Welcome to my Honors Project :)

Hope these posts make you laugh

[fathermulcahyofficial]

Not to be over dramatic but you know what’s sad? Outgrowing the fictional characters you loved as a kid. Those characters who were dearer friends than any real person, those childhood crushes. They stay the same age, forever locked in the ink on the pages, whilst we grow up. We go from being younger than them and looking up to them as romodels, to being their age, and seeing them as equals, to growing older than them and seeing their mistakes, yet still loving them as if they were our younger siblings/own kids. That’s the funny thing about books I guess. They remain immortal while we pass them by.

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LOVE

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Children’s Lit

This post is a conclusion about my time in this class of children’s literature and my thoughts on this genre as a whole. All in all I think this genre is very effective in the way that it entertains and teaches children at the same time. I even had the fun privilege to create a children’s book of my own. Although this was a challenge for me, it was interesting to be on the other side of things. This entire class has taught me to look at different perspectives and that we each are all entitled to our own opinions that will differ. While reading all different books, we all reacted very differently and it was interesting to see everyone’s point of view on each one. I didn’t particularly like the Hobbit, but some of my classmates could not put it down! I thought that this class taught me that everyone has an opinion and instead of fighting about who is right, we each respected each other’s opinion and simply explained what we thought was interesting. I think that the children’s literature genre reminds adults of their childhoods and this is something they can continually pass on to their next generations. I have also learned that a picture book is a good way for children to learn hidden and underlying lessons in a fun and exciting way. These books a way for children to escape reality and go into their own world of what their imagination sees. The entire time writing my book I kept thinking about how children would play and how they like to play with no boundaries, make up their own characters, and let their imagination run wild. This class has taught me how to look in the perspective of a child and how to understand many of the different meanings that these stories can entail. This class was fun for me and I’m very glad I took it during the summer. @alijulia87

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my brain does this AS SOON AS my head hits my pillow with ideas storming about what I want to write next

I assume children’s brains look like this constantly- wish they could share their honest thoughts!

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This gif is EXACTLY what my face does every time I go to write another line in my children’s book. I always second guess what I write especially for children because I want to keep them entertained and their imaginations to run wild. The process of writing ANY book is a rough one, especially picking what to write about and how to keep this theme throughout the book. With no children, I have very little experience with how kids like to be entertained and what their interests are. This made the process ten times harder because I had to think outside the box and create something that still taught the youngsters in a different and fun way. Another thing we, as writers, need to think about when writing stories is to keep the wording appropriate for the audience we target. The vocabulary we use needs to be consistent throughout the short story and continually grabbing the child’s attention. Illustrations help keep the child’s attention and always keep them wanting to see the next one. Pictures help tell the story and steer the imagination on the adventure each tale tells. I also think that children’s books tend to sneak in a couple of lessons underneath all of the fun and creativity. Kids tend to learn and don’t even realize it when reading these book and that’s why I think writing AND reading them can be so fun. I found this project very thrilling but also very time consuming. It’s very hard to rhyme and keep the vocabulary consistent throughout. I had to create illustrations to help the story flow and come up with original pictures that appeal to children. I had to check and recheck that everything made sense and was in chronological order so that the story continued to flow. Although this process is very time consuming and thorough, after all said and done, I felt very accomplished and proud of the work I put into this project. I hope to make many kids excited to read about monsters! @alijulia87

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Picture books like Green Eggs and Ham are created to let your imagination fly and show you that the impossible can be possible when your mind is put to the test. Dr. Seuss is the author who makes the way kids play and think fly off the pages in his book. Whenever I think of these books I immediately think of Cat in the Hat, the movie and book. The movie brings these characters to life and tend to show kids that everything can be done in fun. The movie introduces “Thing 1” and “Thing 2” which are supposed to help have fun and clean up but of course all they do is make things worse. The kids in the movie are my favorite because they just want to have a fun day without their mom there! I know I always wanted the same thing when I was home alone. The Dr. Seuss book was very similar and just showcased the art of make believe. Not only Dr. Seuss, but a lot of the children’s book’s authors write with an exploratory imagination. These authors write like children play, with no boundaries or limitations, and making up the characters as they go. These authors also write on the boarder of a didactic method with underlying meanings and lessons mentioned in the fictions. In the story of Where the Wild Things Are, Max learns a valuable lesson of respect. He is sent to bed without dinner and learns through his dreams and thought to apologize and act the right way to his parents. There are plenty of picture books that show this borderline didactic method. These books really teach children lessons in a fun way that they probably don’t even realize that they are learning! Picture books are a great way for kids to make their imagination a reality. @alijulia87

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He’s so precious 💗

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The creator of all things imaginable!

