The BFG (Chapters 13-24)

"That's why they always put two blank pages at the back of the atlas. They're for new countries. You're meant to fill them in yourself."

-Young Pilot, Chapter 22, Capture!

I can't deny that the beginning half of The BFG moves at a rather slow pace. I tend to enjoy descriptions of characters and setting more than exciting plot, so I hadn't noticed until reading my group-mates reactions to the first 12 chapters of the story. However, the 2nd half picks up speed as Sophie and the BFG endeavor to stop the other giants from guzzling humans.

After learning that the giants are going to England (Sophie's home country) to eat schoolchildren, she convinces the BFG to help her. The BFG mixes a special dream to convince the Queen that the giants are (a) real and (b) a serious problem. In the dream, he tells the Queen that he and Sophie want to stop them. He even shows a little girl sitting on the Queen's bedroom windowsill. According to their plan, when the Queen wakes up, she'll find Sophie in her bedroom, and she'll have to believe that the whole dream was real!

As crazy as this plan is, it actually works. The Queen's maid, Mary, finds Sophie on the windowsill. Not only that, the dream matches with the events of the previous night as the giants snatched children from boarding schools around London. Sophie introduces the BFG to the Queen, who takes the whole situation remarkably well, considering she is meeting a 24-foot-tall giant.

The Queen has her butler, Mr. Tibbs, prepare a special breakfast for her guests. As you can imagine, incredible accommodations must be made to provide seating, utensils, and enough food for the BFG. After the BFG eats the entire contents of the royal kitchen, the Queen calls leaders from various countries to learn that similar events are happening all over the world. She decides that her entire Army and Air Force must be deployed to capture the giants.

Sophie, the BFG, the Head of the Army, and the Head of the Air Force take off for Giant Country with a fleet of "bellypoppers" (helicopters) to catch the giants!

Pacing

The pacing in the second half is a little quicker than the first half, especially while our heroes are trying to capture the giants. However, I would not use this book as a model text for good pacing. Roald Dahl slows down much of his story-telling to provide excessively in-depth descriptions. Some readers may find themselves bored by the many pages devoted to executing a royal breakfast or traveling to and from Giant Country. 

Students may need assistance to pick out the important plot points in the story. You could have students use StoryboardThat to make a visual representation of how the events unfolded. They would also have to use the descriptive language to find details to include in their pictures. 

These are some sample storyboard squares 

for the beginning of The BFG.

To see the entire storyboard, click here.
(Spoiler warning!)

Themes

There are many themes in this story about friendship, not judging people by their appearance, believing in yourself, and making morally right choices. I especially loved the part where the BFG is leading the helicopters to Giant Country. The military men are afraid of this unknown land that they can't find in their atlases. Yet, the young, adventurous pilot assures them that discovering new places is the very purpose of those blank pages at the end of the book. I want my students to know that it's okay to go outside of their comfort zones. They never know what wondrous things are lurking at the edge of their imagination! 

Sources

Dahl, R. & Blake, Q. (1982). The BFG. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Viking Penguin.

Murphy, M. (2019, January 19). The BFG storyboard. Retrieved from https://www.storyboardthat.com/storyboards/morganmurphy92431/the-bfg-storyboard.

Laundry - Say It Loud!

Please enjoy my spoken word poem about my least favorite chore - folding laundry!

The bulging laundry basket glares up at me. In the morning, I think: “Today is the day. These clothes will find their place, tucked neatly in my drawers.” But for now, they sleep in their washing machine prison. It's afternoon now. I'm home and free from obligation. I put away dishes and wipe down the counter, while cries of mismatched socks echo from the laundry room. Evening has come. Dinner is finished, and a list of chores hangs, dauntingly, on the fridge. Floors swept? Check Shelves dusted? Check Cat fed? Check I go to rest my weary head upon soft, silky pillows. But what is this? The pile of clothes has grown legs and leaped onto my mattress. The battle rages as I thrust a cotton behemoth from atop my restful corner. Oh how I hate to fold laundry. A tedious task that drains my motivation. I'll procrastinate this job until I drown under mounds of pants and shirts and plaid underwear. It's morning again. I toss my pajamas, worn for the fourth night this week, onto the growing mass in my room. I think to myself: “Today is the day...” as I fish a clean shirt out of the dryer.

