The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore by W. E. Joyce – A Review

Tags

books about bereavement, books about books, books about emotions, books being made into films, picture books, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, W. E. Joyce

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore by W. E. Joyce is described as a modern classic picture book, which has been adapted and made into an Oscar winning animation.

The illustrations are superb, and the story is simple, poignant and lovely.

Morris Lessmore loses everything that is important to him at the beginning of the book, in scenes reminiscent of the tornado from the Wizard of Oz.

Morris is sad, but he is saved from despair by books.  I took this, as an adult reader, to mean that his immersion in the world of novels and literature, saved his life and rebuilt his reality for him.

In the book itself the books that save Morris actually come to life.  They sprout wings and arms and legs, and transport him to another world, where he lives out his life in the library, tending to the books and writing the story of his life as he has lived it, and his dreams for the future.

Morris eventually gets to the end of his own story.  Again, I took this to mean that he realises that he is an old man and that his life is over. He shuts his book and prepares to die.

In the story, the words and illustrations are much more literal, and Morris is led off by winged books into the sky after he finishes the last page of his own story.

After this, a little girl discovers the library, and it becomes her refuge and sanctuary, just as it did for Morris.

The sense of continuity and time and the seasons rolling on, even though people age and die is one that is sensitively drawn in the book, and which, despite the moments of sadness that pepper the pages, make it a positive and hopeful read.

My children didn’t always get the deeper meanings in the book, although they were saddened when Morris left, and paused the story so that we could talk about what had happened to him.  I suggested that he might be going to heaven, and they accepted this.  I asked them how they felt about this part of the story and they agreed that although it was sad it was also beautiful at the same time, and the story makes it plain that Morris himself is not sad when his time to leave comes.

We loved this story. There was lots to talk about. It was gently funny as well as being sad. It was rich in illustrations which gave the written text depth and context. It was a beautifully balanced, clever story that could work at the most simplistic level for children in early years/reception classes, but is also a lovely story to introduce deeper themes and emotions higher up the school.

We all agreed that we would really like to see the film, and certainly if you were using this book in school it would be a perfect accompaniment.

Top Tips for Encouraging Reading for Pleasure

Tags

top ten tips on encouraging children to read for pleasure

My top ten tips for encouraging your child to read for pleasure:

1. Lead by example. If you read for pleasure, your child is more likely to read for pleasure. Children learn by emulating what adults do.
2. Make sure your children are exposed to books in your home. If you can’t afford to buy your own, visit your library regularly. Children are allowed to take up to twenty books at a time from the library.
3. Teach them to browse by taking them to book shops and libraries. Show them how to look for different books on different topics. Expand their horizons.
4. At the library, let them take out whatever they want to read. If it is too old for them they will soon give up on it.  If you’re worried that all the things they are choosing are not going to please them, take some out yourself.  Tell them you want to read what you have picked, but maybe they’d like to sit with you and share your story.  If they like it they will soon take it from you and read/look at it themselves.  If it is too young for them don’t discourage them by not letting them take the book, just suggest, or put in other titles which may be more enjoyable for them.
5. Talk to them about books you enjoy and books you enjoyed when you were little. Help them to understand that reading is a life long journey and a pleasure.
6. Take them to poetry readings, plays and story time/spoken word events at your local library/theatre/bookshop.  Let them see the correlation between what they read and how those words can come to life.
7. If they have a favourite film/programme, use books that explore those characters to hook their interest, and then lead them to different things.
8. Let them read to you, and be interested in what they are reading. If they are reading something funny to you, then laugh. If they read something you think they don’t understand, ask them to explain it to you. If you think this will embarrass them, tell them you don’t understand that part of the story and ask them to help you. If they don’t know, then use it as an opportunity to build knowledge together.  Lower the gap between you so that they feel they are achieving something. They are entertaining and educating you. If they feel that they are giving you pleasure, they will want to read more.
9. Read to them. Read to them regularly, and read them things that they wouldn’t read themselves so that you can extend their vocabulary and their interests and open their eyes to things they wouldn’t normally try.
10. Draw parallels between what you are reading and real life. Connect the written word to their reality so that they understand that words are an extension of their every day experiences, but that they can also enrich those experiences immeasurably.

 

Childhood Reading – By Keith Marshall

Keith Marshall shares with us his memories of reading as a child:

Childhood Reading

 

I’m not a fluent reader.  Yes, I can read anything, am highly educated, have a good grasp of (basic) grammar and a huge vocabulary.  But although I’m not dyslexic my spelling is, even now at 62, rather shoddy and I read slowly – it takes me about three times as long to read a page as it does most people.  I don’t know why, it isn’t that I especially struggled to learn to read.

