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Title: Encounter (Voyager books)
ISBN: 015201389X
Author:
Jane Yolen
Publicate Date: 1996-09-20
Publish: 1996-09-20
List Price: $7.00
Average Customer Rating: 4.0
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $3.21
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $3.21
Amazon Merchant Price: $7.00
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Encounter
Encounter by Jane Yolen takes place in the past. A boy had a bad dream about three great winged birds then he walked to the beach, he saw his dream birds. When the strangers arrived the little boy said" Do not welcome them." To see if the strangers were true men the boy pinched there hands one by one when they built a "feasting fire." The chief taught them how to smoke. When the boy ran to his zemis he fed pieces from the feast and prayed "let the pale strangers from the sky go away from us." When he got back to the feast, one of the strangers let him touch there sword. When he touched it he started to bleed. So when the strangers went on their boats they took people and parrot the boy jumped out and swam to land. When he got to land no one would listen to him because he was a child.
You should listen to whatever anyone has to say. The boy's bad dream was a warning. The boy said "Do not welcome them" Do not call them friends" then they have already welcomed them. The chief didn't listen to him because he was a child. The boy said "Do not welcome them" three times and "Do not call them friends" once. I recommend this book to anyone who feels just because they're a child nobody listens to them.
By Jesus
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2: Useful and effective for certain goals
This children's book offers several very clear lessons:
1. When you see people with a different skin color, especially people that dress and speak differently, it's OK to mock and ridicule them, because they're not quite human and probably won't understand anyway. It's like making fun of a dog. If you see someone with lighter skin than your own, check to see if they have a tail.
2. It's not enough to make fun of those that are different, however. It is extremely important to drive the sub-humans away by whatever means necessary. Treating them as true humans will only lead you to become less than "truly human" yourself.
3. You should judge people by their skin color, not by their actions. Focus purely on their skin color, language and how they dress, plus any dreams you may have had about them.
Let me be clear - I agree that what was done to native Americans was wrong. If this book taught about that, I would gladly buy it for my children. But this book does NOT argue that the white-skinned sub-humans should have been judged by their actions, or that all people have basic, fundamental rights that should be respected.
The boy in the story is condemning the Spanish based purely on the fact that their skin, clothing and language are different, and argues that they should be driven away for that reason alone (well, plus the boy had a bad dream!). As an old man, he says that his own people are no longer 'true humans', not because of slavery but because they have begun to speak and dress like the sub-humans. People should be judged by their appearance, and those that are different should be exiled to prevent contamination.
The book is beautifully illustrated and written in a way that will be attractive to children. If you're trying to teach your children to be more racist, this book will be a useful and effective tool.
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3: Ignorance Does Not Make Columbus Evil
What I like about this book is that it gives the story of Columbus from another perspective, that of the natives. What I don't like is that the pictures portray Columbus as being evil, when I think he might have just been ignorant. He did not deliberately harm the natives. In fact, this comes from Columbus' own diary- "I want the natives to develop a friendly attitude toward us because I know that they are a people who can be made free and converted to our Holy Faith more by love than by force." He also made sure that his men took nothing from the natives without trading something in return. Columbus believed these people were being taken as slaves from others in nearby islands and thought he was helping them by converting them to Christianity and taking them back to Europe. This was ignorance on his part, not bad intentions. If this book is used with school-aged children, I would say to introduce it no earlier than grade three or four.
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4: Point of View
This simply wriiten picture book give the Columbus visit from a different viewpoint.
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5: encounter
this book is about when christopher colmbus came to america and first met the natives. It shows that they white explorers wernt really that great, and were not kind to the natives. I think that this book is ok, beacuse it shows the cruelty of the englsih exploers.
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