The BFG (Chapters 1-12)

"The flashing black eyes were fixed on Sophie's bed. The next moment, a huge hand with pale fingers came snaking in through the window. This was followed by an arm, an arm as thick as a tree-trunk, and the arm, the hand, the fingers were reaching out across the room towards Sophie's bed."

- Chapter 3, The Snatch

Having read The BFG by Roald Dahl many times in my youth, I was very excited to see it on our reading list for this course. In the beginning, we meet Sophie - a young girl who lives in a strictly-run orphanage. One night, while she can't fall asleep, she sees a giant peering into the windows on her street and blowing what looks like a trumpet onto the sleeping inhabitants within. The giant hears her watching him and snatches her from her bed.

When they arrive back in the giant's cave, Sophie is relieved to learn that he doesn't want to eat her. In fact, he's the Big Friendly Giant (hence, the BFG)! He stole her away because he's afraid what will happen if humans find out that giants exist. 

The BFG shows Sophie the other giants outside his cave and describes the kinds of humans they all like to eat (depending on how the giant is feeling and his personal tastes). Sophie agrees to stay in the cave to avoid being eaten herself. She tells the BFG about her life in the orphanage and how she lost her parents when she was very young. He reveals that the trumpet she saw is actual a tool he uses to take away children's bad dreams and give them good ones instead.  

Sophie and the BFG are an unlikely duo, but I loved seeing their friendship blossom in this first half of the story. The BFG opens Sophie up to a whole world of things in which she didn't previously believe, while she helps him overcome his insecurities. I look forward to reading about their adventures in the second half!

Language

The BFG's silly way of speaking presents an interesting opportunity for students to practice using context clues to figure out words. The BFG himself says: 

“Words...is oh such a twitch-tickling problem to me all my life. So you must simply try to be patient and stop squibbling. As I am telling you before, I know exactly what words I am wanting to say, but somehow or other they is always getting squiff-squiddled around" (Chapter 8).

Most people can relate to the frustration of having our words come out all "squiff-squiddled around." As students encounter strange and made-up words in this book, they will need to think about the context of the words to understand their meaning. Dahl loved silly words so much that there's even an Oxford Roald Dahl Dictionary (available here).  I wouldn't want my students to rely on this dictionary too often, but it might be a fun activity to compare our understanding with the dictionary definitions. 

Reader's Theatre

Dahl is a master at creating vivid and intriguing situations for his characters. Throughout the story, I had a movie running in my head, aided by Quentin Blake's illustrations. I could feel Sophie's terror as she was nearly eaten by the Bloodbottler, as well as her curiosity while the BFG introduced her to snozzcumbers, frobscottle, whizzpoppers, and other peculiarities of the giants' world.

One way to get students to engage with these descriptions and dialogue is through reader's theatre. I've included the first page of an adaptation I found online (with the link for the whole script below). This one is a little bit long, so you could break it up to have groups of students take a couple pages then perform the whole thing together. Even better, you could use this as a model to get students to write their own scripts for other scenes in the book. I love reader's theatre because it encourages students to have fun with their reading and practice using good expression. 

Click here to read the whole script

Sources

Dahl, R., & Blake, Q. (1982). The BFG. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Viking Penguin.

NWT Literacy Council. (n.d.). Readers theatre scripts. Retrieved from https://www.nwtliteracy.ca/sites/default/files/resources/readers_theatre.pdf

Writing Video - Vivid Verbs

I hope you enjoy my video about vivid verbs!

How to Steal a Dog (Chapters 12-21)

"Sometimes, the more you stir it, the worse it stinks."

-Mookie (Chapter 16)

In the second half of How to Steal a Dog, Georgina encounters difficulties in her plan to steal a dog and collect a reward from his supposedly rich owner. Guilt begins to creep in as she tries to take care of Willy while keeping him tied up behind an old abandoned house. She gains two new acquaintances: Mookie - a homeless man who shares his wisdom in the form of various life mottos and Carmella - Willy's owner who is not actually wealthy but is distraught over losing her dog. Georgina must decided whether or not to do the right thing and and return the dog even without the reward money. 