 

But the upshot of this is that I got turned off reading voraciously for pleasure and grammar school killed any enjoyment I might have had of the classics.  Half an hour of homework (read the next chapter of Great Expectations) became a two hour marathon.  So I was always behind.  School absolutely killed the classics for me.

 

I must have read a certain amount at junior school otherwise I would not have got through the 11+ with ease.  But my memory of what I read is hazy at best.

 

I remember we had a series of Janet and John books when I was learning to read and I remember reading Orlando the Marmalade Cat with my mother.  And I must have read at least parts of Alice in Wonderland while still quite young.

 

I do remember, probably at about the age of 7 or 8, reading TS Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.  This started because it was something my father read to me at bedtime and before long I knew “Skimbleshanks: The Railway Cat” off by heart.

 

Along the way someone obviously gave me a copy of A Puffin Book of Verse and Four Feet and Two.  I know I read a lot of the former, dipping into it repeatedly over many years, but could never really get on with the latter.

 

Once I got to about 10 or 11 I started reading WE Johns’s Biggles books and over a period of about 5 years I devoured every one that our local library could throw at me – much to my parents’ disgust that I wasn’t reading anything “better”. Biggles became my alter ego.

 

Once past the age of about 14 I don’t recall reading anything much that I didn’t have to – I probably did, but it was unlikely to have been fiction and it hasn’t stuck in my memory.  Although I did buy John Betjeman’s High and Low when it was published, and this remained my “go to” book if ever I had a sleepless night, even into my student days.  I must have read a chunk of Sherlock Holmes at about this time too.

 

And, oh dear, I think the whole school, read Peyton Place when it came out in paperback in the mid-1960s.  I also ploughed my way through my father’s copy of Ulysses at about 16 (why?) and about the same time decided that Lady Chatterley’s Lover was just boring and gave up on it halfway through.

 

I didn’t really return to reading fiction, or indeed anything much outside my academic (scientific) sphere, until I was a post-graduate student when I discovered all sorts of oddities (Langland, Gower) as well as people like Evelyn Waugh, Laurie Lee and Don Camillo.

 

Although I’m now the Secretary of a literary society, I’m still not a great reader of fiction and to this day I cannot abide the classics.

 

And the moral is?  Even if a child is not a fluent reader, don’t give up, don’t worry about it and don’t despair.  Keep ensuring they have access to a wide range of interesting things to read (we had a lot of books at home and were always in and out of our local library), let them read whatever they choose, and there’s a good chance they’ll pick up on what they really like as they get older.

One More Sheep by Mij Kelly and Russell Ayto – Book Review

Tags

One More Sheep, picture book, Mij Kelly and Russell Ayton, children's illustrators, rhyming stories, fables

One More Sheep is a modern classic. A picture book that was shortlisted for the prestigious Kate Greenaway Medal in 2005, it has remained a perennial favourite with children ever since.  A measure of its success for me is that even though we own our own copy of this book, which the children regularly take to bed with them to read, they still sneak extra copies in the piles they bring home from the library because they can’t bear not to take it out.

It has a simple, rhyming text which children will love.

It also tells a simple story. Sam, the shepherd, brings his flock into the house one night during a particularly wild and windy storm.  Before he can discharge his shepherdly duties he must make sure that all his sheep are safely tucked away from harm.  This means he has to count them.

Every time he tries to count them he falls asleep, much to the annoyance of the indignant sheep.

Meanwhile, the wily wolf is at the door, disguised as a lost sheep, hoping that good natured Sam will let him in, so that he can prey on the sheep.

The sheep know about the wolf, the wolf knows about the sheep, and the only one who doesn’t know anything is the increasingly dopy Sam.

What can the sheep do to make sure that Sam stays awake long enough to count them properly?

The story is pacy and funny and although I had to explain the phrase ‘counting sheep’ to the children to help them appreciate the more subtle humour of the book, it doesn’t matter if you don’t. There is much to be entertained by here.

Ayto, a wonderful illustrator who collaborates with lots of children’s authors, and is already a firm favourite in this house because of his fantastic work with Captain Flynn and The Pirate Dinosaurs, really adds an element of surreal and delicious humour with his wonderfully dark and slightly scary artwork.

This would be a great additional read if you were doing work on fables or fairy tales in class, or even bed time routines.  It is just great to read because you want to, frankly. It would also be a simple and effective story to act out with children.

We love it.

Happiness is a Watermelon on Your Head by Daniel Hahn and Stella Dreis – Book Review

Tags

book review, books with fantastic illustrations, Daniel Hahn, Happiness is a watermelon on your head, nonsense books, picture books, rhyming books, Stella Dreis

Happiness is a Watermelon on your Head is a delightfully surreal picture book with a rhyming text provided by Daniel Hahn to complement the lush, fantastical world that Stella Dreis creates so well with her wonderful illustrations.  This really seems like one of those perfect collaborations between writer and illustrator that children will adore.

