“Thought-provoking” (making you think deeply about something) is not an adjective that many people use to describe children’s literature, sometimes called “kiddie lit.” But, in fact, it often is. Children’s literature is often filled with wisdom, lessons that have been learned over a long period of time, especially from experience.

Here are samples (a small number from a larger group) of the wisdom that you’ll find in some of my favorite children’s books. Read them, and then take a few minutes to think about them.

Thank you, Mr. Falker (Patricia Polacco) Trisha wants to read, but she can’t. When she tries, all she sees are strange shapes. Because she can’t read, her classmates call her “Dummy,” and she begins to believe them. When Mr. Falker becomes her 5th-grade teacher, everything changes. Instead of a sad girl, he sees a young artist. And when he discovers that she can’t read, he helps her believe that she can … and will!

“Honey is sweet, and so is knowledge, but knowledge is like the bee that made that sweet honey, you have to chase it (run quickly to catch it) through the pages of a book.”

As they walked, Trisha said, “Gramma, do you think I’m … different?”
“Of course,” her grandmother answered, “to be different is the miracle (something good that you can’t explain) of life.”

Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll) When Alice tumbles (falls) down a rabbit hole, she enters a crazy world filled with improbable (surprising and strange) characters such as the White Rabbit, March Hare and Mad Hatter, the sleepy Dormouse, grinning (with a wide smile) Cheshire Cat, Mock Turtle, and the dreadful (very unpleasant) Queen of Hearts.

“Tut, tut (a sound with no meaning), child!” said the Duchess. “Everything’s got a moral (a practical lesson about what to do or how to act), if only you can find it.”

“But it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”

“I don’t see how he can ever finish, if he doesn’t begin.”

Winnie the Pooh (A.A. Milne) Winnie the Pooh describes the adventures of young Christopher Robin and his stuffed (filled with soft material) bear, Winnie the Pooh. Their friends Tigger (a tiger), Eeyore (a donkey), Piglet (a pig), and Owl all have unique (very different) personalities that contribute to (help make happen) their adventures.

“You can’t stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present*.”

*Note: Present means “now”; it also means “gift.”

The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery) When an airplane pilot crashes in the Sahara desert, he meets a young prince (son of a king or queen) who came to Earth from a planet he calls Asteroid 325. The young prince tells the pilot about his adventures exploring other planets.

“All grown-ups (adults) were once children… but only few of them remember it.”

“A rock pile (several rocks sitting one on top of the other) ceases (stops) to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates (thoughtfully looks at) it, bearing within him (having in mind; considering) the image (idea or possibility) of a cathedral.”

“Well, I must endure (put up with) the presence of a few caterpillars (small creatures that become a butterflies) if I wish to become acquainted (familiar) with the butterflies.”

Oh, the Places You’ll Go! (Dr. Seuss) This wonderfully wise speech is perfect for graduates (someone who finishes school) of any age – and the rest of us, too.

“You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes.
You can steer (turn) yourself any direction you choose.”

“Kid, you’ll move mountains (do something impressive)!
So…be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea*,
you’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way (get started)!”

*Note: All the names = It doesn’t make any difference who you are.

I’m curious: which of these do you want to be sure to remember?

~ Warren Ediger – English tutor/coach and creator of Successful English, where you’ll find clear explanations and practical suggestions for better English.

 Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was one of the best known American poets of the 19^th century. His most famous poems include “Paul Revere’s Ride” and The Song of Hiawatha.  He was the first American to translate Dante’s The Divine Comedy.

This Longfellow poem is not one of deep, serious emotion or feeling. Instead (in place of this), it is one with humor and warmth.

Read through and try to understand what you can, then read the fuller (more complete) explanation below.

The Arrow and the Song

By Henry W. Longfellow.

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

—————-

Longfellow compares an arrow (see photo) with a song, and what happens to each when they are “released” or sent into the air. By “song” he probably means “poem,” but it could be both (the words for most songs are, of course, types of poetry).