The character of Mookie provides an interesting viewpoint for the reader. Like us, he is looking at Georgina's actions from an outsider's perspective. Unlike us, he is able to assist her in making the right decisions. (Spoiler below!)

In the end, we learn that Mookie knew all along that Georgina had stolen Willy. Yet, he still gives her the freedom to make the right choice on her own. As he leaves, he tells her: "Sometimes the trail you leave behind you is more important than the path ahead of you." This motto provides a great opportunity to talk to students about figurative language. The trail left behind is not just a physical path, but rather the consequences of our actions.

As we read through the story, I would continue to reflect with students on our questions and predictions. At the end, there may be many questions for which we don't have clear answers. For example, we find out that there aren't any signs posted because Carmella isn't wealthy enough to offer any reward money. However, would it have been right for Georgina to steal the dog if Carmella were rich? What evidence do we have that she actually learned anything or grew as a person? These questions require higher cognition that just finding literal answers in the text.

This book was a very enjoyable read! The story was heartfelt, well paced, and had some good messages for young readers. Don't steal a dog!

Sources

O'Connor, B. (2007). How to steal a dog: A novel. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

How to Steal a Dog (Chapters 1-11)

"Half of me was thinking, Georgina, you're in a bad fix and you got to do whatever it takes to get yourself out of it." 

- Georgina (Chapter 2)

Barbara O'Connor's How to Steal a Dog starts out with a heart-wrenching portrayal of a young girl who lives in a car with her mom and younger brother. The main character, Georgina, struggles with being isolated from her peers, only one of whom knows about her family's situation. Her brother, Toby, isn't very good at hiding his emotions, frequently acting like a crybaby according to Georgina. Her mother is drowning under the stress of working two jobs while trying to find a place to live and raising two children on her own. In order to earn money for a new house/apartment, Georgina concocts a plan to steal a dog and collect the reward money.

O'Connor does a great job of introducing her characters and the main problem. The story immediately drew me in as I wanted to know what would happen and what problems Georgina would encounter in her quest to steal a dog. Despite the distressing content, there are moments of humor and lightheartedness such as Georgina writing her list of steps for stealing a dog or her annoyance with Toby, the typically obnoxious little sibling.

I think this would be a great read-aloud book. I'd want to stop frequently (maybe after every chapter or even in the middle of some) to discuss with my students. We could practice making predictions, thinking about the perspectives of different characters, and see how those perspectives change over the story. An interesting writing assignment would be to rewrite a scene from the viewpoint of a different character - even how Willy feels as he's being taken away from his home!

While Georgina is desperate to feel "normal," the truth is that there is no real "normal" home situation. All students come from unique backgrounds, even those with two parents and a white picket fence in front of their house. There are multiple parts in the story that could spark discussions about consequences and empathy.

Author's Perspective

I found the following video on the Scholastic website that features an interview with Barbara O'Connor. 

This would also be interesting to share with students since she talks about her writing (and rewriting) process. I love how she says:

"Never be afraid to write something that you think is not very good. Go ahead and get it on the paper because you can fix it, but you can't fix what you haven't written."

I Wonder...

After reading the first eleven chapters, I have lots of questions about what's going to happen. Some of the things I wonder are:

• Is Georgina going to get caught?
• Toby doesn't seem very cunning. Will he ruin her plan?
• How does Willy feel?
• Why aren't there any reward signs?
• Since there has been one unanticipated problem already (how to feed Willy), what other obstacles are going to pop up?
• What role will Mr. White play in the rest of the story?
• What lessons will Georgina learn? Will she learn to use her powers for good and not evil??

Sources

O'Connor, B. (2007). How to steal a dog: A novel. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

Scholastic Inc. (n.d.). How to steal a dog book trailer. Retrieved from 
https://www.scholastic.com/teachers/videos/teaching-content/how-steal-dog-book-trailer/