It tells the story of Miss Jolly, a woman, who as her name suggests, is filled with happiness at the sheer wonder of what life has to offer. Miss Jolly enjoys playing the cello, living with her pet boar, Melvin, and enjoying a lot of fruit based activities.

Her neighbours, Miss Whimper, Miss Grouch, and Miss Stern, who are less thrilled with what life has to offer, try to work out what makes Miss Jolly so pleased with her life, and spend large parts of the book trying to copy Miss Jolly to ill effect, until Miss Jolly engages them in the biggest watermelon fight in the history of picture books, and encourages them to wear fruit on their heads.

As you do.

The story has a real element of the Lewis Carroll/Alice in Wonderland fantasy about it that makes it delightful to read and share.  It is also very funny, both in the words the author chooses, and the way the illustrator chooses to depict the story. The vocabulary and images are rich pickings if you are trying to stimulate children’s creativity and engage in their love of off the wall material.

My children, aged 6, 9 and 14 loved this.

My Favourite Childhood Books by Claire McDonald

Tags

fantasy books for children, Green Witch, Over Sea Under Stone, Silver on the Tree, Susan Cooper, The Dark is Rising, The Grey King

Claire shares her love of Susan Cooper’s fantasy sequence: The Dark is Rising with us.

I was in J3 (probably the equivalent of Year 4 in new money) when I was introduced to the most wonderful set of books that previously I had been ignorant of.  My teacher mentioned to the class about a book that she thought we might be interested in discovering, especially those of us who had already eagerly consumed the works of C.S.Lewis and Tolkein. That weekend I dragged my mother to the local WHSmith and perused the shelves looking for the title she had said. Huge disappointment followed when it could not be found, but I did manage to find another book by the same author, so begrudgingly I decided that it would have to suffice.

The author was Susan Cooper and upon my return home with The Dark is Rising, the second in the series of books of the same name, I was drawn into the story of Will Stanton and the discovery of his part to play in the unceasing battle between the Dark and the Light.

The story begins in the run up to Will’s  11th birthday, and the strange events that occur around him. He learns that as the seventh son of a seventh son, he is actually an Old One, a defendant of the Light and bestowed with magical powers to help him in his battle against the Dark. Will is also the last of the Old Ones to be born, and as such he is tasked with being The Seeker; his job is to find the Six Signs of the Light, which together become a weapon of power over the Dark.

The book follows his awakening and realisation of a battle that has been raging through history. It introduces other characters who assist him on quest, the main being Merriman Lyon, the first born of the Old Ones, who instructs Will in the way of the Light.

From the first page I read, I was engrossed in the tale and quickly managed to finish the book. I begged my parents for the rest of the series which followed, Greenwitch, The Grey King (another favourite), and the concluding book, Silver on the Tree.  I was then able to complete the set by finding the first book in the series, which had originally eluded me in the bookshop, Over Sea Under Stone.

Susan Cooper wraps her story in Arthurian legend and  sets the books in familiar locations including Cornwall and North Wales, and I have felt a fondness for these places ever since.

I have returned to these books frequently over the years, and have had to buy new copies as the originals disintegrated from over use. My own children have read the books but do not appear to have been so affected by them as I was. My love for fantasy fiction was created that day and for that I will always be grateful to Mrs Palmer.

Reduced Othello

Tags

My version of Othello, Othello by Shakespeare, reducing complex stories to simpler stories, updating older stories for modern readers

One of the things Michael Gove was shouting about last week, is the fact that he believes that we are forcing children to dumb down, by presenting them with simplified versions of complex subjects, or worse, forcing them to reduce these complex subjects into simpler versions themselves.

He has mentioned this in relation to a spurious and mis quoted reference to a six week module about World War II, at the end of which, fifteen year old students are supposed to reduced what they have learned by turning it into a version of the Mr. Men and teaching it to 10 and 11 year olds.

He says that this is reductive and stupid.  I say that it is quite hard to do.

I know this because I have been having a go at simplifying Shakespeare and retelling the stories for a modern audience.  It is a project I’ve been working on for a while and which I had shelved. In light of Mr. Gove’s references, I have decided to revive it, and post the results on my blog.

Here is my version of Othello.

OTHELLO

Brabantio is a Venetian nobleman.  He is very important.  We know this because he has sky high readings on the pomposity meter.  He is Mr. Toad in tights.  Poop! Poop!

In later years his family will fall on hard times, but they will change their name and revive their fortunes with the Brantano cut price shoe chain.  More of that in a few hundred years.

Brabantio is also a prize idiot.  We measure this on the: ‘Do You Know Who I Am?’ Index, which plots a person’s sense of their own importance against blithering idiocy as perceived by everyone else, especially close relations.