Here’s the a version of the poem with some vocabulary help:

I shot (past tense of shoot, meaning to send into the air, like a gun shoots a bullet) an arrow (long, thin piece of wood with a point on it) into the air,
It fell (past tense of fall) to earth, I knew not where;
For, so swiftly (quickly) it flew (past tense of fly), the sight (one’s eyes)
Could not follow it in its flight (path that it flew through the air).

I breathed (said) a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen (good, excellent) and strong
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward (much later), in an oak (a type of large tree)
found the arrow, still unbroke (not broken);
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

What is Longfellow saying here? Let’s start at the beginning. He begins by talking about an arrow that he shoots into the air:

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;

The arrow falls, but he knows “not where” – he doesn’t know where the arrow as gone. Why? He isn’t able to see it because it went so fast:

For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow it in its flight.

Next he talks about “breathing” (saying) a “song” into the air – perhaps reciting (saying) or writing a poem. This poem “fell to earth.” This is a metaphor, since words cannot actually “fall.” Longfellow is describing the words of his song like the arrow, which actually can fall to the ground:

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;

Similar to an arrow, a “song” moves quickly, so that your eyes cannot see where it goes, even if you have good, strong eyes:

For who has sight so keen and strong
That it can follow the flight of song?

Finally, Longfellow “finds” both his arrow and his song, the first in a tree:

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroke;

Notice the arrow is “unbroken” (unbroken); it is complete and whole. Next he finds his song in the “heart of a friend”:

And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

Notice the song is found “from beginning to end,” whole and complete, like the arrow. Our words, our “songs,” find a place in the minds of our friends as well.

-Jeff McQuillan

Photo credit: Arrow, Wikipedia CC

William Butler Yeats was one of Ireland’s most famous poets in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. I came across (discovered without trying to find it) a short poem of his that made me smile, and I hope will do the same for you.

It’s called “A Drinking Song,” but unlike most drinking songs, it is not meant to be sung while you are drinking beer with your buddies (friends) at the bar or pub. Instead, the “drinking” refers to the first image of the poem.

A Drinking Song
By W.B. Yeats

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

The poem begins noting (remarking; observing) that wine comes in at the mouth. To come in here simply means to enter. Wine enters your body through your mouth.

Yeats then compares this to how love “comes in” to you: “And love comes in at the eye.” We typically fall in love (at least many do) because we like the way someone looks – his or her beauty. And since we see with our eyes, love “enters” us through the eyes the same way wine “comes in” at the mouth.

And, of course, both a good glass of wine and the sight of a beautiful woman were, for Yeats, pleasurable things.

Then Yeats tells us that this simple truth, this simple fact, is “all we shall (will) know for truth (for sure; with certainty)” before we “grow old (get older) and die.”

Yeats ends by lifting (raising; bring up) his glass of wine to his mouth, and looking at “you,” the person to whom he has written this poem. “I look at you,” Yeats says, and “I sigh.” To sigh means to breathe out without saying anything, but making a small noise when you do. We usually sigh when we are sad or disappointed about something.

But it is also possible that Yeats’s sigh is one of relief, of being happy that something he feared or hoped might not be true really is true, and so now he is content (satisfied; at peace).

Which is Yeats – sad or happy at the sight of his love? If the woman in the poem loves him back, surely (of course) he will be happy.

~Jeff

P.S. The 19th century illustration (drawing) seen above has the expression, “[He] who does not love wine, woman, and song/Will be a fool (idiot; stupid) for his lifelong (for his entire life).”

Photo credit: Kimmel and Voigt, 1873, PD

 

 

Emily Dickinson was something of a recluse, a person who doesn’t leave her home very often or talk face-to-face (in person) with other people. Yet she is known now as one of the great American poets of the 19^th century.

