Monday
Nov192007
Back To Our Normal Programming - Middle School Book Group
Monday, November 19, 2007 at 01:38PM
The two days of school this week are ticking away fast in anticipation of Thanksgiving.
I had my Middle School Book Group this morning. The kids devoured my famous Banana Muffins -- we had left over bananas going brown from last week, so I made muffins to practice and polish up my kitchen skills in preparation for holiday cooking and baking -- I'm in the mood!
We started discussion on THE WHIPPING BOY by Sid Fleischman, which is a fable and a reading challenge with vocabulary and language. The kids seem to enjoy the concept of another kid taking the punishment for princely misdeeds. (The Prince cannot be punished, so he has a whipping boy to take the whacks, which was an actual practice in some parts of the world at times in history. The author notes: "Some royal households of past centuries did keep whipping boys to suffer the punishments due a misbehaving prince. History is alive with lunacies and injustices.")
The kids liked the idea until they realized that whipping boys were always "paupers" or "commoners" and, most likely, if there was any whipping going on, it would be commoners like us suffering for the well-to-do, which is an interesting metaphor for current events and politics on a much larger scale...but we didn't go there. I will talk more about THE WHIPPING BOY, with reading & discussion guides on Rebel Reviews after we finish the book next week.
I had my Middle School Book Group this morning. The kids devoured my famous Banana Muffins -- we had left over bananas going brown from last week, so I made muffins to practice and polish up my kitchen skills in preparation for holiday cooking and baking -- I'm in the mood!
We started discussion on THE WHIPPING BOY by Sid Fleischman, which is a fable and a reading challenge with vocabulary and language. The kids seem to enjoy the concept of another kid taking the punishment for princely misdeeds. (The Prince cannot be punished, so he has a whipping boy to take the whacks, which was an actual practice in some parts of the world at times in history. The author notes: "Some royal households of past centuries did keep whipping boys to suffer the punishments due a misbehaving prince. History is alive with lunacies and injustices.")
The kids liked the idea until they realized that whipping boys were always "paupers" or "commoners" and, most likely, if there was any whipping going on, it would be commoners like us suffering for the well-to-do, which is an interesting metaphor for current events and politics on a much larger scale...but we didn't go there. I will talk more about THE WHIPPING BOY, with reading & discussion guides on Rebel Reviews after we finish the book next week.
Reader Comments