Brabantio has a daughter called Desdemona.  It is not clear who Desdemona’s mother is.  Given Brabantio’s personality it seems that the mother either fled the scene early on or killed herself with a butter knife during a particular humiliating dinner party just as Brabantio was telling the host how his patio extension was better than anyone else’s in Venice and cost half as much to build.

On the particular evening in question, Brabantio is roused from his dreams of having the fastest Gondola in Northern Italy and being kissed by women with Rubenesque curves and blingin’ tiaras by some nasty shouting under his window.  He blusters forth to find out who is disturbing his rest.

It is Rodrigo, an imbecilic waste of blue blood nobleman who is madly in love with Desdemona, and Iago, the moustache swirling villain of the piece.  Iago has just told Rodrigo that Desdemona has run off and married Othello.

Rodrigo is not best pleased.  He has been wooing Desdemona unsuccessfully since she was a twink in Brabantio’s eye.  He is in fact, a stalker.  He is a milksop wuss of a stalker, but a stalker nevertheless.  Despite the fact that Desdemona has repeatedly eschewed him with a firm hand and now married someone else, he is still not ready to take no for an answer.  Dogged determination combined with steadfast stupidity are his key attributes.

He is the sort of ‘nice’ man that makes women everywhere take up with wife beaters in string vests who drink Jack Daniels for breakfast and have fourteen fingers on each hand.  He is the sort of ‘nice’ man that eventually marries a total harridan of a woman out of sheer desperation.  Twelve children and a chihuahua later when she is demanding platinum teaspoons and shoes with koi carp laminated into the heels he goes postal and shoots her and then himself.  This is Rodrigo.

Iago has sussed out Rodrigo in an instant and has decided to make him a pawn in his game to destroy Othello by messing with his mind and then deading him.  Iago is a smiling psychopath in tights, and has just finished his entry level GNVQ in torturing small animals.  He is now moving on to bigger prey.  Othello is perfect for his purposes. by the time he is finished with him he will be Doctor Iago MSEVIL. Mwahahahahah!

Othello, decides Iago, needs to be taken down a peg or two.  Othello was a slave who was co-opted into the Venetian military and somehow survived to become a General.  He is a warrior.  He doesn’t mind getting messy and is handy with his fists.  His ability to a) not get killed and b) win battles has made him rather popular, despite having the great misfortune to be black.

The Venetians are not keen on blackness in general.  Unfortunately, if they want to obliterate their enemies from the face of the earth they are going to have to go along with it.  They do this with exceedingly bad grace.  If it had escaped your notice for a nano-second that Othello was black they wouldn’t leave you in the dark for long.  It seems to be the law that they refer to his skin colour at least once every iambic pentameter.

Iago is pissed off because not only is Othello a) black and b) a winner, he has also been promoted to the role of general.  This does not sit well with Iago, particularly because Othello has chosen to make one Michael Cassio his lieutenant instead of Iago.  Iago has the rather strange role of ‘ancient’, which I believe means ‘dogsbody’.  Iago is not well suited to the role of lackey. He prefers the role of giggling, flesh eating evil maniac.

Iago has also heard a rumour going round the gondolas that Othello has slept with his wife, Emilia.  He thinks it probably isn’t true, but just in case it is he’s going to ruin and murder Othello just to be sure.  Safety first.

Iago has just imparted the joyous news of Desdemona’s marriage to Rodrigo.  He has sworn to Rodrigo that he will help him revenge himself on Othello (he’s black you know) and get Desdemona to change her mind about eschewing Rodrigo.  Rodrigo takes it as a personal slight that she has chosen to marry a black man over him.  Rodrigo is a fool to himself.  Desdemona would probably pick to marry her own brother over Rodrigo and no court in the land would convict her.

Rodrigo imparts the joyous nuptial news to Brabantio who swears blind that it cannot be true. Desdemona is a good girl.  Desdemona would never get a tattoo and hang around the local shopping centre smoking B&H and eating chips on a school night. Desdemona is safely tucked up in bed refreshing herself for the morning and awaiting a joyous morning of hearing more anecdotes about her heroic father.  Except she isn’t.

Brabantio cannot believe that Desdemona would willingly marry Othello (he’s black you know). Clearly Othello has been practising some Voodoo vibes on her and has mojo’ed her into marrying him.  He rushes off to the Duke of Venice to demand justice, lynchings and big white pointy hats with the eye holes cut out for all.

Brabantio gets to the palace just as Othello schleps up to save the day.  While he has been getting married under cover of darkness, those pesky Turks have sneaked off to Cyprus and are trying to usurp the Venetian’s rule.  The Duke is not best pleased. He wanted to turn Cyprus into an infinity pool with a cabana, and now those pesky Ottomites are going to ruin everything.  He has called Othello to sail off stat and save the day.