Dickinson wrote often of death and immortality (usually related to one’s soul living forever, never dying), but her poetry wasn’t always about such deep (serious) topics. Here’s one of her more inspiring (causing positive thoughts and enthusiasm) poems:

If I Can Stop One Heart From Breaking

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

Dickinson begins by saying that “If I can stop (prevent) one heart from breaking.” To break one’s heart is to become very sad, often because someone has died or left you.  (Okay, okay, so this poem talks about death, too, but it gets happier in a minute (soon).)

Dickinson says that if she can stop someone’s heart from breaking, “I shall not live in vain.” Something done in vain is done without any good coming out of it, without being successful. But if she can prevent someone from becoming sad, then her life will not be in vain – her life will have meaning.

She continues with this theme: “If I can ease one life the aching.” To ease is to make something that is painful less painful, to help someone feel less pain. Aching here means basically pain, usually related to losing or being without someone. So if the person speaking in this poem can help ease someone’s pain, then (again) we learn that she “shall not (will not) live in vain.”

Dickinson adds two more images here: “Or cool one pain” and “Or help one fainting robin/Unto his nest again.” To cool one’s pain would be similar to ease it, to make it less painful. A robin is a small bird (see photo). To faint usually means to fall down due to some temporary illness (sickness) or, more specifically, lack of (not having enough) oxygen.

We would not normally think of robins as “fainting,” but apparently it can happen. Anyway, this robin can faint, and Dickinson says that if she can help the poor bird “Unto his nest again,” she will not have lived in vain. A nest is a bird’s home (see photo), so to help one “unto” his nest would be to help the bird back into his nest, so he is safe.

Dickinson is telling us, I think, that in helping other people who need help, we can give our own lives meaning. As we approach (get nearer to) the holiday season, that’s a good thought for all of us to keep in mind (remember).

~Jeff

Photo credit: Two robins in a nest, Wikipedia CC

There’s an old saying (expression) in English, “Imitation is the highest form of flattery.” To imitate means to do what someone else does, to copy them. Flattery is when you compliment someone, when you say something nice about them. The expression means that doing something the same way as someone else has done it is like paying a compliment (saying something nice) to the other person — you thought what they did was so good, you decided to do it yourself.

Not everyone agrees with this positive view of imitation, however – that copying another person is a good thing. The term copycat refers to a person who copies another, but is almost always used in a negative way, to emphasize the fact that the person has stolen someone else’s idea. Record companies and movie studios, for example, certainly do not consider the pirating (illegal stealing or copying) of their copyrighted (legally protected) songs and movies to be a compliment.

According to a recently published book, The Knockoff Economy: How Imitation Sparks (Starts) Innovation (Creativity), sometimes being a copycat can be good for creativity and the economy. For example, in the world of fashion design, it is not possible to copyright the look of a dress or a piece of clothing. So when a designer like Gucci creates a beautiful dress, almost immediately there are people who are creating knockoffs of that dress. (A knockoff is an imitation product that looks just like the original.) This causes the designers to come up with new designs frequently, since their old designs can easily be imitated and sold by other people. Knockoffs also create a certain kind of free advertising for a product: More people see what the product looks like and have positive opinions of it (because if it weren’t any good, why would you imitate it?). In fact, a 2009 Harvard Business School study found that women who buy knockoff purses often decide later to buy the real thing.

The same is true in the world of cooking. It is not possible to copyright a recipe (instructions for making food). When one restaurant creates a fabulous- (wonderful) tasting new dish (type of food), other restaurants may copy it. In order to be considered original, chefs (professional cooks) are constantly coming up with (inventing) new recipes. Often these new recipes are based on or have their beginnings in older recipes, so that the creativity comes from adding or changing some element in the original.

Of course, we are not talking about simply stealing someone’s property or taking things without paying for them. But under certain circumstances, imitating or copying what someone else has done can be a good way of spreading new ideas and making them better.

Have you ever copied someone else’s idea in a way that made it better?

