EL ED book of 1,000 days

Joy Prior

Book Report: A Book of a 1,000 Days

Author: Shannon Hale

Professor Young

Sections from the book

Day 1
My lady and I are being shut up in a tower for seven years.
Lady Saren is sitting on the floor, staring at the wall, and hasn’t moved even to scratch for an hour or more. Poor thing. It’s a shame I don’t have fresh yak dung or anything strong-smelling to scare the misery out of her.
I nearly warned him that such words would bring him bad luck and canker his own heart. Thank the Ancestors that my lady’s fit stopped me from speaking out of turn. When I pulled her back, her hands were red from beating at the bricks and streaked with wet cement. This isn’t exactly a happy-celebration morning, but I don’t see what good it does to thrash about.
“Easy, my lady,” I said, the way I’d speak to a feisty ram. It wasn’t too hard to hold my lady back, even squirming as she was. I’m fifteen years, and though skinny as a skinned hare, I’m strong as a yak, or so my mama used to say. I sang the calming song, the one that goes, “oh, moth on a wind, oh, leaf on a stream,” and invites the hearer into dreaming. I feared my lady was so angry she wouldn’t heed the song. But she must’ve been eager to sleep, because now she’s snoring on my lap. Happily the brush and ink are at hand so I can keep writing. When you can’t move, there isn’t much to do but think, and I don’t much want to think right now.

Page 1 to page 2

“My lady, I’m Dashti. I’m your new maid.”

“You can’t be, they’re all hiding from me because they don’t want-“ She considered me. “What is your name?”

“Dashti, my lady,” I told her again.

She hopped off her bed and grabbed my wrist, but tight. Her swiftness and force startled me. “Swear you’ll serve me, Dashti. Swear you won’t abandon me. Swear it!”

Page 15

Golden Lines

Mama saying…

“You have to know someone a thousand days before you can glimpse her soul."

“'Are you sad? Then just wait a minute.”

Questions

What was the mother of Lady Saren doing this whole time? Was she killed before the girls were locked up in the tower? Does Saren have any siblings?

What “group” did the two men who came to plunder the tower belong to?

Alternative Book Report

A story from Dashti’s childhood

Mama looks up when she hears me walking towards her. Her hair blows like tree branches in the wind across her checks and nose. I try to roll the sticks out of my arm into a pile near the fire but the nobs on the sticks leave white scratches on my arms and the pile looks scattered and meager. I smile when I look up at mama, knowing one day I will bring her the biggest, most sticks any one could carry.

I don’t look like mama. Mama looks like she belongs in the trees and the wind. My face is red; I have a red splotch across my face. I don’t belong in the world.

She smiles at me and opens her arms. Her red shall drapes across her arms, and I fall into the folds of her red shall. I belong to mama. The Ancestors were kind to give me a mama I belong to.

I like how she smells. Her clothes smell like dirt and her hair smells like sweet rice and smoke. I rub my red check against her and she cuddles me close. I am still little enough that I fit in her arms even when she is sitting. Through the waves of scruffy red I can hear the rhythm of her heart beat, and then she starts singing.

Her voice is warms my cold fingers. It starts a fire in my chest that flickers and licks up my bones and around my wrists and ankles until I it feels as if my fingers are candle wicks and I fell all a glow. She lets me stay in her lap while she stirs the soup and keeps singing. A few lumps and roots float to the top, and I count them out loud to myself.

I feel her ribs shiver through the red shall and I wrap my hands wrap around her trying to warm her like how her singing warms me. My arms are too short to make it all around her hunched over frame, but I don’t let go. She kisses my red check and I open my eyes, not realizing I had been squinting. She brushes my hair back with her fingers, and sings again.

She sings so slow I can watch the words her lips are making. I sing too. Only the words I know, only the notes I remember, but I can hear my voice and mama’s voice.

