I loved this book! And like many of the ones we have read for class, I wonder why I never read it as a child. I did read a lot of Judy Blume and Beverly Cleary books when I was younger, and Harriet the Spy had the same tone and type of characters as those books. Harriet is a quiet child who loves to write anything and everything because she hopes one day to become a spy/writer and they need to know everything. I think much of Harriet's, and her friends', personalities are because of the environment they were raised in.
Harriet the Spy takes place in New York in the 1960's (I assume because that's when it was written). Harriet is an 11 year old girl who lives with her parents, a nanny, and a cook. Her parents aren't around very much because they are always off doing something or going to parties. Therefore, Old Golly, the nanny, becomes both a mother and a father figure for Harriet. In my opinion, since Harriet was raised without much parenting, she became introverted and infinitely curious about what is going on around her. Which is why, later in the book when Harriet gets her notebook taken away because she wasn't paying attention in class, she has a hard time concentrating on school work because she isn't allowed to creatively express herself.
Sport, one of Harriet's best friends, is a different case. He also grew up without much parenting; his father is a writer and spends all his time doing that and his mother is out of the picture. Sport has to shoulder all the responsibility in his house, from cooking dinner to accounting. This makes him a serious person and one who, when given the opportunity to have fun, takes full advantage of it and thinks that Harriet's spying is too much brain work for him when he would rather be playing football. Even at the end of the novel when Sport's dad gets something published, Sport is not happy because he knows that he has to find a way to make that check last them as long as he can.
There are a lot of issues in this book that could be addressed and home environments is just one. However, I think it is an important one because it shapes our main characters into something more than just a typical kid living in 1960's New York.
Monday, October 27, 2014
Monday, October 13, 2014
The Birchbark House
Before coming to this class, I had never even heard of The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich. And now, even though I am not finished with it yet, I regret never hearing of it when I was younger. It was published in 2000 so I would have been just starting school when it came out, but I suppose since it never won a Newbery award or anything like that my school didn't think it was important to read in classes.
This book was written about the same time period as Little House on the Prairie, but from the opposite perspective. To me, they literally seemed like the exact same story: told from a little girl's point of view, and a tale of how their family survives in the harsh conditions the novel takes place in. In Little House, Laura is the main character who has two sisters, one older and one younger, and their family moves west as settlers. In Birchbark House, Omakaya is the main character who has siblings, an older sister and two younger brothers, and their family is forced to move west as well because of the settlers. Both novels have similar plot elements as well. One that really stood out to me was the fact that in both of theses novels, the family gets sick with a deadly illness and live to tell the tale (well mostly); the Ingalls family with Malaria and Omakaya's family with Smallpox.
Another similarity was the way the families treat "the other". Both are fairly tolerant with the other being there as evidenced by Deydey trading furs with the white people for supplies, and Pa not letting Jack attack the Indians because it was their land first. The Birchbark House seems much less racist than Little House, but perhaps that is because there are less actual encounters with white people than the Ingalls family has with Indians.
This book was written about the same time period as Little House on the Prairie, but from the opposite perspective. To me, they literally seemed like the exact same story: told from a little girl's point of view, and a tale of how their family survives in the harsh conditions the novel takes place in. In Little House, Laura is the main character who has two sisters, one older and one younger, and their family moves west as settlers. In Birchbark House, Omakaya is the main character who has siblings, an older sister and two younger brothers, and their family is forced to move west as well because of the settlers. Both novels have similar plot elements as well. One that really stood out to me was the fact that in both of theses novels, the family gets sick with a deadly illness and live to tell the tale (well mostly); the Ingalls family with Malaria and Omakaya's family with Smallpox.
Another similarity was the way the families treat "the other". Both are fairly tolerant with the other being there as evidenced by Deydey trading furs with the white people for supplies, and Pa not letting Jack attack the Indians because it was their land first. The Birchbark House seems much less racist than Little House, but perhaps that is because there are less actual encounters with white people than the Ingalls family has with Indians.
Monday, October 6, 2014
Little House on the Prairie
Little House on the Prairie is the first book this semester that I actually remember reading when I was younger. Opening the first page gave me such a sense of nostalgia for a simpler time and a simpler style of prose I used to read all the time. However, despite it's simplistic language and plot, there are quite a few larger issues hidden in the cracks of this beloved classic.
One of these issues is the reinforcement of gender roles through the novel. While on their journey, Pa is the one who builds everything, from their wagon to their house and all their furniture, almost by himself. The one time Ma tries to help him, she sprains her ankle because a log falls on it. Laura does help him sometimes as well, but only for doing easier work like holding nails and such. The girls are never allowed to go hunting with Pa, but they do help Ma with all the cooking and tending of baby Carrie. I for one feel bad for Pa because he has to do all this manual labor by himself and he never gets to sleep because he is busy watching for wolves and such at night. It makes sense why this book is reinforcing gender roles because while it is written by a woman, it was written in the 1930's about the late 1800's when women still very much had the domestic role in the household.
Another issue I saw was the racist ideologies about Native Americans. Even in the first chapter when they are leaving Wisconsin, Pa tells Laura that she will see a papoose in the West, which is described as "a little, brown, Indian baby" (Wilder 6). The fact that this is almost an attraction in the West rubs me the wrong way. Throughout the novel the Native Americans are objectified as savage and completely different from the Ingalls family. They barely wear any clothes and the ones they do wear are animal skins like skunks, and they simply walk into people's houses and take whatever they see fit to take. The author does not explain of course that they are taking things from the settlers because the settlers took their land, but I can chalk that up to the fact that our narrator is a young girl who is only concerned with seeing a baby papoose.
All in all, I really enjoy this book despite its blatant racist and patriarchal ideologies. It's just the charming tale of a family moving out West after all.
One of these issues is the reinforcement of gender roles through the novel. While on their journey, Pa is the one who builds everything, from their wagon to their house and all their furniture, almost by himself. The one time Ma tries to help him, she sprains her ankle because a log falls on it. Laura does help him sometimes as well, but only for doing easier work like holding nails and such. The girls are never allowed to go hunting with Pa, but they do help Ma with all the cooking and tending of baby Carrie. I for one feel bad for Pa because he has to do all this manual labor by himself and he never gets to sleep because he is busy watching for wolves and such at night. It makes sense why this book is reinforcing gender roles because while it is written by a woman, it was written in the 1930's about the late 1800's when women still very much had the domestic role in the household.
Another issue I saw was the racist ideologies about Native Americans. Even in the first chapter when they are leaving Wisconsin, Pa tells Laura that she will see a papoose in the West, which is described as "a little, brown, Indian baby" (Wilder 6). The fact that this is almost an attraction in the West rubs me the wrong way. Throughout the novel the Native Americans are objectified as savage and completely different from the Ingalls family. They barely wear any clothes and the ones they do wear are animal skins like skunks, and they simply walk into people's houses and take whatever they see fit to take. The author does not explain of course that they are taking things from the settlers because the settlers took their land, but I can chalk that up to the fact that our narrator is a young girl who is only concerned with seeing a baby papoose.
All in all, I really enjoy this book despite its blatant racist and patriarchal ideologies. It's just the charming tale of a family moving out West after all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)