I thought that since we haven't had a chance to talk about the first 10 chapters of Briar Rose, I'd post about that. First of all, I love this book! I can't put it down, I think it's so intriguing that it's a modern-day sleeping beauty. The way that the chapters are split up every other chapter to be past and present really enables you to get so much more involved in the story.
I think that Becca being the youngest and the most like her grandmother allows her to relate the most to her, giving her more incent to find out what Gemma's life was really all about. In a way, I think she almost feels obligated because she doesn't want her grandma's life to be a mystery. Becca sees a lot of herself in her grandmother and in order to understand her own life, she must figure out Gemma's first.Even before Gemma passes away in chapter two, she makes Becca promise to find her "castle." She knows, and probably always has known that Becca is the only one to continue the stories and in a way to re-live Gemma's life. If Gemma had told the truth about her life from the get-go I don't think it would've went over too well. But by telling it as a fairy-tale, it's more accepted.
That's basically what I got so far from the book. I'm very excited to read the rest of it and see how the story unravels.
3 comments:
I agree that Becca feels an obligation to find out about Gemma's past because they have a stronger bond than anyone else did with Gemma. I feel like Becca and Gemma had a strong bond not just because they are alike, but because growing up, Becca's sisters were much older than she and were always making fun of her and leaving her out. I think that Gemma had a soft spot for Becca since she was never close with her sisters, and so she maybe favored her a bit more because of it.
I also like how the author wrote every other chapter, one being Gemma telling the story in the past, and one being the present day. This style kept me in the moment and made me feel like I was part of the story and emphasize for Gemma and her past.
The second half of this book was very intense, as far as the talk of the concentration camps and what went on at "Kulmhof". I googled Kulmhof and some of the other concentration camps after I finished the book and found that they were all real and the author seemed to have done her research when incorporating the camps and their locations and various facts. I found that Kulmhof did indeed house one of the worst extermination camps and no woman has been known to have come out alive. Reading Briar Rose and then reading about the camps makes the story seem so real even though it is fiction. This story was very sad and while I enjoyed the book, I don't think I would ever read it again.
I'm not sure how this book relates to children's literature, other than it is loosely based on Sleeping Beauty. I suppose if teens are considered children then I could see it, but I would never read this book to someone under the age of 13. Hopefully we talk about this in class so I'll understand why we read this book!
At first, I must say that i was intrigued by the book, but as the story goes on, I become less thrilled by the moment. To me, it is obvious what gemma was trying to relate to the family, and it becomes irriatating that Becca hasnt figured it out yet. When you tie in the fact that this is a holocaust story, its hard to miss the meaning behind "seepin boot". The "mist" that befell all the people of the kingdom clearly is just that, only the mist is toxic, as in concentration camps. The same goes for the "sleeping" in the story. "Sleeping" is a more pleasant way of saying resting in peace, which we all know means death. The clues as to the meaning behind Gemmas story are a little too obvious for me, but if I were in a different age group I might still thoroughly enjoy the book. In fact, I know that my ten year old sister is very interested in the history of the world, both good and bad, and I believe that she would appreciate this book for the way it tells an important part of history without reading a text book.
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