Response to Children's Literature

The BFG is a book I remember reading in elementary school. It starts out with a giant, who is seemingly very creepy and frightening. He lurks in the dark, “witching hour”, outside of an orphanage. He kidnaps Sophie from where she is living, making her assume she is going to be eaten. As a little kid reading this for the first time I thought the BFG was very intimidating and scary. In the book as Sophie is being snatched the author even writes “If you can think of anything more terrifying than that happening to you in the middle of the night, then let’s hear about it.” (17) Also scary is the giants described outside of the BFG’s cave. They are described as “beastly giants” … “guzzling human beans every night” (35). Sophie is told she would come to an “ucky-mucky end if any of them should ever be getting his gogglers upon [her].” (35) These descriptions do not bother me now, however, as a young reader this was pretty terrifying. So far in the book I think the main theme may be

The second half of this book was very different than the first half of this book. The morality and consciousness of Georgina was much more apparent in this portion of the book. I was very happy to see the character growth and progression throughout this book because in the first half of the story I found myself incredibly irritated and annoyed at Georgina’s attitude. She often complained about her mom and their living situation. It seemed like the relationships Georgina had with both her mom and her brother improved throughout the last half of the book. Georgina realizes her mother is trying very hard to improve their lifestyle and get them back into an apartment or home. It came across as if Georgina gained respect for her mom and the sacrifices she has made for their family. She finally acknowledged that their living situation isn’t all their moms fault. The relationship with her brother also improved. In the first half of the book Georgina’s approach to her brother was as if it

How to Steal a Dog was a much deeper and thought provoking book than I thought it would be considering it is children's literature. I wasn't expecting this story to include the topics of homelessness, economic strife, societal pressure and even correct behavior and choices; granted, I looked over the small description on the cover saying "Georgina Hayes may be homeless, but she's not hopeless". I think this book, through chapter 11, has been interesting to say the least, and also at times irritating. I find the main character, Georgina Hayes, to be selfish, irresponsible and inconsiderate. However, at the same time, given her situation and the circumstances of her life, I think she is acting in the way any child her age would act. Georgina struggled to comprehend her situation and why all of the sudden her father was gone and her family was thrust into poor living conditions and poverty. Just like any normal young child she thought somehow she was the cause of

Greg didn't change all that much as the book went on. As the school year progressed throughout the book I expected him to grow and show some maturity. However, he kept up his selfish, egocentric, self-absorbed attitude. He also showed zero empathy or willingness to cooperate with others. A prime example of these attributes is when Greg and Rowley started working on the comics together. First Greg didn't let Rowley contribute to the comic and then when he gave in and let Rowley participate he bashed both his writing and drawing skills. (168-170) Continuing with the story of the comic strips, Greg did everything he could to get his way and become the school comic writer including hide other students' work. He has no problem lying if it means he gets his way. A good example of this is the incident when he walked home a group of kindergartners for Rowley and terrorized them with worms. Greg chooses not to speak up when Rowley gets in trouble for this because it would mean