쑥쑥몰
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10년 넘게 아이들과 영어책을 읽으며 가장 감동을 받았던 책이다.
서울에서 태어나 시골생활의 막연한 동경을 가지고 있던 나에게 내가 마치 시골 어느 마을의
소녀가 되어 살아가고 있다는 착각으로 이 책을 읽었다.이 책을 손에 들면 난 '펀'이라는 어린
소녀가 되곤 했다.난 동물을 싫어해서 어려서 강아지만 보아도 울었다고 한다,지금도 동물과는
친하지 않다.그러나 이 책을 통하여 동물과 사람 사이에도 우정과 사랑을 만들 수 있구나...라는
생각을 하였다.
마음이 복잡하고 세상사가 어지럽다고 생각될 때, 이 책을 펼치면 이상하게 마음이 고요하고 편해진다.
어른을 위한 동화가 아닌가? 하는 생각도 몇 번 해본다.우리의 인생사에서 만나는 사람들의 모습을
동물과 곤충을 통하여 자연스럽게 만날 수 있다.템플턴 같은 사람도 우리 주위에 있다...
'펀'처럼 아무런 댓가없이 누군가에게 아름다운 돌봄과 사랑을 베풀 수 있을까...
작은 것이 얼마나 소중한 것이지...이 세상에 버릴 것이 있는지....
내게는 일종의 중독성이 있는 책이기도 하다.10번 이상 읽어도 읽을 때 마다 새롭다.
로알드 달의 이야기 처럼 자극적인 재미보다는 글의 행간에서 인생을 느끼게 해준다.
아이들은 생각보다 감동을 느끼지 못하는 것이 요즘 아이들이 상상할 수 없는 세계이기 때문일까...
문장도 이야기처럼 순하고 잔잔하다.평범한 어휘들로 글을 써서 원서지만 특별히 막히지도 않는다.
책을 읽으며 문장의 편한함에 늘 감탄했는데 그의 글이 글쓰기의 기본서처럼 일컬어진다는 사실에
그 이유를 알 수 있었다.
일상의 일 때문에 마음이 편하지 않을 때 읽으면 마음의 평화를 얻는 책이 있다.
초원의 집 이라고 불리는 'The Little House Books'의 시리즈들.....
갈 수는 없지만 자연속에 살고 싶은 마음이 간절한 것일까....
우리 둘째는 이 책을 좋아한다.시리즈를 모두 읽었고 아끼는 책이다.
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Review by amazon.com
This book that's brought tears and laughter to so many generations is a book that we tend to take for granted. It got no Newbery Award to put it along side the giants of children's literature: the award for 1953 went to a book called Secret of the Andes. Charlotte's Web was an also ran. The good news is that Charlotte's Web became a classic anyway.
I will admit that the book sat unread on my bookshelf for many weeks when it first came to my attention. I was teaching second grade and had two young daughters at home at the time. An aunt had given me a copy with warm recommendations. However, the cover put me off. A vulnerable little girl holds a pig. You can barely see the spider dangling over the head of a sheep. I confess that I dread reading most animal books. I know, when I see a child clutching an appealing animal on the cover of a novel for young people, that the author is going to make me love that animal and then it's going to die or be mistreated or at least be in dreadful danger. I was sure that pig was going to be killed, and so I kept opting for another book for reading aloud. Finally, I started the book, hanging on even when Wilbur's life is threatened in the first line. Of course I went on. Of course I read it to my own children and to the children at school and to many, many children since then. What a perfect book it is!
Look how Charlotte's Web has affected us. Spiders all over America probably don't realize how often their lives have been spared because the person who spies one in the house has read Charlotte's Web. No such reader has ever looked at a young pig without thinking of Wilbur. Surely we've looked at spider webs hoping to spot some trace of a word in its intricacies. And, while most of us still fail to appreciate rats, we do smile at the gluttonous but ultimately heroic Templeton. I defy anyone to read the book without shedding tears over Charlotte's death, the account of which ends with one of the saddest lines in literature "No one was with her when she died."
If there's another book in the field that has handled the inevitability of the cycle of life with more skill and wisdom, I don't know it. At the same time White pokes gentle fun at advertising and human nature while he celebrates the simplicities of farm life.
One more beauty of the work is that it can be understood on so many levels. Children much younger than eight may be too young to deal with the death of a favorite character, but kids from that age up can usually handle it. It takes some maturity and acuity to see through the action to deeper meanings and it is unfortunate if children, having heard the book in the early grades, are not encouraged to approach it again in fifth or sixth grade. Adults, of course, can get even more meaning.
As for activities for the classroom before, during and after reading Charlotte's Web, be very, very careful. Any work of literature for children can sink if it is overworked or trivialized with barely relevant skills work, and a thing of intricate beauty like Charlotte's Web is particularly vulnerable. Any of the suggested activities below should be approached with caution and never continued until destruction of the literature or interest sets in.
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