Children’s Literature in Jamaica
As children in the United States, we grow up listening to the stories of Dr. Seuss and Curious George as we fall off to sleep to the sound of our parent’s voices echoing in our dreams. As we start to grow older and the poetry of Shel Silverstein’s, "Where the Sidewalk Ends" no longer holds our imagination as much as it did at eight years old, we begin to read stories that are a reflection of the environment we live within. We engaged ourselves in the lives of such characters as the Hardy Boys and Willy Wonka.
What these stories lacked however, are the social issues that are ever present in today’s society. Not all of American children’s literature is without social content, but the literature many of us grew up with was about adventure and mystery. On the other hand, Caribbean children’s literature tends to base its work on survival. The stories of Jamaican folklore for example, tell the tales of the original inhabitants of the Caribbean Island and how they survived colonialism, slavery, poverty, and racism. From generation to generation these stories have been passed down in their original form through oral history.
Oral tradition is a method that I believe is no longer preserved in American culture.
Rarely do you read of an individual who was sat down on his grandparent’s knee to hear the childhood stories he or her was told by their grandparents before them. In today’s society, all a child has to do to be entertained is turn on the television, or log on to the internet to hear and read the rhetoric of today’s entertainment industry. Whether it is a lack of communication between parent and child, or a loss of innocence, the tradition of a parent telling the story of his or her ancest...
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...ren are forced to deal with throughout life.
Bibliography
Berry, James, Everywhere Faces Everywhere, Simon and Schuster Publishing, New York, 1996
Bolden, Tonya, Rites of Passage: Stories About Growing Up by Black Writers from Around the World, Hyperion Books for Children, New York, 1994
Dance, Daryl, Folklore from Contemporary Jamaicans, University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, 1985
Dawes, Kwame, Wheel and Come Again: An Anthology of Reggae Poetry, Goose Lane Publishing, Canada, 1998
Jekyll, Walter, Jamaican Song and Story, Dover Publications, New York, 1966
Jennings, Linda, A Treasury of Stories from Around the World, Kingfisher Publishing, New York, 1993
Ribelli, Piero, Jah Pickney: Children of Jamaica, Ian Randle Publishers, Kingston, Jamaica, 1995
Sherlock, Philip, West Indian Folk-tales, Oxford University Press, Oxford, England, 1966
South Carolina had many important battles fought on its territory, Fort Sumter. Fort Sumter is an island in the Charleston Harbor, its main purpose for being built was to protect the harbor. The Confederacy felt like the Charleston harbor would be a key port in this area. When the first shots were fired, at Fort Sumter, by the Confederate soldiers this began one of the darkest periods in American history.
Dr. Seuss, also known as Theodore Seuss, has written many poems as well as short stories, and is considered one of the greatest children’s author in history. His silly stories are able to excite children in ways that make them want read. His Wife says,” Ted doesn’t sit down to write for children. He writes to amuse himself;” Little do children know that often, in his stories, there is a lot of political undertone, a few examples include The Lorax, Yertle the Turtle, The Sneethces, and The Butter Battle Book. If you were to really critique some of his books or poems, you might see that some of his themes wouldn’t seem to pertain to children.
Jacobs, Harriet. "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl." The Classic Slave Narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Mentor, 1987.
After a four week survey of a multitude of children’s book authors and illustrators, and learning to analyze their works and the methods used to make them effective literary pieces for children, it is certainly appropriate to apply these new skills to evaluate a single author’s works. Specifically, this paper focuses on the life and works of Ezra Jack Keats, a writer and illustrator of books for children who single handedly expanded the point of view of the genre to include the experiences of multicultural children with his Caldecott Award winning book “Snowy Day.” The creation of Peter as a character is ground breaking in and of itself, but after reading the text the reader is driven to wonder why “Peter” was created. Was he a vehicle for political commentary as some might suggest or was he simply another “childhood” that had; until that time, been ignored? If so, what inspired him to move in this direction?
Jacobs, Harriet Ann. "Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl." Henry Louis Gates, Jr., ed. The Classic Slave Narratives. New York: Penguin Group, 1987.
Dreams are not just empty ideas, they give people ambition, and it is the pursuit of that ambition, which shapes a person. However, society instils an illusion about what can be achieved. Dreams can be tied to identity, but they can be good or bad. The Great Gatsby [F. Scott Fitzgerald] and Shattered Glass [Teresa Toten] share the similes in which both main characters dream of finding themselves and reach their end goals, through pressure and love. Both authors imply that dreams should be verified that they are possible before you start following them, otherwise they can ended up deadly.
The Civil War had a multi-faceted effect on Charleston, South Carolina. As a result of the American Civil War, Charleston’s economy, agriculture, slavery, architecture, and lifestyle forever changed. Charleston, the site of great devastation during and after the American Civil War, took decades to recover. However, Charleston became the most beautiful city in South Carolina.