[saadsaiyyed]

Nightmare- Halsey

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This definitely reminds me of something Cassie would tell Lillian Jean. The color of her skin shouldn’t make her feel like she’s inferior to the whites.

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This week our class took a completely different turn with Roll of Thunder, Hear my Cry. Instead of fantasy and fairytales this is a realistic historical book that definitely could’ve happened in the past. This book has shown me that we, as blessed as we are, take many privileges for granted. In the past, the whites thought they were the superior race and were raised to think that blacks were below them. This story is about a little negro girl is coming to terms with the fact that whites will treat her differently because that’s just how it is. This novel shows her response to the way she’s being treated and her misunderstanding of how to handle it. This book contains a few lessons that all children need to know to not repeat history. Treat everyone as an equal no matter what color skin they may have. God all created us differently, that doesn’t mean one is better than the other. This book also teaches us the lesson of how to pick your battles. Cassie, the narrator, has some great role models in this story to teach her the ways of living as a black young woman. This book is a little over an elementary level and I don’t know if children would enjoy it. This target audience should be adolescents or adults. These lessons incripted in this story should be shared with everyone, especially children. I chose this gif because Cassie constantly felt that her life would change and she tried so desperately hard to make it different, but she ultimately knew that she will always be black and treated differently. In today’s society, we have evolved to treating blacks more equal than in the past. Although society is modernizing, whites still have some stereotypes and prejudgement targeted towards blacks. Blacks are now more accepted and more equal than ever. In a perfect world, blacks and whites would only ever have one difference of skin color. @alijulia87

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I could not decide what to post about this week. This book is just a whirlwind of adventure and has many valuable lessons hidden within. I chose these two gifs because the first one, to me, shows that Bilbo is the leader of the dwarfs and everyone of them love and trust him with their lives. This just shows how far Bilbo has come from the beginning of the book and how changed he is as a person. He isn’t just a little scared hobbit who keeps to himself and hates adventure. The second gif shows the bravery and intensive talk between Bilbo and Smaug. This gif just showed me the bravery and how far along Bilbo has come from the very beginning. Bilbo is now a hero and very much trusted in the dwarfs’ eyes because he will do anything to save them. The dwarves can not be left alone to do anything, they will always need a leader and someone to tell them what to do next. Bilbo became this person and they all looked up to him, whereas in the beginning the dwarves thought it was a chore to look after Bilbo because he was always the caboose of the group. I could not seem to get interested in this book, no matter how hard I tried. I constantly found myself making myself read because I never felt the want to do so. I don’t know why, but this book was not my cup of tea. By watching the many movies that were based on this book, I wouldn’t recommend it to children. If the child has never seen the movies and would like to read this book with an open mind, then this novel may be a good fit because you can imagine the characters however you see fit. I think many children can benefit from the valuable lessons learned throughout this book. Although it’s a tough read at first (chapters 1-10), the book can teach children to stand up for what’s right, fight for what’s fair, and be brave and courageous. @alijulia87

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The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is what happens when extroverts force an introvert to go outside.

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This post basically summarized the supplemental reading for this week!! Bilbo Baggins is definitely a changed man after this “unexpected journey”

[caprisundevil]

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me trying to keep my eyes open while reading all these books this summer.. lol!

Told ya Gollum is creepy!!