Brabantio doesn’t give a fig about Cyprus.  He wants his daughter back and he doesn’t want any brown babies thank you Wayne.  Who will cut his toast into triangles if Desdemona is going to run off for some military lovin’? It’s just not fair.

He makes this perfectly clear by leaping about the Duke’s palace in a most undignified way, moaning on and on about blackness and toast and mojo until everyone is heartily sick of the sight of him.

Othello keeps his cool.  He is called to answer for his actions.  He very foxily says that he doesn’t need mojo because he is a mighty warrior who is sex on a stick.  Everyone believes him except Brabantio.  Othello offers to call for Desdemona to testify to what a cool dude he is and how she couldn’t resist his manly charms and the fact that he is an ace kisser and whizzo in bed is more than enough for her.  He fondles his sword lasciviously and looks dangerous.  He also offers to let Brabantio see Desdemona’s tattoo.  It is a giant Rasta smoking a spliff on her left buttock.

Desdemona appears.  She throws herself at Othello, licks him all over and winks cheekily at Brabantio.  She shows everyone how she can blow smoke rings and refuses to go home with her father because he is a boring old fart and embarrassing to boot.  There is a deafening silence as everyone acknowledges the wisdom of her words despite her young age and questionable taste in men (he’s black you know).

Brabantio has clearly been hoist by his own petard.  Nobody feels sorry for him and he goes home after having pointedly warned Othello that if she could fool her father, she will probably deceive him too.  Yar, boo, sucks.

Othello arranges to sail off to Cyprus and save the day. Desdemona is to follow with Iago and his wife Emilia who will now be Desdemona’s maid.  Iago is not happy about this state of affairs because he has been left to look after the girls and cannot prove his manly hairy chestedness. This fuels his need for revenge.

He persuades Rodrigo to cash in all his land for money and enlist.  This way Rodrigo can follow them to Cyprus and be near Desdemona while Iago ‘helps’ him to win her back using all Rodrigo’s money. Rodrigo agrees which just goes to prove what a gullible idiot he is.

We all go to Cyprus where in the space of a scene change Othello has defeated the Turks and drawn up the blue prints for the Duke’s infinity pool.  There is much rejoicing except for Iago who was hoping that Othello may have been blown to bits by the enemy to save him the effort of all that complicated planning in the hot sun.  Now he has to buy a sun hat and get on with it.  Another black mark against Othello.  Unwillingness to be blown to bits by enemy, check. Cost of sun hat, three groats, check.

Michael Cassio is Othello’s second in command.  He is a bit of a smoothie. He is one of those noblemen who have bought their commission, don’t like getting their uniform dirty and cry if they have to shoot someone. His favourite job is escorting Desdemona around and kissing her hand.  He thinks she is lovely.  He bleats and pants a lot in her presence.  He says it is duty. We know it probably isn’t.  We are not that sorry that Iago is going to do him in.  He is an annoying tosser with flicky hair.  He says things like ‘Heeellloooo Lay deeezz’ and simpers a lot.

Iago gets cheesed off with this after about ten seconds of setting foot on Cyprus.  He knows that Cassio is a weedy girl and arranges an evening out for MEN in which drinking, shouting and imbibing of ale takes place.  Cassio tries to cry off on the grounds that after one Babycham he is anyone’s.  This cuts no ice with the militia and after sniffing the froth on the top of someone’s Cinzano and lemonade, Cassio is three sheets to the wind.  It is but the work of a moment for Iago to go from arranging close harmony singing amongst the brotherhood of man to conjuring a brawl in which Cassio gets stuck in and flails about squeaking and slobbering.  It is very noisy and hairy.  The smell of testosterone, Lynx and brown ale floats across the calm of a Cypriot night, spoiling it for innocent holiday makers and disguised Turks trying to make a quiet getaway.

Othello is forced to leave Desdemona in the middle of page 49 of the Karma Sutra in order to sort it out.  He is not best pleased.  He never knew girls could be that bendy. He demotes Cassio to third shepherd and goes back to bed.  Cassio blubs like a girl because he has lost his reputation.

Iago says he will help him to get his old job back and Cassio, tired and emotional, stupidly agrees to accept help from the man picked out in a line up as ‘man most likely to profit from Cassio’s downfall.’  He suggests that Cassio ask Desdemona for help getting back into Othello’s good books, and he can do this by hanging about with her endlessly and mooning at her wimpishly.  This is bound to impress Othello no end.  Cassio can’t believe his luck. He gets to hang out with a bee you ti ful lay dee and get his old job back. It seems too good to be true.  That’s because it is.

Iago is very impressed of himself, gives himself ten out of ten, a smiley face and a gold star for work well done.

Iago mentions in passing to Othello while they are looking at tiles for the cabana, that he thinks Cassio might be getting hot to trot with Desdemona.  He has absolutely no proof whatsoever. Consequently Othello pooh poohs this idea for all of thirty seconds before believing it vehemently and cursing and grinding and moaning.

