Our series of unfortunate events

Im intrigued on how our semester would have turned out had "Mr" Waters told us his age day one. not the same is for sure. due to our series of unfortunate events, i have now added a title to my own name, as seems only appropriate.
-Mr. Alex Smith

A little random info about a children's author

So, I know that this is a bit off topic, but I think it is relevant to this course. For my honors option for this course I researched Shel Silverstein and then read some of his books and evaluated them. The books I have known and loved since I was a child, so there was no surprise there, but his biography had a few surprises in store for me. Shel Silverstein was affiliated with Playboy for most of his life; the biography "A Boy Named Shel" it is insinuated he loved all of the pleasures that the Playboy Mansions had to offer. He would spend weeks at a time there chilling with his pal Hef. I believe he even spent some of his time recuperating from a car accident there. I found this interesting because, while what I found didn't change how I saw the books, my roommate said that it changes the way she views Silverstein's work. She feels that his books are now tainted a little because that was not the image she had at all of this man who occasionally goes by Uncle Shelby. It made me wonder how much it matters how authors live their lives, as long as their books have good morals and messages. What does it matter if they have a passion for playboy bunnies? Just some food for thought.... it has made me think a little.

Of all the books we were assigned to read this semester I really like the Invention as well. I found Hugo's spirit to be amazingly sweet and loving given the fact he was abandoned in one way or another by the people he loved. I loved all of the pictures throughout the book. It was a great example to people of all ages that your life isn't is bad as you think it is. I think this book would really make a positive impact on kids who may have lost a parent or are orphans  who feel alone and lost. I loved figuring out all of the connections between Hugo, Georges,and Hugo's father at the end. I really think it sends a great message to stick to doing something you believe in even if it seems crazy(like rebuilding the automaton to figure out what will happen to you) and that fate does indeed lead us to greater things.

The Invention

My group and I really enjoyed the book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret and therefore our discussion last week went very well and sparked up interesting conversation. One of my group members brought up Hugo's mother and her absence in the novel...this is something that didn't even cross my mind when reading, but now that the question was brought to my attention, I am eager to know why the author didn't speak of her at all. Another small detail that was interesting was the shoe heels. I noticed that when Hugo was being yelled at by the toy booth owner to LEAVE! because he was caught stealing all he hears are his shoe heels as he runs down the hallway...this doesn't spark curiosity at all right here, but at the end of the book you find out that all of the toy booth owner's videos were melted down into shoe heels...why do you suppose the author mentioned shoe heels like he did in the beginning of the story?
I also like what another group did... the group's artistic response consisted of illustrations from the book that were colored in. I thought this was a great idea. You wouldn't think that color would change a story so much, but it really does! This particular story is better in black and white, partially because of the time and place of the story, but do you think that if we saw it in color first, our opinion would be different? Does it look "weird" because we saw it one way already? interesting to think about...
very great story! I truly enjoyed it.

"A Lot of Fat Kids Who Don't Like to Read"

I found myself agreeing with most of what Alfie Kohn stated in this article, however I think that this article is one sided and I do not agree strongly one way or the other. I agree with Kohn that "rewards actively displace the motives and values that matter." Some children stop doing things because they know inside that it is the right thing to do and start to only do things to receive something in return. Their intrinsic motivators are completely replaced by extrinsic motivators. I have witnessed this on an almost day to day basis at my work (At a Latch-Key/Daycare). Children will tell me exactly what they did that was and if I do not give them something right away and instead just say good job they will ask me, "well don't I get a treat for doing that?" This just makes me mad and I tell them no, that they should have done it because they knew it was a good thing to do and that it would help somebody else in some way. The schools in my hometown all have this program where if you are a "bucket filler" (you do good things and help people without being asked) you will receive a "Ribbit Award". On the other hand, you do not get any award and you are scorned for being a "bucket dipper" (you do bad things and are mean to other people). This program has worked for our schools and I will even hear the children saying to one another "stop dipping in my bucket!" I know it sounds funny, but it seems to work. The children are receiving a reward for being good, but it is not a reward that I believe will stop them from doing things because they know it is right and instead do things only to get a "Ribbit Award." Overall, I believe that it really depends on the child, the reward, and the circumstance to decide whether or not giving a reward is a good thing.

P.S.

By the way, this is completely irrelevant, and is not intended to be one of my posts, but I just researched "opossums" versus "possums," and they are different animals, but in a sense, as most people see it, they are the same.  Opossums, as I said in class, are what we see as the disgusting rodents.  The term "opossum" is only for the rodents; they are native to North America, and only here.  The other animal, which Mr. Waters showed us today in class when we were discussing Australia, is called the "possum."  The reason why it looks completely different is because it is completely different; the two (obviously) look different, different habitats (obviously, yet again), different preferred living environments, and basically, live a completely different life.  The term "possum" is strictly for Australia.  So, in a sense, I guess they are the same animal, but technically, they are different; each has a different name for its origin.

Intrigued.

Apparently, some found it blatantly obvious that Hugo was the machine that created the novel, but I was one of those that didn't.  I suppose the ending paragraph/words did in fact suggest it, but I guess I didn't put two-and-two together until book discussion today.  In fact, I was focused on Hugo's "secret" project the entire time, the automaton, and his affect on the story; I just assumed that the ending was referring to Hugo's finished project and the automaton's portrayal of the story.  I suppose I was taking the story, its plot, and setting a little too literally.

Also, throughout the entire class, I was thinking about the title and its meaning, but also thought that because I had taken the entire novel a little too literally, maybe I did the same for this; or maybe this is the same amount of obvious as the first.  Does anyone think its possible that the title meant the same as the last paragraph of the story?  I took the title to mean, again, the "invention" of Hugo as the automaton (although I suppose it wasn't exactly an "invention" persay, especially because he was only repairing it).  The "invention" of Hugo could mean the "invention" of Hugo as the machine that was addressed in the end of the novel as him being, not necessarily his adventures throughout the novel like I previously thought the title to mean.