middle school literature
Edgar Allan Poe’s Point of View
Three (Classic) Stories by Edgar Allan Poe
Adding Value - Illustrations in Literature
But it was never all about aesthetic value. Naturally, not one of them thought their rides looked the worse for it after customization was complete. But they never thought their property had lost tangible value, either. Or had lost either kind of value even during the process of customization; many rides sporting primer paint dotted American streets during the 50’s and 60’s. Their owners were proudly in the process of adding value, aesthetic and tangible, having no doubts whatsoever about the aesthetic...
Hawthorne Illustrated
There are only a few reviewers whose opinions wholesale book purchasers rely upon, and those few reviewers focus on books from a few, large, corporate publishing houses. Small publishers call it the tyranny of the few!
Nevertheless, Adapted Classics always give it a try. Our attitude is - hey, we publish renowned English-language authors. Why wouldn’t a reviewer want to plug these guys...
Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote lots of good stories
Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote lots of good tales, and quite a few of them were creepy, no doubt. But as with Jackson’s The Lottery, he composed them in...
Short Stories for Middle School
So why do some teachers bypass using this teaching tool in the classroom? Maybe because they believe the shortness inherent in the form doesn’t allow enough time for plot...
Promoting Illustrated Literature for Middle School
Seriously, this debate about the content of books for kids who are leaving childhood highlights an anti-picture attitude that some folks have, an attitude that annoys not only me but important people as well. Me has a bias. I am a book...
Edgar Allan Poe Humor for Middle School
If middle school students were to analyze almost any Poe story, even his tales of terror, they would likely find some humor either simmering along the surface or inserted between the lines. A Poe humor search would make a good middle school homework assignment. Then a great classroom discussion likely would follow. I’d bet that discussion would be fun for students and teachers alike.
Edgar Allan Poe’s Thou Art the Man, a detective story on the surface, features...
Literature for Middle School Students
This opinion strongly persuades, at least to a point. Everyone wants middle school students to enjoy reading so that they...
Hawthorne Stories for Middle School
Speaking of wells, Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment leads the combined three stories we are talking about. I suppose underground spring would be a more accurate term than well when describing the central feature of...
Illustrated Books Cover Middle-School Readers
If parents were to bring home a book they bought for their middle-school reader after they went and spent their money on the book because the outside cover sold them on the inside content, lets hope their middle-school reader also likes the cover, and then maybe they might also enjoy the content, which they likely will if the imagery on the cover is literally incorporated into...
Eve and Adam - Female Objectification
![Eve and Adam - Female Objectification Eve and Adam - Female Objectification](images/adaptedclassics/cache/images/adaptedclassics/proportion/P19%20copy_w140_h140/P19%20copy_06121009.png)
When it comes to female objectification, Eve and Adam have nothin’ to offer those who want to know why males objectify females. Mark Twain didn’t directly delve into that topic when he wrote his creation stories. But he did recreate the first heterosexual couple, and he did exaggerate certain gender-specific tendencies in each character. Readers in his day would have recognized these masculine and feminine tendencies as legitimate.
After all, Mark Twain was anything but stupid. He built his humor on the bedrock of exaggeration and understatement. And you know he understood how to use those comic devices! He knew it wouldn’t be funny for him to assign, and then exaggerate or understate, gender-related tendencies that didn’t mesh with what his readers had experienced in real life. But he did not choose to directly deal with the matter of female objectification, a male tendency the readers of his day would also have recognized as legitimate. He didn't deal with it, but he certainly could have. Female objectification is not a brand new phenomena. It has been around for far too long.
Fans of Adam Redux - Reconsidering Eve
Apologies first. Eve was concerned for reckless Adam’s safety. She pressured him to stop going over a waterfall. Like Eve, we are non-violent. So we retract our suggestion that Fans of Adam go over a waterfall in a barrel like Adam did. As far as we are concerned, jumping in a lake is usually safe, so we will stick with that suggestion. Go jump in the lake.
As for our insult, were you to object, you would probably be referring to the ‘big baby’ charge we leveled adaptedclassics.comst you. But if...
Midwest Book Review Recommends "Eve and Adam”
That someone finally commented on the book pleases us. However, the reviewer disappointed us by quoting Adam's downer observation about death as the example of Twain’s funny, positive story. The short excerpt the reviewer used does not reflect the tone of the story at...
Middle-Grade vs. Middle-School - A Difference in Terms
According to book trade companies that publish fiction, certain words and content topics define the two categories. Fiction books for ‘middle-grade’ readers shouldn’t contain profanity, graphic violence, or sexuality. All of this type of content would be allowable...
Mark Twain’s Eve and Adam - Gender Stereotypes?
When Mark Twain developed the characters Eve and Adam in his creation stories, did he rely upon and perpetuate gender stereotypes? Although most of the people who have read and reviewed “Eve’s Diary” like the story, some readers found fault with Twain’s portrayal of Eve, especially after she began taking an interest in Adam. Twain took on a daunting task when he decided to fictionalize the story of creation. He must have known his characterizations of Eve and Adam, the very first human creatures, would be seen as archetypes for all succeeding generations of both genders of humans. Confidants of Twain knew he wrote “Eve’s Diary” as a eulogy to his beloved wife Olivia. Consequently, Twain did not intentionally slight Eve in any way, and definitely not as a gender stereotype, when he developed her character.
View/download free pdf version of the Diaries of Eve & Adam (scaled for mobile & ipad devices)