Tag: Junior Novel Study Ideas

The Deborah Ellis Installments (Part I): The Breadwinner Trilogy

Deborah Ellis is a renowned Canadian author who has written a number of books with a lens to promoting awareness about the plight of marginalized children in war-stricken countries. Her fiction and non-fiction are sensitively crafted to present the reality faced by many of these innocents.

In possibly her most famous books, The Breadwinner series, Ellis paints a picture of the life of women in war-torn Afghanistan. This entire series showcases an especially strong cast of female characters that will leave you feeling like you know them personally. Teachers, having worked in a library for a year, I have seen this series being read with great vigour by junior students. Granted these books might appeal more to your female students because the protagonists are mostly female, I do think there is great value in making it part of your teaching, as it allows your male students to understand and appreciate the hardships faced by many children and women in places like Afghanistan.

There are 4 books in the Breadwinner Series:

The Breadwinner

Parvana’s Journey

Mud City

My Name is Parvana

Today, I will speak to the first 3 as they follow closely in chronological order, and can be taught together over the course of a couple of months, if you so choose.

In The Breadwinner, we meet our leading girl, Parvana. She is bursting with energy and opinions, and is not the kind to bend over backward for anyone. Right away we get the sense that this strong young lady is built to tackle much. And much, she does. She is chosen to be the breadwinner of her family when the Taliban enforces bans on women leaving their home without a male companion. With Parvana’s father imprisoned for no fault of his own, her mother and siblings rely on her ability to dress up as a boy and go out into the market to continue her father’s job. Parvana is sharp and kind. She has a conscience that shines through her stubbornness. We understand as an audience that this is reality for a lot of Aghani girls. And at the young age of 11, Parvana must shoulder a lot of the responsibility if she is to help her family survive. Teachers, your students can view this first book through the lens of how the family structure is impacted by war.

In the second book, Parvana’s Journey, Parvana is reunited with her father, but separated from her mother and the rest of her siblings. The book opens with her at her father’s grave, and goes back at points in time to describe the short journey they took together to find her mother and siblings, before his mind and body gave out. For the remainder of the book, we follow Parvana on a harrowing journey as she must use both her cunning and strength to stay alive. This strong young girl has matured significantly since the last time we saw her, but she retains some of her best qualities, like her compassion. With this compassion, she makes and keeps a handful of friends. Teachers, your students can add to their understanding of the interactions of strangers in a war-torn country, and how the youngest of the population must fight for survival.

In the third book, Mud City, we reconnect with Parvana’s friend, Shauzia, whom we have met in the first book. Shauzia has ended up helping out at a Widow’s Compound on the border with Pakistan, but despite being clever and useful, she wants to venture beyond the grounds of the compound and start her own life. She is convinced that if she can reach the nearest city across the border in Pakistan, Peshawar, she can earn a living and then go on to have her own life and do great things. Shauzia does succeed in getting out of the Widow’s Compound, but life in the big city of Peshawar is not everything she bargained for. There is not much work to be had, and going hungry is just in addition to struggling to stay safe and alive. Teachers, this one will offer a bit of perspective on the internal world of an Afghani child, specifically a girl. It will allow your students to draw connections with their own hopes and ambitions, and those of Afghani children. It will also help them see that despite these hopes and ambitions, the contrasts in circumstances and opportunities is what makes achieving both possibly easier for them, and harder for their Afghani counterparts. This book offers teachings in different perspectives, gratitude and hard work.

Teachers, this entire trilogy is a great way to teach your students a bit of geography when you talk about Afghanistan and its location in the world, with reference to other countries such as Pakistan. Students can make connections to other countries they know of in the region. It can further offer the opportunity to delve into social studies as you discuss the government structure of then Taliban-led Afghanistan, and today’s present government. You can also use this to make comparisons with our own Canadian government, or other relevant governments.

The first three books in the series are great for grades 4-6 and offer a range of cross-curricular opportunities because of their versatility.

Stay tuned for a follow-up post where I will discuss the final book in the series, My Name is Parvana.

 

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Sunny Side Up: A MUST-TEACH for Junior Grades

Dear Teachers,

Now, some of you might have begun to take heed of your students’ growing interest in graphic novels. I wrote a piece on August 3rd, 2016, here, detailing why graphic novels should be used in classroom teaching.

Today, I would like to talk about one of my favourite graphic novels for your junior grades: Sunny Side Up by Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm. This very well-done novel tells the heartfelt tale of 10-year old Sunny Lewin, who goes to spend some of the summer of 1976 with her grandfather in Florida. Young Sunny has been sent away by her parents not as punishment, but as protection and distraction. Sunny’s grandpa lives in a retirement community and his idea of fun is not quite the same as young Sunny’s. Still, Sunny shows great maturity in doing her best to make the most of it. This graphic novel is told with great sensitivity from a child’s perspective. A child who is dealing with a lot in her life. With flashbacks to earlier points in time, little by little the readers become aware that Sunny has been sent to live with her grandfather while her parents help her older brother deal with his substance abuse. With thoughtfully constructed artwork, the Holm brother-and-sister duo showcase the sibling bond shared between Sunny and her older brother and how his substance abuse affects her life. Teachers, this is a great way to get your students talking about an issue that they might either have no awareness of, or be dealing with on a daily basis. Sunny’s resilience throughout the book is a poignant point that deserves discussion. How does a 10-year old learn to navigate these dark corners of life, and often by herself? The story builds on Sunny’s relationship with her grandfather, someone whom she loves very much, and her role at 10-years old as his keeper. Sunny tries to keep her grandfather in check about his smoking problem, and she plays along while he lies to her, until at one dramatic moment in the book, she loses her nerve. Here we see how this young child, with all of her 10 years, has roughed out life to arrive at a juncture where she will no longer tolerate being treated like a child, because as she proves, she has grown up enough to understand how reality works.

Teachers, your students can do various things with this graphic novel because it is so very versatile. You can dip quite easily into the arts and explore language through that lens, while at the same time fulfilling grade-specific expectations across different curriculum.

With a setting ground in the 1970s, your students can chart important moments in history from the 1970s and work their way forward, they can talk about ways in which the artist uses frames and panels and gutters and speech bubbles, and other graphic novel techniques to convey meaning, you can delve into psychology and the background of substance abuse and how it affects the person who is dealing with it, and his/her family. This book is teeming with things to teach your students, and the best part is, it comes in a form that doesn’t pose a hard sell! Your students will be so excited to jump right into the pages, you will only have to say when!

Teachers, if you are looking for resources to start a unit on this book, please visit my Teachers Pay Teachers account: Cross-Curricular Ideas when teaching Sunny Side Up

 

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