A Fairy - Tale Life (a story by Hans Chrisitian Anderson) by Joann Johansen Burch was a cute book. The story took place in the 1800's in Denmark. The story was about a poor young boy. He was tall, skinny, and funny looking. This lead him to get picked on, so his parents would spoil him and baby him. So he was able to get away with not going to school after a couple of incidents. Ever since he was little, he loved to sing and dance. He knew that someday he was to be in the theatre business. His mom didnt believe in him too much and took him to a fortune teller thinking that she would discourage him from trying. However, she had the opposite reaction. The fortune teller told him that everyone in his town would light a candle for his name by their window.
One day, he went out in search of finding a job in the theatre. Everyone said he had amazing talent, but all had an excuse as to why they didn't want him in their shows. He was either too funny looking or he needed an education. He was told these things quiet often and became very sad each time, but he never gave up. He decided he wanted to write, but was told again he needed an education. He then got a scholarship to attend a school for free. After a couple of struggles, he soon became a famous writer. He wrote novels, plays, and poems. He became famous in particular for a Fairy Tale that ws based upon his life but make believe characters. His town lit candles by the windown in honor of his name. He knew that he was now famous and that the fortune teller was right.
This was a cute book.It is a great example of never giving up on your dreams. No matter what background you come from, there are always possiblities. It also is a great example of the importance of an education. In the story, a lot of the people wouldn't hire him beacuse of his lack of education. Once he was able to get the proper education, he then became looked upon and famous. It was a cute story, it is a little different, because it was based on the old days, and it was a narrator telling the story. It may have been more interesting coming from Hans Christian's perspetive. I liked the fact that the pictures were kind of just black outlines for the characters, so I used my imagination as to what they looked like.
Overall, it was a cute book. It is a book I can ask them to read over a couple of weeks and write a report about what they learned from the book using examples from the book.
I thought this was an inspiring story as you implied, but as for the blog part of it I felt like you have away the whole story. It was too detailed and it made me feel like "now I don't need to read it because I know what happens." Thanks for sharing this book though, and I like your activity idea as well.
ReplyDeleteMakayla, You did a great job summarizing and analyzing the story, but I agree with Marissa. I would like to know more about the book, e.g. the pictures, text features (things about the print itself), or notable things about the language. Great post though! thanks
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