MORE POETRY

If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere. - Frank A. Clark

Black Whiteness by Robert Burleigh.  In 1934 former naval officer Admiral Richard Byrd undertook to live alone for six-months deep in the arctic wilderness.  There he researched the arctic weather and, using himself as a subject, documented the limits of human endurance.  His efforts laid the foundation for future exploration in that forbidding place.  Robert Burleigh’s illustrated text of this amazing man’s solitary mission is aimed at younger readers, but it’s so uniquely executed that much older students would find it compelling.  Most written documentaries of this sort are, well…boring.  However, Burleigh uses a kind of poetic format, intertwined with excerpts from Byrd’s actual journal entries.  The words are few but eloquent, and the illustrator’s artistic presentation captures the deathly cold and loneliness of the experience.  Admiral Byrd’s accomplishment is an excellent example of determination.   The question of why he was willing to put himself through this gives us much to contemplate!   This book would also pair well with another book I plan to include in my theme, Life as We Knew it, a fictional tale of survival after a global disaster.

POETRY

“Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.” – George Washington Carver

Carver: a Life in Poems by Marilyn Nelson.  A man far beyond his time, George Washington Carver was born to slave parents but went on in a quiet and determined way to become one of the 20th century’s most influential scientists.  His accomplishments include developing crop-rotation methods that moved the south beyond its dependence on the cotton industry, revolutionizing the use of the peanut and other crops, as well as numerous other undertakings.  He used his gifts to forge a path for African Americans through the resistant forest of higher education, but made clear that his goal was to benefit all humanity.  Many biographies found in school libraries are either dry and informational or flowery and childish, usually nothing that would really appeal to middle school students.  Marilyn Nelson uses a different approach, telling Carver’s story through a series of poems that show us all aspects of the man as artist, inventor, writer, teacher and more.  The poems offer a rich opportunity to teach about inference and poetic images that capture the dignity, humility and faith of a man who moved mountains of social injustice through his accomplishments.   Photos and short explanatory notes are also included to draw the reader in to learn more.  In this clever way, Nelson documents the many obstacles Carver faced from all directions.  The book testifies of a true hero whose virtuous life offers an example of courage and perseverance to any young person of any time.

REALISTIC FICTION

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." - Theodore Roosevelt:  "Citizenship in a Republic," speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

The Contender.  Alfred and James were best friends – two teenagers living in a poor black area of Chicago.  Both had quit school and worked at entry-level jobs.  They had a special little cove they retreated to, hidden from view behind thick shrubs in the park.  There they escaped the taunts of street toughs who called them “slaves to whitey.”  And there they dreamed of becoming rich and important.

One day, Alfred went looking for James and found him in the basement club room where Major, the street bully, doled out drugs and alcohol.  From that point on, James went further into the drug culture.  Alfred, however, met Henry, a young boy crippled by polio.  Through Henry, he found himself at Mr. Donatelli’s gym, where he learned to discipline himself and strive to become a boxer.  But he found that before you can be a boxer you must be a contender, someone who strives against every adversity to become more than what he ever thought he could be.

At the gym, Alfred met several people who had started out to be boxers and for one reason or another, were unable to realize that dream – but they were contenders.  They put the skill and discipline they developed training to box to use in other areas and become successful and admirable adults, trying to help the next generation do the same.

Alfred got his chance to compete, winning two fights but losing the third and last one.  He came to realize that he didn’t really want to be a boxer, but he knew that all he had learned would make him a contender and he would be successful in whatever he chose to do.

Eventually he found James, who had sunk to the lowest despair of a drug addict.  When James said he couldn’t’ quit – didn’t have the strength – Alfred told him that he had the strength for both of them and would be beside him all the way.  He let him know you couldn’t accomplish anything if you didn’t try and if you strive hard enough, anything is possible.  The message for young people is clear:  never give up - be a contender.

PICTURE BOOKS

“Sweet are the uses of adversity.” – William Shakespeare 


The Arrival is an amazing work of art that tells the story of an immigrant's struggling as a new arrival in a new land.  It is a wordless story, told entirely through pictures alone.  The immigrant goes to…America?  The genius of Shaun Tan’s work is that he makes the destination ambiguous, so that the feelings and struggles portrayed have a universal application.  Through pictures that are a kind of metaphoric fantasy, Tan allows the reader to experience the “foreignness” of a strange land.  The strangeness of its foods, its landscape and its culture are all made palpable to us through symbolic means.  Images that represent vestiges of its history are juxtaposed with those that reflect its progressive character, making the new land doubly incomprehensible to the foreigner.  By using images alone, Tan manages to articulate the difficulties of acclimation in a way that is more powerful than if he had used words.  A curious element in the story is the strange creature that emerges when the immigrant arrives in the new land and accompanies him throughout the rest of his journey.  What does this creature represent?  Perhaps loneliness or fear, but more likely it might stand for any of the feelings that attend such a difficult passage.  The unwelcome creature becomes a staple of the immigrant’s life and later attends his daughter. While helping us to understand the experience of the immigrant, Tan enables us to comprehend something more: that to press through adversity is to transform it into a strength, to be passed on as an inheritance to the next generation.

 

Peppe The Lamplighter.  Peppe needs a job – like most poor Italian immigrants around the turn of the 20^th century.  Problem is Peppe is only about 11 years old.    After a long search and many rejections, Peppe finally gets his chance when the lamplighter asks him to fill in while he journeys to Italy to get a wife.  Peppe is ecstatic, but such a lowly occupation doesn’t suit his father’s pride – adversity can be found in the most unlikely places!   Despite his father’s reproachful remarks, Peppe sets out to work as diligently as he can.  However, as time goes on his father’s hurtful remarks wear on him and he begins to question the worth of his work and even himself.  When Peppe decides it would be better not to show his face outside the tenement one night, an incident occurs that makes both he and his father realize how very important any job – and any person – can be.