~Jeff

Photo credit: Gucci Knockoff Dress, L’Hedonista, CC

UPDATE: I want to be very clear that I am NOT condoning (giving my approval) to any kind of stealing of people’s ideas or goods (things they sell or own), either physical or digital (e.g. audio files, ebooks, PDFs, photos, designs, etc.). I’m not even saying I completely agree with the authors of the mentioned book about whether certain things that aren’t currently (at this time) protected by copyright (such as fashion and cooking) should not be. I’m only summarizing the author’s position. I’m against any sort of taking of things that you don’t own just because you can, legal or illegal, in the name of “imitation.”  Just wanted to make that clear…

In recent years, several young adult or teen novels have made the crossover (crossed the boundary; become popular in more than one category) from popularity with just teens to popularity with adults. Perhaps the most notable (worthy of attention) example is the Harry Potter books. Although written primarily (mainly) for children and teens, the books have become bestsellers among adults as well.  The same can be said (the same thing is true) of Twilight, a series written for adolescents or young adults.

Another adolescent series is about to join these popular teen favorites:  The Hunger Games trilogy (a set of three books telling a continuing story).  The Hunger Games books are written in the genre (category of books) of science fiction and is set (takes place) in the future, where present-day life on Earth has been destroyed, but a new population has emerged (come to life), ruled by a repressive (very controlling and strict) government.  The three books in the series feature (have as its main character) a teenage girl, who reluctantly (does not want to) participates in the annual (done each year) Hunger Games, a tournament where teenagers from every district or area fight to the death, with only one teenager left alive, who is crowned (officially given the title of) the champion or winner.  These Hunger Games  become much more than a just a competition; it is the catalyst (something that starts an important event) that begins a revolution (an attempt to remove the government).

The Hunger Games books have consistently (without change) been on the bestseller list in the U.S. for many weeks, and the series is about to do what the Harry Potter and Twilight series have done:  Make the leap (large jump) to the big screen (into the movies). The first Hunger Games movie is set (scheduled) to be released in March of 2012 in the U.S.  If you want to get a jump on (be ahead of) the movie, there’s still time to read the first book in the series before the movie release.  I just finished the trilogy and highly recommend it.  It is well-written and has the complexity (with many elements; complications) that would appeal to an adult.  They’re the type of books that are hard to put down once you’ve started reading them because the plot (storyline) and the characters (people in stories) are so compelling (interesting and easily keeps your attention).

So if you like good adventure stories, you might like The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. (The second book is called Catching Fire and the third book is called Mockingjay.)  If you like adventure movies, look for the movie in theaters early next year.  Hopefully, the movie will do the book justice (reflect the high quality of the books).

~ Lucy

Art Credit: “Hunger games” from Wikipedia

A spoiler alert is a warning that you are about to find out an important piece of information about a novel, movie, play, or TV program that you haven’t read or seen yet. To spoil something means to ruin it, so the idea behind the term “spoiler alert” is that getting information about how a story ends will decrease (lessen) your enjoyment of it.  But a new study by two California researchers indicates that just the opposite is true: Spoilers make you like a story even more.

In the study, people were given one of three different versions of a story that had a surprise ending, such as a mystery story by Agatha Christie or Raymond Chandler.  One group was told how the story ended before they had even begun reading it, one group was given spoilers in the middle of the story, and one group read the story without any spoilers.  By a small but significant amount, people who read the spoiler before reading the actual story enjoyed the story more than those who didn’t get a spoiler.  (Getting a spoiler in the middle of the story didn’t make any difference, however.)

There are many possible reasons for these results.  One is that people who know the plot (events) of the story can focus on the other parts of the drama – the characters (people) and their motivations, the style of the writing, etc.  Reading a story can be difficult, so knowing how it ends eliminates the burden (difficulty) of having to figure it out, giving you more energy and time to focus on a deeper understanding of the novel.

Does knowing how a story ends make the act of reading the story more or less enjoyable for you?

~Jeff

 Photo credit: Movie poster for Titantic (1997), Wikipedia Fair Use.