Rather than hot footing it over to Desdemona and having it out with her, Othello broods and wallows, wallows and broods.  He does think to ask for proof from Iago at one point, but you know from the first moment that it’s a done deal and that Desdemona is toast.  Despite her tattoos and cheap taste in cigarettes you can’t help feeling sorry for the woman being married to such an idiot.  The men in her life have not exactly done well by her, pillock of a father, stalker for a wooer and green eyed monster for husband.  The Gods have not been kind.

Desdemona has a handkerchief that Othello gave her.  It is embroidered with strawberries.  It was a love token from him while they were wooing.  This shows you the sort of treatment from men that Desdemona is used to.  Most women would expect diamonds or chocolates.  She is thrilled with a second hand handkerchief with fruit on it.  She needs to get out more.

Iago finagles Emilia to purloin the handkerchief.  Emilia, despite being quite canny for the rest of the play, shows a remarkable lack of judgement at this point and hands it over without thinking very hard about what the hell a middle aged soldier would want with an embroidered hankie.  She clearly has her mind on higher things, like how to get blood stains out of white tunics for example.

Iago takes the fated hankie and drapes it artistically in Cassio’s room.  Cassio finds it and wanders about aimlessly with it, waving it in the air.  Iago arranges for Othello to hide in the shrubbery and see this hankie waving.  Othello puts two and two together. He immediately dismisses the idea that Cassio might want to take up Morris dancing in favour of the fact that he is bound to be shagging his wife.  As you do.

Othello goes mental.  He keeps running into Desdemona  and demanding to know why she is behaving like a strumpet.  She thinks the heat is getting to him.  Instead of saying: ‘Look love. Come and have a lie down and after a bun and a fag we’ll talk.’ She merely keeps wittering on about how Othello needs to be nice to Cassio.  This drives Othello even more bonkers.

He asks her where her hankie is and she totally blows it. She panics because she has lost it and doesn’t want to confess.  Instead she says she can’t bring it for him now because she’s put it somewhere safe, blah, blah and tries to throw him off the scent by harping on about Michael Bloody Cassio again.  She was definitely wearing her wrong decision bodice on this particular occasion. Othello is now absolutely convinced she is guilty as charged and goes totally off his rocker.

He instructs Iago to off Cassio and lays plans to murder Desdemona so that he can get his life back to normal.  He may be great at military campaigns but he clearly hasn’t got much of a ten year life plan going on.

Iago is insane with excitement by now. He cannot believe his luck at being stranded on an island with such a bunch of trusting dimwits.  It is like Christmas and birthday all at once.  If only all evil supervillains could have breaks like these, the world would be much less densely populated, except for men wearing leather driving gloves stroking white cats.

Iago arranges for a complicated night time rendezvous in which through his devious machinations he coerces Rodrigo the stalker into giving him his last fiver for the privilege of stabbing Cassio the fop in the belief that this will make Desdemona love him.  Clearly he has not read ‘The Rules’.

While the rozzers are bumbling about aimlessly failing to help anyone, Iago sneaks across and murders Rodrigo, implicating Cassio’s whore, who only popped up a scene ago, with the sole purpose of being implicated in murder.  She exits stage left, job well done.

Iago flees with the vague regret that Rodrigo made a better stalker than a murderer. He merely managed to give Cassio a nasty limp rather than kill him outright.  It just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

While all this is going on, half of the Duke’s palace has turned up from Venice to congratulate Othello and let Desdemona know that her father has died, probably ran himself over in his new jet powered gondola.  Surely all this is cause for a big celebration.  They run from the boat wearing party hats and blowing trumpets.  The Duke’s officials are wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the legend: ‘Partay On Dudes! Cyprus 1549’.

When they get to the official partay headquarters it is all a bit of a downer to find Desdemona weeping and bewildered while Othello smites his beard and runs about denouncing her for a strumpet to all and sundry.  These are not the qualities they looked for in a leader.  They wonder if it is because he is black.

They turn to minions for information only to find that they are either fraternising with criminal whores, limping, cashiered, drunk or dead.  Explanations are not forthcoming.

Desdemona has a nasty headache.  She cannot handle this sort of pressure and dreams wistfully of listening to her father chuntering on about his latest brilliant plans and the stink of Venetian drains.  Emilia comforts her with a Shakespearean version of the; ‘All men are bastards,’ schtick.  It does not help. Instead Desdemona takes to her bed to sing a sad song about willow trees.  This does not help either.

It is the song of the willow trees that finally tips Othello over the edge. It no longer matters how bendy she is, he knows from previous experience of tragic plays that once a woman starts singing about shrubbery it is only a matter of time before she runs mad and drowns herself.  He’s not letting her get away with it that easily.  She belongs to him and if anyone’s going to do her in it’s going to be him. He didn’t shell out for that extra boat to Cyprus just so that she could kill herself, ungrateful cow.

