Gleam and Glow, written by Eve Bunting was published in 2001. Gleam and Glow is told from the perspective of Viktor, a young boy living with his family in a war-torn country. After his father leaves home to fight in the war, Viktor is left home along with his mother and five-year-old sister, Marina. Viktor’s home soon becomes a shelter for travelers, where the family learned of the horrors of the war and what is to come to Viktor’s home. One day, a traveler comes to Viktor’s home with two goldfish. These goldfish, named Gleam and Glow by Marina, become a positive in a sea of negatives. However, when the day comes that the family must flee from their home, Viktor places the goldfish into the pond near their home. After days of walking, the family …show more content…
arrives at a refugee camp, where they are reunited with their father. After the war is over, Viktor and his family return home to find that everything has been destroyed. Thinking of the fish, Marina rushes to the pond to find that Gleam and Glow had created a family of their own during the war. With such a powerful story, it would be expected for Gleam and Glow to have won many awards. Sadly, this is not the case. Gleam and Glow has not won a single award, nor has the book been nominated for one. Gleam and Glow is overall a fiction book because the story is completely fabricated. However, Gleam and Glow is also a combination of realistic fiction (a story that could happen to people or animals) and historical fiction (based off of true events, but still fabricated in some way). Gleam and Glow is a blend of realistic and historical fiction because it is based on a true event during and after the Bosnian War in 1990 to 1995. There appears to be no noticeable reason why Eve Bunting wrote Gleam and Glow. The only conclusion I can come to about her inspiration for this book is her fearlessness when it comes to writing about difficult issues. From what I took from the author’s not at the end of the book, Gleam and Glow was inspired by a true story and Eve Bunting wanted to share the story in a way that children would enjoy and learn from. A book that can be comparable to Gleam and Glow would be A Place Where Sunflowers Grow by Amy Lee-Tai.
In both books, the children have to leave behind items that mean a lot to them. For Mari, she had to leave behind her sunflowers that grew in her backyard; and for Viktor and Marina, they had to leave behind the goldfish. In both books, the families had to leave their homes for reasons beyond their control – a war. Unlike Gleam and Glow, we do not see Mari return to her former home and are left to assume what happens to Mari. On a positive note, both books end with a symbol of hope. A Place Where Sunflowers Grow shows Mari’s sunflowers growing, and Gleam and Glow shows the survival of the goldfish. Both symbols provide hope and indicate that, like the sunflowers and the goldfish, the characters can adapt to their new circumstances.
Gleam and Glow presumably takes place in Bosnia before the Bosnian war. The characters are Viktor, his sister Marina, Mama, and Papa. To me, the goldfish appear to symbolize the strength it took for Viktor, his family, and the other refugees to abandon everything they knew and still make the most of what they had. Just as the refugees adapted to life during and after the war, the goldfish adapted to their new home in the pond. The goldfish are also a symbol of hope. To see that the goldfish had survived gave the family hope (“Like us . . . they
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lived.”). Personally, I am unable to completely relate the what Viktor and his family endure in the book.
However, I can relate to have to leave home because of a bad situation. I can also relate to having to leave behind everything you had ever known and cared about. I once had a dog and a goat when I was younger. When I had to leave, I left them with my aunt. I only got to see my animals when I visited my aunt – which was not very often. I did not get to have a happy ending with my animals like the children did at the end of the book, but I know that I always think of them.
The things that seem the most important to me in the book is the importance behind the story. Gleam and Glow brings to light a story I never would have heard and tells me about a war I never knew about before. I feel as though this book would be a great book to keep in an in-class library. Depending on where I end up teaching, there may be the possibility that I would have students who could see themselves in Gleam and Glow in some
way. Gleam and Glow would be a great book to use for teaching children about what people have to endure during wars by helping them understand the hardships refugees experience. This could also provide a window or a mirror through which some students could be able to relate to a situation or a topic mentioned within the story. Gleam and Glow would also be an excellent book to be used to expand the schema of my students. It is important that students understand that the events that happen in the book occur even today. The way Gleam and Glow is set up makes learning about these difficulties easier to explain and comprehend. During my first attempt at analysis, I had made many decent observations about the book. I mostly focused on the symbolisms I saw more than anything. I did not know what else to write about at the time. I can now find more information from the book by analyzing the text through the different lenses. I also now know how important of a book this would be to have in a classroom. In conclusion, I learned a lot about this book after I revisited it with the knowledge I now possess. I feel more confident in my skill of assessing whether a book is going to be a book that a child might need.
What I liked most about it was reading from two different perspectives and how those different perspectives met through the book.
I found it very interesting and educational to learn about the history of Uganda, a country often forgotten by the Western World. Before reading this novel I had no idea about the struggle that Indians and Africans underwent during this countdown. As a result of this novel I also learned more about the issues of systematic racism and the various downsides of class systems. Before this novel I had learned about class systems, such as the caste system in India, but by infusing history with the struggles of a young girl really helped me connect with the themes in a stronger way.