Dubois, WEB. Comp. Henry Louis. Gates and Nellie Y. McKay. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2004. 694-695. Print.
Immigrants have proven effective in U.S Economy. “Immigrants have founded venture-backed public companies are worth more than $500 billion and employ an estimated 220,000 people in the U.S“("10 Harmful Misconceptions About Immigration." Www.equalrightcenter.org. Equal Right Center, 2008. Web.) As the economy of the U.S has been growing, without immigrants the country wouldn 't be able to fulfill its labor force necessities, therefore, we would have a decline where there is too much to be done with not enough people to work. Also, the immigrant community would take on any job offered, which is basically the leftovers, or what the Native Born Americans didn 't want to do. Even the ones who sought greater power, such as opening their owns businesses still needed help learning the duties where they would hire Native born Americans or American companies to teach them how to run the business. Yes, the Immigrants were taken jobs, but they were also providing white collar jobs for the native
According to Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, dreams are a gateway to the unconscious mind and an individual’s deepest desires (scientificamerican.com 1). The American Dream is about gaining a large success through hard work. Deep down every individual wants to strive to achieve the best at what they acquire. However, not everyone will attain their life long goals. This is evident in The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald and There Will Be Blood written by Paul Thomas Anderson. Between these two texts the destruction of hopes and dreams can derive from smaller issues such as the lack of money, the anger and jealousy of others and the disappointment of impossibly high goals.
Immigration is nothing but good for the United States, immigrants do not come to just take away from us, they come and also provide for this country. They are hard workers looking to succeed in any field of work as long as they are earning money and helping out. They are investing the money they earn here in the U.S, most of their money comes back to the U.S economy. High skilled immigrants are more likely to pay for more taxes than they use in public services. Immigrants do pay and taxes, and not all use government services. Just by them coming here they are helping out the American community in a variety of areas. In a study of immigration 's impact on U.S cities Cortes the author of “Immigration and Economic Growth” found out that in cities where low skilled immigrants are, there are lower prices on things such as dry cleaning, housing, cleaning, yard care, and other services. This gives more hours spent at work to higher skilled
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. New York, NY: W. W. Norton &
Have you ever wondered if being an introvert or an extrovert actually has an affect on how your life will turn out? Although the difference between being introverted and extroverted is somewhat ambiguous, most experts on human behavior agree that it is mainly determined through the source in which one obtains his or her energy. The scientists were eager to conduct more research related to this concept in order to find a possible correlation between personality traits and one’s biological fitness and quantifiable success.
“Children are the living messages we send to a time we will not see,” said Neil Postman in his novel: The Disappearance of Childhood. In recent generations, the ideal of childhood innocence has been disappearing due to several factors of modernization. But the innocence of youth needs to be protected so children will learn and grow in healthy ways, rather than rush into adulthood. It is a grown-ups’ responsibility to build a metaphorical wall between a child’s innocence and various types of media and consumerism. Although it is becoming increasingly difficult due to the powerful world of media, which constantly reinvents itself to outwit the latest parental imposition, the preservation of innocence is not impossible. The innocence of children is what turns them into successful adults, and how well adults do at this job may determine our planet’s future survival. The concept of childhood innocence is rapidly dying due to electronic media such as the television, the internet and corporations that use children as a commodity such as Disney, ultimately illustrating that adults must fight to preserve childhood innocence.
At times, they may enter the room as quiet ninjas or spies that not one could not hear a single sound from them but just so they could get the snacks on the counter in the kitchen. When describing the way an introvert thinks, they’re more interested in ideas and the big picture rather than facts and details. They tell themselves, ¨So what?¨ Of course, many introverts excel in detail-oriented tasks — but they often have a mind for more abstract concepts as well. Overwhelming too much stimuli conquers introverts to often have a keen eye for detail, noticing things that may escape others around them. Where most extroverts prefer to jump right in and learn through hands-on experience, introverts prefer learning through observation. While extroverts learn through trial and error, introverts successfully learn by watching. They enjoy watching others perform a task, often repeatedly, until they feel that they can replicate the actions on their own. When introverts do learn from personal experience, they prefer to practice somewhere private where they can build their skills and abilities without having to perform in front of an audience. According to many articles, it has been found that introverts exhibit increased brain activity when processing visual information, as compared to extroverts. Opposites attract one another, introverts frequently gravitate towards outgoing extroverts who encourage them to have fun and not take themselves too seriously. Therefore, Extroverts and Introverts resemble as a predator-prey relationship. A predator, an organism that eats another organism. On the other hand, the prey face as the organism which the predator eats. Having the two organisms give each other pleasure on attacking one another portrays the way of the extroverts and introverts relationship. The behavior of introverts shares a