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Okay so this gif is the funniest and most exact thing that describes my feeling toward the first 5 chapters of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I did not like the start of this novel simply because I could not picture myself in this different world created by the author. I even tried to watch the movies with my little brother because he was such a huge fan and I fell asleep every time. I definitely remember the scene of Gollum because I had nightmares about him being so creepy and crawly. From what I remember in the slight scenes I saw in the movie, they seem to be very similar to the book. While looking through other posts about this book, I saw many posts with the animated show that used to play about it as well. I thought that was an interesting way to depict these characters when I was thinking more of a Harry Potter theme. I think that this book can lead a reader who is interested in this type of fantasy on a whirlwind adventure and keep them on the edge of their seat considering you do not really get to the exciting parts until the end of each chapter in my opinion. I would not recommend this novel to anyone in an elementary level reading because the vocabulary and phrasing is so complex. The characters in this book speak in their own language which makes this novel a hard read. I think a child should be able to fantasize about a different world, but I do not know if this kind of world with goblins, trolls, dwarfs, gollum, wizards, and hobbits are suitable for a child to replay over in their minds and dream about. I always keep thinking about my mom and how she would tell us what we could and could not read when I was younger. If I had a child I do not know if I would let them read this kind of book until they were older and able to understand the complexity of it. I’m hoping in the future chapters I can see why Bilbo is a burglar, figure out if they ever reach the treasure, or even beat the dragon. I’m hoping that something in this book will pull my attention and make me more interested, by sitting on the edge of my seat waiting to see what happens next just like some of classmates. @alijulia87

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I think this story by Lewis Carroll was a difficult read and was very hard to follow along as an adult...imagine children trying to read this! This story is about a child’s imagination running wild and setting her on adventures that you can only dream about. I think Carroll’s version was very similar to what I can remember of the Disney version. I only can distinguish a couple of small differences between the movie and book. The main difference that stood out would be the Queen of Hearts had a King of Hearts that dictated a lot more than I thought he would be allowed to considering the Queen’s personality. I also didn’t know why Carroll wrote about a Mock Turtle. I’m guessing this was just another adventure that Alice got to go on through her very imaginative subconscious. I don’t remember much of the animated Disney movie, but I do remember the mad tea party with the Mad Hatter and the March Hare. The book said nothing about a “very merry un-birthday party,” but the movie had a song about it. The Mad Hatter in Disney World, walks around and tells everyone “Happy Un-Birthday to you!” I oddly missed the fact that this book did not have this tidbit of my favorite part of the movie. This book and movie was meant to target kids as an audience and I had a hard time understanding how kids would understand the meaning of her wonderland. Kids are normally very blunt and think with their imaginations constantly. They would be the one to come up with these wonderlands just like Alice did. I think this story was meant to show that Alice was an adult, in the way that she thought clearly and seriously, in a world full of riddles and fun. This story was meant to show that we need to have a little humor in our lives in times of hardship and to maybe have a world that takes us to a different place and give us a little imagination break. @alijulia87

[elsaflake]

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I chose to repost this gif because it shows just about how much the imagination can expand when you are a child. Really ties into our forum this week!

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“Lavender’s blue,

Rosemary’s green,

When you are King,

I shall be Queen”

-The Ordinary Princess

This book reminded me of many fairy tales all wrapped up into one. I wanted to first connect this book to The Little Mermaid because she had so many sisters. I then thought of Sleeping Beauty because it mentioned the great-great-grandmother of the King had to sleep for years and the many fairies that give the princess gifts. I also referred this book to Cinderella because the true princess had to work as a kitchen maid and had made friends with animals. This book mainly reminded me of Shrek with the thought of a princess in a locked tower with a dragon that needed slaying. Mainly, this book was about the breaking of the mold of a royal princess. The Ordinary Princess, Amy, was nothing short of a regular common person. She did whatever she pleased and never acted or looked like royalty. As I read, my mind kept racing back to the way children would think a princess should act and royal standards they would be kept to. This book kept showing me that society puts a certain stereotype or image into our heads and that’s what we need to base everyone on. This story broke that mold by showing a princess to be a regular girl by letting her sneak around, play in the woods, and not wanting an arranged marriage. This story should inspire young girls to break the stereotypes of today’s society and be confident in who they are. The Ordinary Princess inspires me to have a higher self-esteem and to break away from those who are all doing the same thing. It makes me question, what even is normal? I chose this gif because it shows the stereotype of a royal princess. She has long lucious blonde hair, a golden dress and crown, beautiful jewels, and high end products sitting on her desk. This shows the traditional mold of a princess and what is expected to be maintained. @alijulia87

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Lavender’s blue, Rosemary’s green, When you are King, I shall be queen.

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The nursery rhyme was my favorite part of the book.

[mingrose]

My hopes for Wreck-It Ralph 2 are officially high.

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This ties into our discussion about feminist fairy tales and our supplemental reading for this week! loved this gif!