Song Yet Sung
Song Yet Sung
was chosen for the One Maryland, One Book program in 2009. Bestselling
author James McBride illustrates the pre-Civil War era in Maryland’s Easter
Shore and the unsettling fight for freedom. The novel provides insight
into the tormented life of a slave, the great price for freedom and humanity.
The students who chose to write on James McBride’s Song Yet Sung
wrote on themes of freedom and imprisonment. The essays focused on each
students own personal view on the issue of slavery. As expected, each
student agreed slavery to be unjust.
One participant wrote
that if he had personally experienced slavery, “I would escape because
it is wrong to own someone other than yourself and that I wanted to help
others that wanted freedom.”
The Underneath
In Kathi Appelt’s
The Underneath is children’s book and Newberry Honor Book. The
plotline is simple and easily grasped children. The novel is set between
Louisiana and Texas where a forgotten and neglected cat and mistreated
dog form an unlikely relationship and share a home underneath an old,
run-down house.
Participants wrote on the idea of loneliness versus being alone. One student,
Isabelle wrote, “This is loneliness, a bitter and cruel throbbing of the
heart and soul for adoration and love.” The students who were involved
in writing on the themes found in The Underneath were successful at acknowledging
the main idea but failed to create a well-written and thorough analysis
of the book and following the directions.
A student wrote, “To be alone means that at a certain moment, you are by yourself, but with the knowledge that someone somewhere cares for you. To be lonely is to have no one by you side, all love and trust is gone; like losing someone close to you.”