Awkward silence
Awkward silence
With all the grace of a three-legged dog,
but harder to run from.
     - Andrew Cutler, Grade 11

There once was a man named Sam,
who dreamed he was honey ham.
He went online
to buy some twine,
and now he has lots of spam.
   -  Alik Hansen, Grade 7

We all know plagiarism is bad. And since this is a reading and writing blog, plagiarism probably ranks up there with murder in terms of evilness. OK, maybe not murder. But it is bad. And according to some, Jessica Seinfeld, wife of Jerry, allegedly plagiarized her cookbook Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food. And she's being compared to assassins.

Allegedly (We must be sure not to assign blame until it is proven one way or the other. After all, I certainly cannot afford to get sued. Especially by someone with pockets as deep as Seinfeld.), the book was eerily similar to The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals by Missy Chase Lapine.

Did she do it? I don't know. Both cookbooks involve finding ways to get kids to eat healthy. Both came out around the same time. Both have really, really, really long names. (I mean seriously, the cookbook names sound like the titles of emo songs or something. Come on Fall Out Boy, "Get Busy Living Or Get Busy Dying (Do Your Part To Save The Scene And Stop Going To Shows)" is too long for the name of a song! But I digress.) But is it plagiarism?

Maybe it's just a coincidence. The world is fraught with similar products. Look at Coke and Pepsi. Or ... other things that are similar, which I can't seem to think of right now. But there are plenty.

If Mrs. Seinfeld did in fact plagiarize the idea, she should be punished, and not just because she's rich and I'm jealous. (Although I am.) Plagiarism is bad. We've established this already. I don't know if I would say it's as bad as being an assassin. Well a literal assassin anyway. Wait a minute. If you're a plagiarist, aren't you technically a literal assassin, because you're killing something literary? OK, that's a stretch, I know, but I totally just blew my mind with that.

Well anyway, has anyone actually seen these two cookbooks? Are they that similar? Would you eat your vegetables if they were hidden in something delicious? I would probably end up picking them out and hiding them in the couch cushions or something, but that's just me. Anyway, don't plagiarize, kids!

In the January 4th issue of READ, we presented a Charles Dickens classic called The Child's Story. The ending was a little difficult and we asked you to tell us what you thought of it. The following is an interpretation by student READer Maggie Smith.

In Charles Dickens's short piece titled The Child's Story, a lone traveler walks along a road and interacts with characters that represent stages in his life. Each of these characters call to the walking man, and invite him to join them in whatever activity or occurrence sets apart that particular age, such as learning as a child or teenager, or being in love like a young adult. At the end of the short story, the narrator speaks directly to the traveler as a grandchild to his grandfather. This surprising point of view makes the piece take on new meaning.

For example, the clever narrative explains the grandchild's understanding of the grandfather's life, and how he or she knows that their grandfather loves to remember and to enjoy simply being with his family, and they love him back. When I read this passage, I envision a grandchild telling the story to his beloved grandfather as their happy relatives look on. The line "because this is what you do to us, and what we do to you" explains the close relationship this family has.

Also, the grandchild narrator mentions several events that explain the grandfather's life. The mention of the young man falling in love just as "somebody I won't mention did with Fanny" is clearly the child hinting shyly at his grandfather's wife, presumably named Fanny. In addition, all of the children of the middle-aged "always busy" gentleman leave to go to sea, India, abroad to seek riches, and Heaven. These specific examples are probably the grandchild's way of mentioning his aunts and uncles.

Lastly, the narration in Charles Dickens's story sheds light on how young children view life in simple stages that seem vastly far away. The grandchild uses simple language and foreshadowing, while never exactly stating what is going on. The reader must deduce the meaning of each character and event by themselves. Also, the child's mention of the journey as "magic, and very long when he began it, and very short when he got half way through" emphasizes the simple, sparse viewpoint of the child.

In conclusion, this revealing and surprising narration in The Child's Story is bright, beautifully simple, and uses small clues to illustrate both the child's and the grandfather's lives. Charles Dickens used this to his advantage, and this story still rings true even today.

