Literature Critique
“The Owl Goes on Holiday”
Author: Ulf Stark
Illustrator: Ann-Cathrine Sigrid Ståhlberg
The genre of this book, “The Owl Goes on Holiday” is a fiction, children’s literature. According to “Library of Congress” states that a children’s literature is when the author writes a story for entertainment for children and young adults. This includes fiction literacy. When an author writes a book that is fiction, the story describes imaginary events and people. For example, an owl is the teacher of the forest and all the animals are students. Obviously an owl in real life is not working in the school system and even though our students may act like animals from time to time; they are most certainly not. This story fits this description of children’s literature very well. This story is about an owl who is a school educator for all the children (animals). It talks about that it is fun to teach, but it can also be tiring. The owl needs a holiday and leaves magpie to look after the school while he’s away. As the story continues, magpie has discovered that he a good at building nests and that he can get all the students to work together. Later, we find out that magpie is horrible at counting because she doesn’t notice when one of the young mice goes missing. The story ends with magpie having all the students finding the missing mice and the owl coming back from his holiday refreshed and ready to work. I read this book to my kindergarten class and my students loved
The parents respond to her fear by telling her that the owl is only asking “an odd question…” (4). They say that if she “rightly listened” to the owl, she would be able to hear it merely asking “who cooks for you?” (6). The stanza expresses a humorous tone with phrases such as “[It] was an odd question from a forest bird…” (4), and “Who cooks for you?” (6). On one level, the parents comfort the child by telling a lie in order to get her back to sleep, on another level, this changes the perception the daughter has of the owl. The parents do this by using the term “forest bird”, instead of “owl” to make her feel less intimidated. Through this lie she perceives the owl as a friendly forest creature, rather than a horrid monster from the night. The poem’s “AABBCC” rhyme scheme also helped further establish the tone, giving a child-like feeling to it, because it’s often used in fairy tales which is meant for children. Wilbur believes that the lie is a good way to help the child go to sleep. He justifies it in the
The major theme of this story is to some people, animals are more important than any human. The author and his sister love Henry, the parrot, like one of their family member. Sedaris makes his audiences confused. At first, he makes everyone think that Henry is a human being as he says: “My sister’s home didn’t really lend itself to snooping, so I spent my hour in the kitchen, making small talk with Henry”(445).
In “A Barred Owl,” Wilbur adopts a playful tone through rhyming: “We tell the wakened child that all she heard/ Was an odd question from a forest bird” (3, 4). The rhyme imitates the style of nursery rhymes, creating a joking tone. The playful tone avoids seriousness and weakens the horror of the owl, which contributes to the poem’s style like a nursery rhyme. Wilbur also euphemizes the owl to help create a nursery style. He does not represent the horrible creature of an owl as a carnivore with sharp claws that hunts during the night, but euphemizes it as a “forest bird” (Wilbur 4). The owl’s representation as a safe forest bird refers its figure to the enthusiastic birds with heavenly sounds in cartoons and story books, which often help the protagonist to overcome difficulties and dangers. Referring to nursery imageries of birds, the euphemism contributes to the poem’s style as a nursery rhyme. Creating a playful tone and a nursery style, Wilbur uses rhymes and euphemism to “domesticate fear” (Wilbur
The man said, “I was following you around, because we didn’t know where we were going. We thought you looked like you knew where you were going. I didn’t mean to scare. Every time I started to approach you to ask you for help, you ran away.”
Animal Farm is a novel written by George Orwell. Orwell wrote it as an allegory from the beginning of the Russian revolution to the end of World War II. George Orwell put several little warnings in the book that can teach children of today not do these things. Some of these warnings are things that your parents would say to you like, “Stay in school.”
In “A Barred Owl,” Wilbur quite clearly states how the adults lied to the children about the sound of the bird because they didn’t want the child to know the truth. In the second stanza, the author tackles what could occur if they weren’t lied to by saying that fears could be domesticated and “words… can make our terrors bravely clear,” (line 7). Wilbur believes without lying to the children, they will become terrified of the outside world. He uses the illusory storyline and plot to lie to the children within the story to maintain their innocence. Likewise, Collins’ display of a deceptive plot to food the children to believe incorrect facts to maintain their purity. Consequently, Collins believes it is necessary to keep children pure and innocent because the desired child isn’t under the horrid influence of the outside world. Wilbur and Collins both believe the children should explore their imagination and not be tainted. Through the poets’ direct plot of manipulating the children’s trust, it’s concluded that children shouldn’t be exposed to tragic hardships until they are older and more mature.