REL

the law of concecration. What do I want to give up? what should I give up? what am I willing to give up? What the heck is going on? Do I give up my will- that is all that I have to give, but that means my time, energy, emotions (really are emotions there too), thoughts, money, talents... all of it. It all feels like it is mine and I have to give it up- NO!! I want to give it up.
That is the difference the law requires me to want. To want to give all that I have to God. To want to give my will, because that is all that I have to give. Sometimes I wonder exactly what is my will. I mean if everything else was given to me by God, what is left. I can scratch off the easy earthly stuff: my car, bed, apartment, scholarship, food, clothing, shoes, ring, hair holders, my body, my nose, face, legs, arms, eyes, talents, does that include my thoughts? when do my passions cross into a gift from God and my own. When do my desires cross from "my will" to what God has given me? Is there a way to have the two become the same. Is it possible for my will and all that God gives me to be the same thing? Could God give me my will? That seems like an ironic sentence, and one that I do not fully understand.
Today I had a long day- just cause I wanted to. Nothing went wrong, nothing happened, I got made at someone for a worthless thing (what made it worthless), what is wroth fighting for. Above all what do I want to give up. I want to give my all to God, but today as I sit at this computer I realize that I have to learn how to give my will to God. I think that after my little internal blow up it will be harder than I thought. There will not be a magical momement when I give all to God, and let him take the reigns. Like everything I guess, I am going to have to learn how to give my will to God.
I will have to learn what is my will. More importantly I will have to learn God's will, and then I will have to learn what I want to give up to follow God's will. I will have to be patient with myself... I am not the fastest all the time, but the atonement will help. Christ is not only my Redemer but my Teacher and he will help teach me. I think that to keep the law of concerection I should strive to become more teachable.

EL ED Breadwinner book report

Joy Prior

Community Books: Breadwinner, by Deborah Ellis

Passages

“The people who are buried here. Do you think they’d mind us digging them up?”

Shauzia leaned on her board. “Depends on the type of people they were. If they were nasty, stingy people, they wouldn’t like it. If they were kind and generous people, they wouldn’t mind.”

“Would you mind?”

Shauzia looked at her, opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again and returned to her digging. Parvana didn’t ask her again.

Page 107

The Talib kept looking down at her. Then he put his hand inside his vest. Keeping his eyes on Parvana, he drew something out of his vest pocket…

He shook his head and held out his hand for the letter. Parvana folded it and gave it back to him. His hands trebled as he put the letter back in the envelope. She was a tear fall from his eye. It rolled down his cheek until it landed on his beard….

Parvana took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Up until then, she had seen Talibs only as men who beat women and arrested her father. Could they have feelings of sorrow, like other human beigns?

Page 77

Golden lines

Finally, she stuck her whole head under the tap, hoping the cold water would wash the images of what she had done all day out of her head.

Page 113

He was holding up a rope strung with four severed hands, like beads on a necklace.

Page 122

Questions

How likely is it that Parvana will see her family again? What would have happened to her family?

Will Parvana continue to be a boy? When will she start dressing/acting like a girl again?

EL ED picture book report

EL ED 340 Children’s Literature

Section 003

Terrell Alan Young

Joy Prior

Picture Book Project

I chose Mei Li written and illustrated by Thomas Handforth, the 1939 Caldecott winner, for the picture book project. This book implored the Caldecott requirement to provide a visual experience. The characters seem to dance across the folds and creases of the pages, as if they were alive, and the pictures were the ones telling the story- the words were simply attached for an adult’s convenience.

A picture book develops a story-line, concept, or theme. The illustrator in Mei Li uses remarkable details for the clothing and faces of particularly Mei Li and her family to emphasize the theme family relationships are enriched through community celebrations. This is particularly noticeable when Mei Li is at the celebrations. The backgrounds and crowds are composed of lines and smudges. In contrast the features on her brother’s clothing remain unbelievably realistic. The detailed facial expressions, clothing, and gestures allows the audience enjoys the same familiarity Mei Li has with her family.

Caldecott defines the audience for a picture book as a child, persons under the age of fifteen. The illustrations in Mei Li are children: girls in dress up, boys setting off fireworks, children playing with dancing toys, and children flying kites. Few things can captive children more than other children; even the adults in the pictures are holding and cuddling their children. One particular image seems misplaced, but supports the very theme of developing family relationships. It is of the orphan girl holding the gate open for Mei Li; the adults on this page are mostly blurred squiggles. Compared to the adults that surround Mei Li who are expressive these adults appear obtrusive. Her father, uncle, and even older brother look at Mei Li, hold her, and carry her. These images of Mei Li with her family create a sense that children are beloved members of a family. A theme intended for an audience of children.