If you haven't yet read Dickens's story, you can find it on page 14 of the January 4th issue of READ... or here.

In the January 4th issue of READ, we presented a Charles Dickens classic called The Child's Story. The ending was a little difficult and we asked you to tell us what you thought of it. Here are just a few of your responses.

Jack Spahr
The last line of the story titled The Child's Story was: And I think the traveler must be yourself, dear Grandfather, because this is what you do to us, and what we do to you. The traveler was one who went on his way along the path seeing as a young boy grew from a boy to a grandfather. I suppose that the traveler would be the grandfather as he travels through life. As he travels he follows a path almost like a time line until he comes to the end. Unfortunately I did not understand the "because this is what you do to us, and what we do to you" part of the final sentence. Perhaps it has some meaning relating to what he and the child did as they both went through the path. As he walked and met the boy time and time again they did many things together. I'm not too sure about what it does mean although the sentence does hold some significant meaning.

Abby Johnston
The Child's Story seems like it was written by someone older than a child. This story seems like some kind of life story wound into something interesting to keep a child amused. The last line surprised me, but after I thought about it, it made more sense. These children were either dying or going far off to somewhere, just like a grandfather would, yet the parents weren't terribly sad, they knew it would happen and they accepted it. I think this story helps the grandfather accept dying.

Chris Covert
The last line in The Child's Story was very well-written by Charles Dickens. It was easily comprehended and sent a large message. It was very powerful. It did not surprise me because that title stated that it was a story from a child. I understood it. The last line states that the boy thinks his grandpa is the travelling man because he watches people change as they grow up until they leave and all he can do is remember them, as the boy can watch his granpa get older and pass away, leaving the boy to remember him.

Connor Fitzgerald
It did not surprise me much to know that the speaker was talking to the grandfather. The last sentence told that the speaker was speaking to the grandfather, and as the story progressed from the beginning I began to know that. Thankfully the story was easy enough to understand, and I began to figure out its deeper meaning once I was finished. I already explained what its basic tale was. The traveler goes on his travels and meets along the way multiple people. He's simply meeting the same person after an amount of time and doing things with him. All in all it was a fine story though with a good deal of meaning to it.

The last line of the sstory did surprise me a little because it sounds like one of those stories that tells you a lesson, and usually someone older tells you something like that. I think that I understand some parts of it. One part I believe I understand is throughout the story it is telling you what is important to people at each age. For example, it was important for the child to play, and for the young boy to learn, and so on. The child could be telling the story of how they thought their grandfather watched them grow up, and watched them go through those phases in life. Plus, he won't be able to find them becouse they grew up, and are "gone" forever. Only when he wants to remember them, is when he can see everyone again. I hope that explanation made sense, because it did to me. :)

Later today... come back to WORD to read Maggie Sullivan's extremely thought out and insightful explanation of Charles Dickens's The Child's Story...

In the meantime, if you haven't yet read Dickens's story, you can find it on page 14 of the January 4th issue of READ... or here.

That's weird that you mentioned that story yesterday, Jessica. Well, not too weird because it's news. But let me tell you why it's at least a little strange...

I just started reading this book called An Arsonists's Guide To Writers' Homes in New England. Now before anyone gets worried about my mental health, let me say that it is a work of fiction by Brock Clarke (author of Ordinary White Boy). So far, it's quite good. It's about this dude who burned down the Emily Dickinson house in Amherst, killed two people (accidentally? I don't know yet), went to jail for ten years, got out, married, and had a couple kids before the "real trouble started". That's where I am now. Chapter Two. It only seems like a lot of stuff was packed into Chapter One because it was. That's all. But it worked. I like Clarke's voice. He seems to have biting shades of Chuck Palahniuk (arthor of Fight Club, Haunted, and more).

So the weirdness was that you wrote about true-to-life deviant vandals at Frost's house while I was reading about an imaginary dude burning down Dickinson's.

Fire and ice. Heh. Word.