I chose the book, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas!" by Dr. Seuss. The story talks about the creatures from Whoville, more specifically, the Who named the Grinch who lives on top of a mountain overlooking Whoville. The Grinch hates Christmas and has vowed to do everything in his power to destroy it. He decides to sneak into all of the Whos' houses and steal all of their Christmas decorations, therefore, ruining Christmas! As he does this (accompanied with his dog, Max), a young Who named Cindy Lou Who wakes up and asks him what he was doing; he then replied that he was taking their things to repair them, and that he would bring them back as soon as he was done. Cindy Lou Who innocently believes this and goes back to sleep, allowing the Grinch to steal all of the decorations and bring them to the top of the mountain to throw off a cliff. As he is on top, he eagerly waits to hear the crying and disappointment of the Whos as they find out Christmas is ruined! To his confusion, he heard singing and displays of joy. The Grinch then realized that Christmas is a feeling, and the fact that he stole all of the displays and decorations didn't mean anything. His heart grew three times its size and he decided to give back all of the things he stole and join the Whos in celebrating the very same Christmas he had once despised.
I believe this book fits well within the children's poetry category. As you will see with the following screenshots of the book, the writing style is very rhythmic and is designed in couplets. The words are aligned in a way to complement the drawings next to it.
Speaking of the illustrations within this book, the artistic style of this book is very "sketchy," mostly in black and white and are relatively detailed. The only color that is in this book (other than the cover page, which has green) is red. I believe that the color red also contributes partly to the poetic aspect of this book, it's a metaphor for a number of things: Christmas (the Grinch's jacket, ornaments, decorations), love (when the Whos spread joy and cheer despite Christmas being stolen), anger (the Grinch's eyes), et cetera. I believe that children, even though they might not have the mental tools to consider things like metaphors yet, do notice these things and they do take them into account.
Another benefit with Dr. Seuss' books/poetry is that they are chock full of vocabulary, excellent word choices and interesting adjectives. This helps the reader make connections and develop literary skills that would be more difficult to learn via other literary devices.
This book meets several of the six elements of social justice.
Element One - Self Love and Knowledge: The Grinch is a very bitter person and when he tries to ruin the day, the Whos had enough self love and knowledge of what is important and should be prioritized (being together, Christmas cheer, love, etc).
Element Two - Developing Empathy: It is hard to sympathize with the Grinch because not many children want Christmas to be destroyed, but this book shows the Grinch's journey towards developing empathy and not many children's books have character development so it's a nice introduction to it.
Element Four - Fighting Oppression: The article about the six elements of social justice mentions using the word unfairness to explain oppression to children, and even though I am not sure what kind of ISM/oppression is used in this book, the concept of unfairness is clear.
Your book choice is very much like poetry because I automatically think of poetry and such when it comes to Dr. Seuss books. The way he writes, its very rhythm, very clear for children to learn and emphasizes repeating. Also it teaches students the different social justice and the social justice you pointed are very important for students to learn!
ReplyDeleteI agree that this book meets those Social justice elements. The Grinch is a very good example of someone learning to love themselves and to not take their internal anger out on others. Also relating to empathy, most children see the grinch as mean and unlikeable, but once you understand him, you can sympathize with why he is mean; it's more because he is upset. I also liked your point about the color red (I haven't read the book in a long time) but you make very good points about the meaning. Especially in this book, as most is black and white, the red is very symbolic in many situations in the book.
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