The content of Thomas Handforth’s Mei Li is a little Chinese girl who dresses as her brother and explores the wonders at the New Year Fair in the nearby city. One of the major themes of the book is how traditions and celebrations bring families together. In my ink drawing I wanted to depict my own unforgettable memories of the Fourth of July. Trying to stay within the content of the Mei Li I drew my brother and me in matching barber quartet hats. Our mother bought them for us; we wore them until the Styrofoam broke.

The pictorial style of media Thomas Hadforth used lithographs (a method involving images scratched in wax and then inked onto a slab of stone so it can be transferred to a sheet of paper). This media creates a stamp like quality- thick lines flowing from curves into lines and shapes filled with blotches of sponged grey. To better suit my resources I used an ink brush pen to imitate the patterns and designs of Thomas Hadforth’s images.

Mei Li measures up to the Caldecott Criteria. Thomas Handforth most famous etcher and lithographer from his early 1900s collections is Mei Li because it is such an outstanding execution of lithography technique. The pictures depict the story so clearly that the words merely act as a frame; they enclose the characters. Particularly impressive is the detail of Mei Li and her family. Their faces and movements make them seem like characters filled with love and life- not simply images.

Lithography was an ideal style chose to support the theme of Mei Li. A single lithograph requires wax tablets, stone, paper, chizzes, and ink not to mention the multiple copies and recopies. Similarly, the family in Mei Li has siblings, uncles, and parents that interact together to produce a single memory. The highly invested process of the illustrations parallels to the theme of the picture book.

Because Thomas Handforth lived in China he was able to draw images from his own memory that enriched the illustrations. Without obscuring the innocence of the story the illustrations depicts the Chinese culture: the character’s hair to the slopping roof tops.

Mei Li is a presentation for children of children doing childish things: A picture of Mei Li talking to a bear, her being held upside down, flying a kite. They are all images a child sees at the fair- without the over crowded streets, the staggering drunks, and the glazed eyes of underfeed circus performers. The illustrations embody a child’s memories and ideals of a celebration.

Although, the illustrations in Mei Li are outstanding the text is a complementary component of the picture book. The plot is oddly romantic. A little girl dressed as a boy enjoys a celebration beyond any believable expectations. I believe that the characters are especially important: a loving uncle and playful older brother. The author and illustrator Thomas Handforth brings to life the daydreams and pleasures of a child celebrating culture and life with a loving family without depending on sound, film, or computer programs. I found it remarkably enjoyable to read the story, study the pictures, and immerse myself in my own childish memories.

I have included a table describing all the books that I chose to read for this project. These picture books impressed me with not only the artist talented but the consistency the artists use throughout the entire book. It was beyond my understanding when I realized that illustrators do not simply have to create ONE master piece but pages and pages of majestic art work that maintain the same themes, patterns, and designs.

EL ED Alternative book report Breadwinner

Alternative Book Report Project for Joy Prior number 25- three poems about the characters, place, or themes in the book.

They Burned His Blood

By: Joy Prior

Based on Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis

Burned his blood into the blank sheets of my brain,

Screaming makes rocks jump and pebbles topple down stairs,

Drops of rubies charred in Hell-

Dangling,

Vanes dripping from my chin,

Pooling, even earth does not want to drink this blood,

Rotting oil and fish left, my eyes water,

Left to burn in the sun,

They burned his blood,

Free Silk

By: Joy Prior

Based on Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis

The free silk is locked in the cupboard,

Tasting like honey, dancing sunbeams through the crakes in the closed shutters,

The free silk is locked in the cupboard,

Rippling like waves, bathing raindrops nursing the drought killed streets,

The free silk is locked in the cupboard,

Smelling like a breeze, rustling through the leaves on the hedges in the labyrinth of ideas,

The free silk is locked in the cupboard,

With my brother, father, sisters, mother, and me.

But I take it out, I put it on,

Am I free?

