The Theme of Shepherd's Granddaughter Story

What we can learn from a young Palestinian girl? Do you think the conflicts between Muslims and Jewish will stop? 

The wars and conflicts between Muslims and Israels are still exist and is continuing. Shepherd's Granddaughter story depict the conflicts between Muslims and Jewish for having a land. Amani is six-year-old girl who experience with her family the Jewish occupation. She grows up in community who suffers from fear, need, and abuse. The land that  raised Amani is belong to her ancestors for thousands years. Therefore, Amani follows her beloved grandfather footsteps to become a shepherd. She decides to take care of her land, mountain, and house despite the tradition of her family that prevent the girl to become a shepherd.
Amani's family and her flock are threatening to evacuate the land and mountain by settlements. The settlements force her family to leave home and land in order to build a highway. She sees the land of her ancestors is stolen from her family; therefore, she fights to recover her grandfather's land.

The major theme in this story is around the Middle East conflicts, the debate between Palestinians and Israelis for lands. Also the conflicts are between the old lifestyle of Amani’s family and the modern society of new settlers. In addition, the role of women in eastern society shows the powerful of women achievements in producing food and caring family needs along the years. Amani is a sample of brave woman who works hard to continue grazing her sheep in grandfather's mountain after her grandfather died. She keeps her grandfather place "The Camels’ Hump" as secret of the paradise in order to keeps her sheep safe and alive. The message is also revealing about the violence that threatening children in some communities which is affecting their education, the ways of their life, and their loyalty toward home land. The consequences of occupation are leading to break the sense of home safety and destroy the relationship among families.

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Reading Stories to Children

Why Parents have to Read Stories to Children

Do you think children are listening to the stories while their parents are reading? Yes, I believe stories play an important role in the growth and development of children. Parents should read stories to their children during the bedtime or other time to make children know and understand new things such as names of animals, places, new characters, and objects. Children become imitating characters act, appearance, actions or sounds. Stories also good for children to understand the books are useful source of information and that good reading skills are necessary for their future success. Reading is helpful for children, it improves their language and discover new words and vocabularies. Starting with baby books, the pictures make the child has desire for watching and listening to children stories. 

Their imagination become has new ideas about fantastic world around them. It makes their mind and imagination growing fast. In addition, it promotes good communication and gives good chance for parents to have an emotional time with their kids. It brings joyful and an interested time for children especial when they hear beautiful stories from their parents. It also develops children creativity in use their imagination for drawing characters' pictures. The stories stays in mind along the years and passes along generations.

Story Elements

What are the Roles of Story Elements?

A story has basic six elements that divide the story to multiple parts. These components are Character(s), theme, plot, setting, conflict, and narrator. These elements make the story running smoothly and efficiently. It keeps the reader on follow and expects what the story is revolves around. The elements of the story make the reader analyze the story despite it's children story or an adult story. It's illustrate who is the protagonist, antagonist, where and when the story takes place, and what the conflicts are. When the readers know these details, the story becomes simple and easy understanding to them. The author of the story uses these elements to guide readers to understand plots and imply theme that summarize the message of the story. In Children books, the author tries to put necessary and clear elements to make children understand the story obviously and attach pictures to illustrate these elements through fantasy images and graphics especially for babies.

Children Books

What We Can Learn From Children Books

Reading children books and watching their movies make the relationship between adults and children close and clear. By creating children book, the author begins collecting information about children colors, pictures and speech. The writer thinks about children age and mind in order to organize appropriate content that fit their understanding. These thoughts are similar to adult stories as well because the writer thinks and choose the readers age and their reaction to the story.

By reading children literature stories for example, “The Shepherd's Granddaughter” and “A New Life” in Literature class, adults are learning the world of children. Each person is evaluating the elements of the story by different points of views for instance, places, cultures, diverse nationalities,  and communities . The two protagonists Khadija and Amani are passing through difficult situation in their early life. They both suffer from little protection in their countries Pakistan and Palestine. Khadija left Pakistan to start new life in Canada, and Amani lost her ancestors land due to Jewish occupation. In spite of their suffering in the stories, they both remain powerful and hopeful for better change. Khadija adapted to Canada lifestyle and Amani remained strong to keep her family land. These lessons from children experience are teaching adults to follow the right path that achieve self-satisfy and bring inner safety as well.

Is A New Life Story Similar to Other Story?

 A New Life Story

Every person has a life story. The story of Khadija is similar to my life story. Before three years when my family and I decided to travel from my country Iraq and come to Canada, the challenges of new land began. The life was uneasy regardless of have many relatives in Canada. The difficulties of new language and new culture affected my ability to adapt new culture quickly. First, I joined school to improve my English. Then I got a part time job in Community Center as helper for new refugees. 

After I became speak English well and my communication skills has improved in class, I began have friends in school and work. These changes have influenced my life, it's encouraged me to work and study hard to find a better job. Therefore, I decided to continue studying in order have bright future and comfortable lifestyle.

In A New Life story, Khadija's family decided to move to new land Canada and leave Pakistan in order to start new life, which was same my goal and dream. Khadija faced the difficult of new language in school; she exposed to ridicule students for her different appearance. Therefore, she changed her appearance by taking shower every day in order to have better shape. She started to looks for assistance from her teacher for gaining communication improvement with students. She took the tutorial lessons for learning English fast.  
Khadija and I worked hard for adapt Canada's lifestyle and in return take the advantages of developed education in schools. We both learned the importance of achieve goals and continue learning and studying. 

A New Life story by Rukhsana Khan is very interesting and touching. It reveals children life in new land and the difficulties of immigrants life. It negotiates Khadija's life in the past and the lifestyle of Canada. On the other hand, my own story depicted the difficulties of new citizen in country with new English language and new people.  

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Group work in Children’s Literature

Group work in Children’s Literature Course

Children’s Literature is an important component that promotes a variety of children stories, movies, and books. This course provides a lot of opportunities to the students in acquire a valuable knowledge about children world. In this course, we are sharing group assignments about children stories such as “A new Life” and “The Shepherd Granddaughter”; these

assignments are helping build good communication among students and work as group efficiently. In addition, reading children books for example, “How Smudge Came” and “The Orphan Boy” is making the students participate in class discussion and leave feedback for personal opinions. Group work is also helping for raise the spirit of cooperation among students, it gives opportunity to all student to share their opinions about specific topic in order to present good result.  The teachers always ask student to work as group to develop communication skills which is contribute student success, and overall class success.

The character in the Children’s Literature

Characters in the Story

The characters in stories consider an important part in the Children’s literature. They can be the author, narrator, object, or other famous personality. The main character is acting along the story and many conflicts are affecting upon the roles within the plots. The character can be

static or dynamic along the story. The changes in the story make the reader wait for critical moments and feel enthusiastic to know what is happen later for the character. The role of character in children stories affects the children in many aspects for example, children become wearing the character’s appearance, copping attitude, and imitate speech. So it’s important to the writer to choose appropriate appearance and follow good thoughts. However, make the children imitate actions and repeat bad or good traits. Characters pass through multiple roles and events; therefore, readers evaluate the characters upon their achievements and development. Character enters world of challenges along the story and many events influence the major theme and developments.