"The Music of Dolphins"

The Music of Dolphins
Written by: Karen Hesse
Cover illustrations by: Greg Harlin
Published in 1996 by Scholastic, Inc. in NY
Genre: Science Fiction?
Age: Grades 3-5

Summary: A teenage girl covered in barnacles and salt is found on an uninhabited island off the coast of Florida. She is placed in the care of two research doctors who help her regain her knowledge of the human world and add to what little knowledge she originally possessed. This book details her struggle to recognize her humanity in a world she barely remembers anything about. She does not understand the television and locked doors of this world, yet she is faced with those elements of our culture regularly. Mila befriends another girl who was rescued from a condition similar to hers, named Shay. Sadly, Shay never seems to make the progress Mila does, despite all the assistance Mila provides for her. (Mila's success is also relative to interpretation.)

Response: The first thing readers will notice upon seeing this book is the text. The first thirteen chapters and the last ten chapters have very large print. This font represents the gap between her dolphin world and her human world. Everything in the middle has a regular-sized font, which represents things that happen to her in the human world. Sections in the book written in italics detail about her life with the dolphins and provide factual information about the lives of these creatures. This method of having text with a visual interpretations of an underlying meaning is very powerful. I believe it is something that teachers will certainly have to point out to heir students and discuss it with them for them to have a solid understanding of why the author may have written this way.

One of the most curious characters in this work, aside form Mila and Shay, is Doctor Beck's son Justin. He is somewhat similar to the two girls because he has come to accept that his mother will never find him as interesting as her clients, and so he has become introverted and less a part of the world in which he lives.

Mila is very passionate about music. Perhaps this is because she has lived with the ecolocational sounds of dolphins for the majority of her life and has become very in-tune with musical sounds. She is enthralled with Mozart and the fact that one day she might learn enough about the recorder to be able to play a song as complex as one of his! I believe that the idea behind the title is that nothing will ever be as beautiful to Mila as the music of dolphins--her family. Mila says: "I fell the music inside me. It says something more than just he notes, more than just he sounds. It is hearing with more than the ears. Like the way it is when I am with the dolphins. Or when I see Justin and Doctor Beck together. Or when Sandy talks abut her father who is dead. There is a way I feel when Sandy hugs me so good and long and her stiff hair brushes my ear and her good smell fills my nose" (76). Mila is describing how the feeling she gets when she is around music makes her feel happy just like being around family.

In this novel, one can see how society changed Mila's thoughts about the world and her life. When she sees her former self on television, she states that "I was afraid. I saw the girl with no clothes. I thought, this is a bad girl. She has no clothes. I saw her long wild hair. I thought, This girl is ugly with her long wild hair. I saw the girl with her eyes showing white. I thought, This girl has fear. I thought, I am happy not to be that girl. But I am that girl" (106-107). When Mila was first brought from that island she was unafraid and completely happy with herself, but once she got clothing and had her hair cut, she thought it was ridiculous to look like her former self.

Teaching Connections: After reading this novel with a class, I think it would be a great idea to have students take the idea of this story (perhaps with only the knowledge they are given in the initially newspaper article in the book) and have them re-write their own stories about this lost girl. Encourage students to think about making their text represent something in their stories as this author did with her novel.

Another teaching idea is to have students who are learning to play the recorder themselves write a short song that resembles the sounds of dolphins to them.

(Image retrieved from http://www.mlms.logan.k12.ut.us/%7Eckircalli/images/jpeg/music_dolphins.jpg on 4 April 2008)

"The Thief Lord"

After reading this novel, I feel like I have just been to Venice myself, without the jet lag. Mrs. Funke's imagery makes readers "see" the city and the actions of the characters; she makes the words jump right off the page.

This work definitely embodies the qualities of outstanding children's literature that we spoke of in class. Many passages expand awareness of Italy, such as the descriptions of "...the maze of alleys in which every visitor to Venice gets lost in at least once" (339), and her description of the horses and winged lion in the Basilica, which actually exist there, as well as those of Venice itself, with its "houses on stilts, the roads made of water, [and] the lion's with wings" (132). She also made this work an enjoyable read by not overtly teaching. The aforementioned examples reference that, as do her lessons from Prosper throughout the book depicting his hesitance to steal, and the sporadic Italian words such as "Pronto" (145), as a way to detail how Italians answer the phone, and "Arrivederci" (239), as a way to say goodbye. These "mini-lessons" are not explicit, but are a part of the text and are lessons to be learned from this novel. Thirdly, this novel tells the truth of how humans would feel in certain situations. For example, Prosper and Bo run away so that they can stay together, which is a likely action to take as brothers. In addition, near the end of the novel, Scipio and Prosper want to grow up--Scipio so that he could control his own life, and Prosper so that he could become "...big and strong" (250). Throughout childhood we all have times when we want to become adults so that something in our lives will be different. In this way, Scipio and Prosper's feelings do reflect those of real children. This novel also embodies quality. One of my favorite descriptions in The Thief Lord was in Barbarossa's shop where "Riccio made faces at the masked lady smiling down at them from a large painting on the wall. This was his regular joke, for behind the lady's mask was a peephole through which Barbarossa kept and eye on his customers" (39). Mrs. Funke could have just said that Barbarossa spied on his customers, but instead she used vividly descriptive language so that readers could actually see the shop, the painting, and Barbarossa spying on his customers in their minds. Her descriptions show that this work does embody quality. This book also has integrity with a detailed and interesting plot set in Venice, Italy, well-developed characters that come alive in the reading, surprising plot-twists, and a remarkable writing style. Finally, this novel embodies originality, for example, I have not ever read a novel which detailed a story of an enchanted merry-go-round at an orphanage. All of these aforementioned aspects ensure that The Thief Lord embodies the qualities of a piece of outstanding children's literature.

I believe the most intriguing plot twist in this work to be when readers discover the truth about Scipio! I had thought all along that possibly he was not orphaned, especially since he did not sleep in the theatre, but I had not yet made the connection that he was so closely connected to the owner of the theatre, until I read that section of the book.

Mrs. Funke does a remarkable job of integrating fantastical elements into Venice. She incorporates the merry-go-round and the idea of being able to change from child to adult and vice versa into her real-world descriptions of the fantastic city of Venice. This incorporation makes the fictional parts of the story seem more real to readers simply because of the truthful descriptions of the setting.

In this novel there were also numerous connections to Carnival at Candlelight. Besides the setting in Venice, the most notable comparison was the lion imagery. From the very first pages of this novel, lions were prominent. There were lions in the story Prosper and Bo's mother told them of Venice, lions in Victor's office, lions in the Basilica, and Riccio even gave Bo a stuffed lion. Of course, the lion on the merry-go-round and it's wing were also critical aspects to the story.

The end of this novel left me with many questions, such as: How did Victor know that he had a meeting with Esther if she made the appointment while he was at the theatre? Even though Esther was so ready to break all connections with her nephews when she went to Ida's house, why did she not question that there was no sign indicating that that location was the orphanage? How did they fake the adoption papers for Barbarossa?

Even though I had several questions after reading this novel, I thought the overall story was very exciting and I believe that many fifth graders would enjoy reading it.

(Image retrieved from http://www.kidsreads.com/art/covers/0439404371.jpg on 19 April 2008)