Literature Circle Reflection: Home of the Brave

I really enjoyed doing the literature circle and I think my group will agree with me. Our book, Home of the Brave, was an amazing and happy story that made me able to really reflect on it. There are so many lines in the story that are so powerful, but short and to the point which were great to talk about in the literature circles because we could have sat there and talked about just one for hours. The way Katherine Applegate wrote the story of this boy in verse was really interesting also, because it let you connect to Kek (the boy) easier since it was really a personal narrative. Our group chose to not do the movie version of the literature circle because it really would not have worked with this style of book. It was too meaningful and personal to be made in to a movie and you wouldn’t be able to capture the magic of the book within film. Doing a traditional style lit circle worked out great! We were each able to choose certain roles that we wanted to touch on and that was wonderful. I was able to hear what each of my group members, Laura and Kristen, thought was special in the book. For our first meeting, Laura was the Literary Luminary, Kristen was the Illustrator and I took the role of Discussion Director. For our second meeting, I was the Literary Luminary; Kristen was the Researcher and Laura, the discussion director. I really liked how we split the roles up because it allowed us to all bring something to the table and show what stuck out to us in the book. Kristen’s drawing was very good and captured the scene perfectly while Laura’s questions were very well-thought out. I thought her questions allowed us really to reflect on this powerful story. Questions like “when do you think Kek becomes a man?” or “how would you feel if you were Ganwar with scars, no hand and black?” These questions brought up such good conversations within our group. I also enjoyed the fact that Kristen took the extra step as the researcher and found information about why cows are so special in Africa.
Overall, I really enjoyed this wonderful book and I thought the literature circles were great! They allowed us to discuss the details in depth with each other in this amazing story!