Hair

By: Joy Prior

Based on Breadwinner by Deborah Ellis

It will swish against my shoulder blades when I walk- again,

It will shimmer like hot coffee, swirling browns and blacks- again,

It will smell like cream and cinnamon- again,

Papa will kiss my skin with his callused fingers- again,

Papa will push open the wood panel door- again,

Papa will smell like dusty street venders- again,

My hair will grow back,

Papa will come back,

REG D&C 72; 78-80;82; 83

I have been thinking a lot about covenants lattly, because in the Reliefsociety broadcast the women said that we make many covenents. Not all of them are limited to the covevents in the temple. This has driven me to discover what covenents I have made. I would like... I am striving to prepair myself for the temple and to make the covenents there and marriage covenents. One of the best ways that I can do this is to honor the covenents that I have already made. Truthfully, I do not know what all of those covenents are.
The first one that I recognized was the covenants that I made at baptizum. I then listed off the covenants that the sister mentioned in her talk: morn with those that morn, comfort those who stand in need of comfort. While I was sitting in sacrament the talks were about the temple and the spirit of Elisha. One way that I can fullfill covenents taht I have already made is to visit the temple often and do baptizums for the dead. I can also do family indexing. Although, I have received many answers as to what a covenent is and how I can keep my covenents I feel like this idea of making and keeping covenents will be a life long lesson. The sections that I read tonight for Doctrine and Covenants helped me to realize how vital and divers the covenents I am and will make in life are.
One scripture that is continually playing in my mind now is that the Lord promises: when yea do what I say I am bound, but when yea do not what I say yea have no promise. This is the first time that i have read that scripture and realized that God is talking about covenents. He is talking about making a promise with divinity- the actual definition of a covenent. Then he clarifies there are unseperable promises associatied with keeping covenents. He also warns me that if I do not keep my covenets then he is not bound- those are the terms.
Another passage that touched my soul was about the law of conceration. There were several quotes from the Doctrine and Covenants manual that were about covenets and coveneting to love God, and his children. I have been thinking about these quotes, and I even highlighted several of them. It has made me wonder more about my own personal covenents. It has made me want to clarify with God what I promise to do. It was also a wake up call, becuase of how much truth and love he has given to me I am covenented to continue in faith. The warning that if I turn from the knowledge I know, and the covenents I have already made I am putting my eternal salvation in jepordy was powerfully humbling.

REG #7

This was about the prophet Joseph Smith, and the sacrifices that he made for the Church. I have been thinking a lot about honesty. That has been an overwhelming theme in my life this week. The devotional was on honesty, Marlena brought home an article about being honest in relationships, and then we watched My Best Friend's Wedding throughout the entire week I have been learning about honesty. I have been thinking about honesty. I have been hearing about honesty. It causes me to wonder about honesty in relationships. This has been an overpowering thought for a few days.
I tried to connect this thought back to the prophet Joseph Smith. He went through trials and tribulations, the mobs came, the crowds came, people betrayed him, and he remained faithful. This is what has caught my attention- remaining faithful. He was honest with himself. This is a vital relationship for me to be honest with. I need to be honest with myself. I was wondering if all of these promtings about honesty were to prepair me for some grand relationship; that was just around the corner. Now as I am thinking I believe that these promptings have been for me to realize that if I want to have an honest relationship with another soul for all eternity and share eternity through temple blessings I need to learn to be honest with myself.
What are somethings that I can start doing right now to change my thinking that will help me to be more honest with myself: honest thoughts about my physical appearance? honest with what I am thinking, honest with my ideas and inspiration, honest with homework, honestly work hard... this is a pointless list... it seems so ambigous and like there is no actual single thing that I can do?
I will use Joseph Smith as my example. What did he do in his life to be honest with himself. Well I can do all of the "basics" and then how can I change my thinking to become more honest with myself. I think... this may sound odd, but I believe that I should think more about others, and less about myself. For some reason I think that this will help me to become more honest because when I think more about others I can see clearer. I can see more truth and then apply that truth to my life instead of trying to dig in a cement pit in my own soul that will not lead me to know more truth about myself. I think that is a good solution. I should make other people more of my reality; learn about other's and make beautiful truths that can honestly grow inside of myself.