Over this entire novel, it is a good novel for children. It train children how to think logically, and notes people we should cherish our family, and people around us, very educate. Children can learn true is always been hide.
I think that the messages this book displays are important for anyone to think about, and apply to their lives every day.
What are the important themes of the book? What questions or issues about teaching and learning does it address?
I can relate to this book because when I was four years old my mom and I were going down to the gas station. just a few miles from our house and my mom was not paying attention to the road because I was crying, She turned her head back and before we knew it we hit a tree head on. I can see how Willow has been feeling because my family was worried about me and my mother and they still have us but Willow lost her parents for good she cant have them back, I can only imagine Willow’s pain.
Although this book had no major affect on me, I learned how a boy can go through traumatic experiences and still have the will power to keep going on. That was the only thing that really affected me in the whole book.
Smelcer, my high school history teacher. My teacher dedicated a whole month of class on the topic of “Black Lives Matter.” She loved to read books on opinions on black society. I think this book would fascinate her if she has not already read it. She always taught us about the struggles of African Americans, but never about the privilege that some of them had. Some African Americans were better off than most whites at the time. They were doctors and lawyers, most of the black elite were making salaries close to middle class Caucasians. The book shows how not only how whites look down on the African American racial background, but so did people of their own race. I think this simple fact would be intriguing to my teacher and maybe challenge her views on black society. It could also contribute to her lessons in class, teaching high schoolers about this exclusive society. Lastly, I would recommend this book to Mrs. Smelcer because it proves that while the members of the black elite had “privilege and plenty” they were still racial discriminated against by whites, even through they should have been
The most meaningful part of the book for me, was the sit-ins, a form of protest in which demonstrators occupy a place, refusing to leave until their demands are met. The reason the sit-ins were so meaningful is that it really brought attention to how Americans were segregating the African Americas. Just as if you do nothing when a bully, whites, is picking on you, blacks, they will continue picking on you until you fight back. The sit-ins were a nonviolent way to show that they no longer will or have to take the abuse.
and "yesterday's" African Americans because it basically outlines all of the harsh struggles that the African American people had to go through to get to where they are today. I also think that this book could be used as a guiding tool, not to just blacks but whites too, to people who are lost and feel as if they serve no purpose in the world. As one can tell from reading this book, even the smallest or meaningless person can make a difference.
In my perspective, I thought that The Help by Katheryn Stockett was an exciting and special book which enhanced me views or race, class, and gender. This fantastic book gave me the thought of how life was like down in Mississippi during the 1960's. The Help gave me different standpoints and characteristics that had taken place with places still segregated by the color of their own skin. These viewpoints hit my mind that gave me the option to judge the book by how life was viewed upon by society in the past and present time.
In conclusion this book had a big effect on its readers, and therefore accomplished the purpose of being written. It really made me think about the purpose of life and how to be happy in life. Overall it affected my personal beliefs greatly and made me appreciate what I have. By reading the teachings of a dying, wise, old man, trying to teach a young man how to be happy in life, you can learn a lot about how to do just that. Be happy.
This is an odd little book, but a very important one nonetheless. The story it tells is something like an extended parablethe style is plain, the characters are nearly stick figures, the story itself is contrived. And yet ... and yet, the story is powerful, distressing, even heartbreaking because the historical trend it describes is powerful, distressing, even heartbreaking.
They represent Lily's only connection to her deceased mother, besides her blurred memories. At one point in the novel, when Lily is talking to August, August hands Lily a photograph from the past of Lily and her mother. Lily thinks to herself, "I didn't care about anything on this earth except the way her face was tipped toward mine, our noses just touching, how wide and gorgeous her smile was, like sparklers going off (Kidd 275). When Lily sees the image of her mother, she is assured that she was deeply loved. This gives her a sense of peace and relief that she has been longing for. Nevertheless, Lily still continues to struggle with the sadness and guilt of accidentally killing her mother. However, at the end of the novel when Lily is looking at a different photograph of her mother, Lily finally is relieved of the guilt that has burdened her for so long. She thinks, "In the photograph by my bed my mother is perpetually smiling on me. I guess I have forgiven us both, although sometimes in the night my dreams will take me back to the sadness, and I have to wake up and forgive us again" (Kidd 301). Lily is beginning to move on from pain and guilt that has burdened her for so long. Through forgiving herself, Lily is freed from the torment she has held inside of her for as long as she can
... cross my mind but I find myself thinking differently since enrolling in this class. I enjoyed this book because it allowed me to relate to the main character, reflect on my life, and try to change myself in the process of reading it. I was able to see the parts of my life that had not been even fathomed before. When reading the book I found it difficult to read and somewhat boring but once I thought about the concepts and people involved in our class it gave me a better understanding of the book. One piece of advice would be to have the five people/ five concepts before reading these books because I feel I missed some key points looking back on the book. I feel that knowing these people/concepts before reading the book would have helped me understand the book better. This book was and interesting one and allows for every reader to have their own interpretation of it.