Children Are Interesting Little Humans

The historical context of the story is based on the setting of the 1960s. The story accounts the events of a group of African American girl scouts from Atlanta, who went on a camping trip. During their trip, the all black girl scouts encounter all-white girl scouts, Troop 909, whom they have an altercation

Nature versus nurture, is the question. Are we really born as the person we always will be, or does external influences have a crucial effect on who we will become. In the novel Lullabies for Little Criminals the protagonists Baby is seen to have an absence of an adequate caregiver or prominent parental figure in her life. Her mother passed away when she was very young with only her teenage father to care for her. Jules her father, shows little interest in his child. Constantly leaving her to fend for herself and issuing verbal and physical abuse. This causes the young adolescent girl to experience great hardship as she tried to get on with life, without proper role model and guidance. The adverse character development of Baby throughout the novel supports the theme of the necessity of a proper role model in the upbringing of a child. Without the proper guidance a child will begin to take impression to her environment. No matter who they were destined to be, they will always become products of their own surroundings. Her impression of her corrupt environment causes her many problems in her life such as her inability to form and maintain healthy romantic relationships, to gain a reputable and appropriate career for her aptitude, and her desire not to pursue a higher level of education.

In the short story Brownies, written by ZZ Packer, the story takes place in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia and within this suburbs, lies a group of Girl Scouts who are in camp. This camp is called Camp Crescendo. This camping site houses two camp groups: the Brownies which are African American and Troop 909 girls who are Caucasian. The story is narrated by a young girl named Laurel, who’s also known as Snot among the Brownies. The story begins by Snot giving a brief overview of the other six girls and the camp. During this time, racial tensions were in abundance throughout the United States. As the story progresses, Arnetta over hears a young girl from the Troop 909 calls Daphne a brownie girl a “nigger” and the dynamic of the story changes

Though this book is written from a young girl’s point of view, even in the first hundred pages there are various forms of

Childhood is an important time in a person’s life, a time where one can be carefree and do as they please without having to worry about what others think of them. During this stage of life, children are groomed and prepared for the transition between childhood and adulthood to be as smooth as possible. However, in Heather O’Neil’s novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals, Baby throws herself into the adult world without giving any second thought or even having the proper knowledge to survive or even to manage herself. This causes her to follow the wrong paths and trust the wrong people. Baby grows wise beyond her years, and soon becomes stuck in the middle of the two worlds, as she is too young for the adult world but too old for the child world. This traps her with her having nowhere else to go except continue on the path she is already heading. Baby’s loss of innocence at such a young age showcases that one cannot properly mature and be ready for the future without having a stable childhood. This loss is shown through Jules’ lack of parental ability, her exposure to the adult world at a young age, and her struggle with herself. Adding all three together causes damage to Baby that no one should experience.

Brownies by ZZ Packer is a short story that takes place at a summer camp called Camp Crescendo in Atlanta, Georgia. The story follows two racially segregated troops of Brownie Girl Scouts, one troop consisting of all black girls and the other all white girls. Conflicts arise when the troop of white girls were accused of calling a black brownie a racial slur. The black troop confronted the white troop, Troop 909, with the accusation that one girl in Troop 909 called a girl in the black troop a racial slur in the camp bathroom. During this confrontation, their first face-to-face confrontation with the white girls, the black troop made the revelation that Troop 909 had special needs. A Troop Leader then shared that some of the girls in Troop

[Anthony Horowitz once said, “Childhood, after all, is the first precious coin that poverty steals from a child.”] In the novel The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, the Walls children had a rough childhood, enduring many tough things like poverty. Rex and Rose Mary Walls wanted to teach their children resilience and self sufficiency. Despite their good intentions, they were very irresponsible and unstable parents. They put their children in danger in many ways which caused them to have a loss of innocence at a young age. The Walls children proved throughout the book that *having a rough childhood and losing innocence at a young age does not determine a person’s future.*

The writer ZZ Packer’s short story, “Brownies,” is about a troop of African-American Girl Scouts from south Atlanta that takes a camping trip; unfortunately, almost instantly, imaginary tensions build up between them and Troop 909, a group of white girls; struggle that later in this story develops as the main external conflict. Arnetta and Octavia, appear as the leaders of the group, and insist that the 909 girls called one of their group a derogatory word which is the starting point of the conflict. Consequently, a confrontation rapidly takes place between the teams, but this quarrel turns awry when the African-American girls realize the white members of Troop 909 are developmentally disabled and it becomes clear to the reader that

Several times in the story, the reader sees again the black girls’ denial reaction through contrasts created between positive content and negative, mocking tone. The black girls talk down about the girls of troop 909 and their “sleeping bags chromatized with Disney characters” (1) making them sound childish and even spoiled. They also in a way blame the ehite girls for having “long shampoo commercial hair” which would not be considered a bad thing unless that “alone was reason for envy and hatred” (5). Similarly, ZZ Packer sets up contrasts between negative content and positive tone to makes a point about admitting the difference proudly instead of denying your difference. In the story, the 909 troop leader “smiled the whole time as she talked” (25).

The first example of the children losing their innocence is when they are describing the transition from elementary school to junior high school. Each has found that instead of one teacher, they in fact had many teachers. Additionally, the girls they were once friends with, now different in size and grace, ignored them. This becomes apparent that things have change as a result of age.

They now have to go camping with another group of unfamiliar Caucasian girls. Due to this perspective, girls in Laurel’s troop consider those Caucasian girls as competitors in their camping and they want to defeat these girls from Troop 909. This shows Laurel’s Brownie troop’s own interest: to show their strength to the Caucasian girls and gain their strong self-esteem. Their perspective also explains the unfriendly attitude that Laurel mentions at the beginning of the story: “the girls in my Brownie troop had decided to kick the asses of each and every girl in Brownie Troop 909” (Page 1).

“Brownies” (1999) is a short story written by ZZ Packer. This story is about six African-American fourth grade girls at an all girls summer camp, Camp Crescendo, in Atlanta, who suspect that they are being discriminated against by a group of white girl scouts. Throughout the story there is nothing said about any of the groups being mixed-race. It was either all African-American troops in groups or all white troops (Troop 909). The group of African-American troops began to believe that they were being discriminated against when one of the girls, Daphne, might have heard one of the white troops address them with a derogatory racial slur.

How do we lose our childish way of seeing the world? How can we suddenly they see the world as it is, in all its evil? ‘The Flowers’ is a story about a young girl who goes through an experience that forces her into changing her way of seeing life, and it presents themes like growing up and loss of innocence.

In J.D. Salinger’s Nine Stories there are many tales centered on children, who are often depicted as a symbol of hope and connected with the values that stand in contrast to the ones typical of the adults corrupted by materialism. In my essay, I would like to concentrate on the portrayal of children in “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” and “Teddy”. Even though the way these characters are depicted is similar, a child protagonist in each of the stories is representative of different things. While Sibyl can be seen as a prototype of a childlike innocence, purity and simplicity, Teddy can hardly be considered a prototypical innocent child. Despite the simplicity of Sibyl’s thinking, her presence and behavior help the reader draw many complex

The sky above them is blue, not black, and healthy, green vegetation, grows around the text. This nice, naive view of religion is seen throughout the Songs of Innocence, for here in this childhood fantasy land, this never-never land, God is merciful and kind, and will free these poor children from the miserable reality of their lives.