Although a lot of the story is pretty straight forward, she does use literary devices to help the reader understand the life of Birdie a little better. For example, in the end of the story she describes the vision of herself on the swing set outside of the hospital in saying, “Each time, the girl went fuzzy like an image on the television set with poor reception.” This simile allows the reader to really see what she saw or felt because we all can picture that type of image. Another time she uses a simile saying, “The swing is swaying gently, as if someone had just been on it.” These subtle literary devices help the reader to understand little things about the story in order for them to see the situation Birdie is in. However, there are not as many metaphors or a huge amount of other literary
"The Girl Who Raised Pigeons” is about a little girl named Betsy Ann Morna who is being raised by her single father. When Betsy was born her mother died from childbirth. Since Betsy had experienced such hardship when she was born her father was determined to shield her from all the tragic in the world. When she gets a little older, her father allows her to raise pigeons. But in order to shield her from tragedy her father makes sure he clears the pigeons that died before Betsy can find out. But Betsy found out. When a wild pigeon was visiting Betsy's pigeons it died but she did not want to tell her father because “He’ll think it’s the end of the world or somethin”(17). After Betsy is caught shoplifting things change between her and her father. He watches her like a hawk and must know what she is doing at all time. After Betsy grows up all her pigeons die and this changes Betsy even more. She constantly misses them and draws pictures of them on her hands and cries about them. The story ends with Betsy seeing one of her pigeons flying over the city. One part of the city that Betsy is inspired by is her pigeons. The pigeons inspired her because they allowed her to grow up and face reality that life contains tragedies. Knowing that the pigeons die allowed her to come of age and realize what happens in the world. Having her father hid everything bad for her kept her young for the time being. But once she realized what was happening it allowed her to grow up and become the women she was supposed to be.
Animals that talk are a figment of one’s imagination, however one author uses them to explain his views about other people. Animal Farm authored by George Orwell, a satire fiction, is about animals who rebel against their owners and create a life for themselves at Manor, Pinchfield, and Foxwood Farm. Snowball and Napoleon are both persuasive yet divided on their intentions for the farm.
The novel begins with the image of a bird that is trapped and cannot communicate:
Their child growing up is a fear all parents must face. For Martin, this fear has an unusual reality in the short story, "The Cold Little Bird." Jonah, a young 10-year-old boy, has decided to grow up and isolate himself from his parents, Martin and Rachel. He pulls away from his parents in a cold yet reasonable way and insists he no longer loves them. He changes the dynamic of the family, and leaves Martin distraught. The author, Ben Marcus, leaves the reader with a heartfelt theme. The theme of change being painful is shown through the struggle Martin endures as he tries to deal with the adjustment his newly grown up son provides.
Animal Farm is an allegory of the period in Russian history between 1917 and 1944. It is a satirical story written in the form of an animal fable. In writing Animal Farm as a fable, George Orwell is able to present his subject in simple symbolic terms by treating the development of communism as a story that is taking place on a single farm with talking animals. The characters of Animal Farm represent figures in Russian history during the Russian Revolution. Places, objects, and events of the Russian Revolution are also symbolized in Animal Farm.
In the poem “A Barred Owl,” Richard Wilson brings a childhood commonality to life through his use of rhyme scheme, imagery, and tone. The child’s innocence is illustrates the parents’ actions in their attempt to heal the daughter’s mind while protecting her from the disheartening realities of the real world. Wilbur’s use of rhyme scheme establishes the soothing nature that is used when putting a child at ease. Wilbur uses simple diction to describe a chaotic, troublesome memory of the child. Wilbur writes “We tell the wakened child that all she heard Was an odd question from a forest bird,” to juxtapose the child’s nonsensical nightmares to the parent’s growing ignorance of the real world.
At first, the narrator of the story is very caring and loves animals; being with animals is “one of [his] principal
Front Facing Eyes with high-quality optics which create an abnormally large binocular field of observation which is a sign for increased ethological importance for the use of stereo vision