From: Holly A. Schoenecker <hollys>
Date: Sat, 8 Nov 1997 08:41:25 -0600

I have used Say's _Grandfather's Journey_, and Cooney's _Miss Rumphius_ with great success with composition classes and literature classes at the college level. What makes the books "work"? I think that while younger readers may lost interest in _Rumphius_, (it is long) older readers are pondering the same questions. And _Journey_ asks us all some of the theme questions in life: Can we go home? Once we leave and come back, is home the same? If I have four people in my family and each of us leaves for the day / semester / seminar, how much do those who "stayed home" expect us to be the "same" when we come back? And (ironically) how much have the stay-at-homes changed (while we, who were gone from home, envisioned THEM remaining the same predictable people). Both of these picture books have enriched class discussions which were (apparently) based on selections from our literature textbook (one of those anthologies with the 3000 tissue thin pages).
Received on Sat 08 Nov 1997 08:41:25 AM CST