I thought I
had already put the blog of this book up here as it was the first of all the
books I read! I have been unable to locate the blog, so here it is:
Fire Song was the first of three Libby Hathorn
books I read, and it is the story of a 12 year- old girl who is faced with the
dilemma of being ordered by her mother to burn down the family home. Her mother
is insistent on this plan, as they are poor and would use the insurance money
to live on. Ingrid is anxious about the
plan and is reluctant to do this for two main reasons:
1. She knows
it’s the wrong thing to do
2. The house was her Grandmothers, and was
passed onto her family to live in
Hathorn
takes the reader on a journey into Ingrid’s thoughts and the personal dialogue
and reasoning that goes on in her thinking. The anxiety and ambivalence is made
clear to the reader throughout the story:
‘What
was she thinking? She couldn’t ask the Kleins for their help, Mr or Mrs. That
was impossible! Hathorn (2009, p. 57).
There
are also many other passages which contain emotive words and use of punctuation
to influence the reader.
The
plot structure is one of ‘home and away’. Ingrid goes out and does errands and
later in the book she also goes to visit her mother in hospital after she has a
stroke. Running into other characters which Ingrid assesses as potentially
being able help her, adds to the home and away structure.
As
students read this book they would come across themes such as family
relationship dynamics, poverty, morals, prejudice and religion and death. These
themes can be seen in the other Hathorn books I have read: ‘Letters to a
Princess’ and ‘Thunderwith’. Students from around 10 years old and above could
compare the similiarities of these texts, and critically analyse how Hathorn
has used words and images to represent character and to sway emotions and
opinions.
Alex
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