He wanders round her room for several hours, sighing and crashing into furniture, declaiming how torturous it is that his wife is forcing him to murder her and how it’s really not fair on a man when he’s got to be a military genius, and how is he supposed to fit everything in.  Nobody understands the pressures of modern life. Etc, etc.

All that singing must really have taken it out of Desdemona.  She finally wakes up after about four weeks of loud moping from her soon to be murderer.  She quite reasonably demands to know why he thinks he has to murder her and couldn’t they just have a nice cup of tea and a game of Scrabble instead?  He is not convinced, he is a sore loser and she is very good at triple letter word scores.  Losing to a girl is the last thing he needs right now.  His ego couldn’t take another battering.  He strangles her very badly.

Everyone else who is not dead rushes into the bedroom seconds after it is too late.  Clearly they were fed up with her too and were hovering outside the door waiting for him to do the evil deed so they could pretend they were sorry they had been just that little bit too late.

Desdemona spoofs them a bit by sitting up, telling everyone she has been murdered and then dying again.  This is pretty miraculous for a girl with a crushed windpipe. Nobody ever comments on this which is a little unfair. She may have been a brainless bint, but credit where credit is due.  Everyone is a little spooked and they make sure she truly is dead before bemoaning her fate, again.

Emilia gets cross about everyone cluttering up the bedroom and starts shouting at everyone about how lovely Desdemona was.  Nobody believes her until Iago hoves into view and starts behaving like a shifty, evil criminal.  Considering he has been Mr. Cool as a cucumber up until this point this is not very professional behaviour at all.  It makes you realise why Othello picked Cassio in the first place as his lieutenant.  Clearly Iago is alright until the crucial moment and then just goes to pieces.

The hankie story gets bandied about until everyone is heartily sick of it and Iago stabs Emilia and finally confesses just to get everyone to shut up.  When questioned further he refuses to say another word, but it is too late. Nobody cares now you silly man. The play is nearly over and you are just not cool anymore.  Call yourself a villain? All respect is lost for you and your evil ways.

Meanwhile Othello is slowly waking up to what a gigantic horse’s ass he has been.  He fails to ask Iago: ‘Is it because I is black?’ which would have been excellently poetic and prophetic of an Ali G moment.  The knowledge that not only has he killed the only woman who was ever likely to fancy him, and who could stick her toes in her ears, and the fact that he has missed his cue yet again, drives him to despair.  He takes out his secret sword, which he has stashed about his person and kills himself.

Cassio is left to pick up the pieces, which is very hard considering he is on crutches.  Everyone else still thinks he is a big girl’s blouse and brought it on himself.  They get back into the boat, take their party hats off and slink back to Venice in high dudgeon.

The end.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secret by J. K. Rowling – A book review by Tallulah Wheatley aged 9

Tags

Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, J.K. Rowling

I loved ‘Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets’.  Once I picked it up, it was hard for me to put it down.

I don’t think that there was anything I didn’t like about it.

It is about Harry, and his friends Ron and Hermione trying to find out who is the heir of Slytherin.

It is one of the best books I have ever read, and I highly recommend it.

People are being petrified (like being turned to stone) all over the school, and Harry, Ron and Hermione are the only ones who are brave enough to look into this scary mystery.  The book lets you join with them in this exciting adventure.

My favourite character is Ron Weasley because he is so funny. The book can be quite scary, so it is good to have some bits that make you laugh along the way.

When they find out who the heir of Slytherin is, they have to do battle with him! This is my favourite part of the story.

I highly recommend it because it is so brilliant.  It is the second book in the Harry Potter series and there are lots more after it. I am reading my way through them, and I’m on the fourth one now, ‘The Goblet of Fire’. I don’t want the series to end.

Go ahead and read it!

The Odd Egg by Emily Gravett – Book Review

Tags

books for pre school children, books for young children, Emily Gravett, Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears, Orange Pear Apple Bear, picture books, The Odd Egg, The Rabbit Problem, Wolves

Emily Gravett is a wonderful children’s writer and illustrator who creates picture books for children right from pre-school (Orange, Pear, Apple, Bear) to much more sophisticated texts for children through the whole primary school spectrum. Books like, Little Mouse’s Big Book of Fears, which helps a child identify things they are frightened of, and find ways to conquer those fears, and The Rabbit Problem which is a hilarious and clever pop up book for older children.

There is often a sense of wicked delight in Gravett’s books. The playfulness can be subtle as in the book Wolves, or much more overt, as is the  case with The Odd Egg.

In The Odd Egg, duck is sad because he wants an egg of his own. All of his bird friends have eggs and he doesn’t. It is never overtly explained in the text that duck cannot have an egg of his own because he is a drake, but my children picked this up straight the way and thought it was hilarious.

