slipper, meets the king and 
                               fall in love.                                           falls in love.

Theme:                    A young woman falls in love with           A young woman falls in love with the king with the 
                               the prince with the help of magic.          help of magic.

By reading the chart above you are able to see that although the book is still the Cinderella we know, is a multicultural story. The book Cinderella has a universal theme of a young, poor girl who is treated poorly be her stepmother. The girl then comes in contact with magic, attends an event, meets a man of royalty and they fall in love after he has found her missing item. There are many versions of Cinderella which all represent cultural differences. For example; in the books that I compared you can see that instead of a fairy godmother, the young girl presents magic through the bones of a fish. Fish are thought of highly in Asia and therefore represent that through their story. As stated in  The Joy of Children's Literature  there is a need for more multicultural literature."Efforts have been made in recent years to increase the publication and recognition that multicultural children's literature deserves." Creating multicultural Cinderella stories is a great way to increase the population and awareness of multicultural literature.

Welcome!

Hello everyone! I have created this blog in order to convey my thoughts and feelings throughout my readings in a college course I am taking. I am currently a senior in an Elementary Education program and am very eager to finish this summer semester! In the Fall I will be interning in a 2nd grade classroom and am very excited! I am very excited for this Children's Literature class because literature is something that I truly enjoy!  I love to teach children and instill my passion onto them! During the Children's Literature course I will be reading many books and will be sharing my thoughts and feelings of those books and authors on this blog with you! I hope you enjoy my thoughts...if anyone is reading this! :)