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The Diary of Patsy
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From: Megan Schliesman <mjschlie>
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 09:17:25 -0600
It's great to hear from Molly Panko and Katy Horning how popular "I Thought My Soul Would Rise and Fly" is proving to be with children. I am interested in Molly's comment about the fact that kids sometimes find it confusing to discover that Patsy and the other "Dear America" characters are fictional, because this was the one concern I had with the novel, especially with regard to the Epilogue that summarizes what happened to Patsy throughout her life after the diary ends. I found it confusing, and I knew the book was fiction. Is the information on the verso (which young readers may not read) enough to clarify to children that the book is fiction? Have other people run into the same situation as Molly, with children being confused upon discovering that Patsy wasn't a real person?
Ultimately, I found Patsy's story and voice so compelling that I could overlook my concern. The narrative is a memorable one--the hunger for a teacher and education, the realistic depiction of life just after the Civil War, when legal freedom did not mean a life free from oppression and hardship. I thought that Patsy's story was so effective in portraying a range of responses among African Americans to this new freedom, from leaving for the north to seeking out a life of independence on land in the south to staying on a plantation and trying to build a new life from the old. I appreciated that these were not all happy stories--I really got a sense of the risks involved in the quest for a new and better life that held no guarantees.
Megan Schliesman Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education UW-Madison schliesman at mail.soemadison.wisc.edu
Received on Thu 19 Feb 1998 09:17:25 AM CST
Date: Thu, 19 Feb 1998 09:17:25 -0600
It's great to hear from Molly Panko and Katy Horning how popular "I Thought My Soul Would Rise and Fly" is proving to be with children. I am interested in Molly's comment about the fact that kids sometimes find it confusing to discover that Patsy and the other "Dear America" characters are fictional, because this was the one concern I had with the novel, especially with regard to the Epilogue that summarizes what happened to Patsy throughout her life after the diary ends. I found it confusing, and I knew the book was fiction. Is the information on the verso (which young readers may not read) enough to clarify to children that the book is fiction? Have other people run into the same situation as Molly, with children being confused upon discovering that Patsy wasn't a real person?
Ultimately, I found Patsy's story and voice so compelling that I could overlook my concern. The narrative is a memorable one--the hunger for a teacher and education, the realistic depiction of life just after the Civil War, when legal freedom did not mean a life free from oppression and hardship. I thought that Patsy's story was so effective in portraying a range of responses among African Americans to this new freedom, from leaving for the north to seeking out a life of independence on land in the south to staying on a plantation and trying to build a new life from the old. I appreciated that these were not all happy stories--I really got a sense of the risks involved in the quest for a new and better life that held no guarantees.
Megan Schliesman Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education UW-Madison schliesman at mail.soemadison.wisc.edu
Received on Thu 19 Feb 1998 09:17:25 AM CST