The other birds flaunt their contentedness and duck is sad. He eventually finds an enormous egg, which he decides to hatch.  The disparity in size between duck and his egg is so beautifully handled and duck looks wonderfully silly, teetering on the top of his egg.

Gravett balances the inequality between duck and his peers by using contrasting pages to show the mother birds together on one page and the duck isolated on the opposing page.

Things start to get interesting when the birds’ eggs hatch one by one. Here, Gravett uses cut away page slices (like The Hungry Caterpillar) so that your child has to wait for the ‘reveal’ moment and turn over the slice to see what has hatched.

The birds all have ‘standard’ youngsters until it gets to duck, which is what the reveal has been working up to all this time.

The book is very funny, beautifully illustrated and very clever. It works with a lightness of touch which means the whole story is stripped down and elegant but full of things you could talk about with the child or children as you read.

I would recommend it for pre-schoolers but the story has depths that can be explored right up to the end of Key Stage One learning.

Phonics – Phonemes and Syllables

Tags

clusters, graphemes, orthographic store, phonemes, phonics, segmenting words, syllables, what is the difference between a phoneme and a syllable

As we know, graphemes are the written symbols that represent phonemes (the smallest unit of sound a person can identify).

In order to teach a child to read using phonics based reading systems, it is imperative that we instill in the child, the understanding of how to break down, or segment, words into the graphemes that are present within those words.

This process of splitting the words down into manageable, recognizable units will, with the right teaching, make sense to them because they will be able to understand each part of the word and assign it meaning on both the page and orally as phonemes.

Scientific study has shown that when a child with no reading skills first encounters a word on a page, they see it not as a collection of different sounds that must be understood or spoken in a particular order, but simply as a whole shape on a page. We must understand how baffling this can be to a child. They may not even know whether they have to start trying to understand this word by reading from left to right.  It is easy to forget this, because we are so used to this way of understanding text. It has become something we are unconsciously competent at.

Unless we give children the tools to break that shape down into something they can begin to understand, they are unlikely to get very far with reading.

We have already talked about the fact that our starting point for this segmenting process would be to introduce the child to the individual graphemes using tools like flash cards, whilst simultaneously teaching them the phonemes that match the written graphemes.

There are a huge number of graphemes (150+), which the English language uses to represent the 44 phonemes that we hear.  It would be a soul destroying task for both teachers and pupils if we were to teach a child all of them before introducing them to the process of decoding the written word.

It is normal practice therefore, to simplify things by teaching a small number of common graphemes first, and use those as a foundation for building the more complex graphemes as the child becomes more confident.

Examples of the more simple graphemes are: ‘s,’ ‘a,’ ‘t,’ ‘d,’ ‘m,’ ‘n’

Even with this limited number of graphemes, you can teach a child to first segment and then read words like ‘sat’, ‘man’, ‘mat’, and ‘mast’.

Once you have given the child confidence that they can begin to read, it makes it easier to introduce more complex graphemes and, by extension, more sophisticated words, because you have already shown them that they can do what you are asking of them, and you are offering them ways to succeed in manageable chunks rather than as the overwhelmingly huge task of ‘reading’ as a more abstract whole.

So, we start with simple graphemes and their equivalent phonemes.  Once we are confident these building blocks are in place in the child’s orthographic store (memory hard drive), something that we do by reinforcing recall by repetition, we start segmenting simple words with the child.

At this stage it is important that we be clear on one thing.

Phonemes should not be confused with syllables.

Syllables, like phonemes, are also units of sound, but breaking down a word syllabically is a different process than doing it phonically.

Syllables are often broken down into larger chunks of sound than phonemes. Sometimes these are called clusters of sound.

Sometimes syllables can be phonemes, but not all syllables are phonemes, and not all phonemes are syllables.

Take the word ‘light,’ for example:

Light has one syllable – ‘light’

The syllables are the clusters of sound that make up the word as we speak it. Because, as natural born speakers of the language we are trying to read (for the most part) we speak very quickly, and often with regional accents, we shape the words sloppily in our mouths, which produces the sound clusters we refer to as syllables.

Let’s look at the word ‘light’ as a word we want to break down phonetically.

Light has three phoneme/graphemes – L-Igh-T

This is because at the phonetic level we are breaking the word down into the smallest discernible sounds we can identify that make up the word as we speak it.

Take the word ‘cat’

Cat is a word of one syllable or sound cluster.

Cat, if we break it down phonetically, has three clearly discernible sounds C-A-T

The purer the sounds the child hears, the easier it is for them to distinguish between individual phonemes and thus recognize graphemes. When we slur a word or make indistinct letter sounds it is much harder for them to distinguish between where one sound begins and another ends.