Marcus Malte

A fourteen-year-old boy raised in an isolated hut in Southern France by a loving mother who has no capacity to teach him language sets out after his mothers death to live in a world completely alien to him.
"Whether it be here or somewhere else, everything that he sees he will have never seen before.
After considerable time wandering in a wilderness fending for himself, he awakes one morning to face a double-barrel rifle pointed at his forehead: his first encounter with "civilization." The show more hunter he has met takes him to his hamlet where the boy is regarded variously as a Romany, a vagabond, or a bad omen.
The Boy is not an historical novel, though it is set throughout the years 1908-1938 and there are pages listing historical events and personages. The trope of the unlettered boy/man, which is carried to the novel's end, is sometimes flawed; the writing is often verbose, but sometimes poetic and moving. show less

Difficile de dire quoi que ce soit de ce livre sans l'abimer. Disons juste que je l'ai beaucoup apprécié en particulier pour sa construction complexe qui m'a fait me poser des questions tout au long du livre.

This beautiful book of big, bold, colorful drawings tells the tale of Jo the corbeau (crow) who dreams of singing beautifully one day. In frustration he flies away from the branches of his weeping willow tree and goes to the North Pole where he trades his wings to an Emperor Penguin who cannot fly but who has the most amazing singing voice.

In reading this book I was realizing that as a foreign-language book in American classrooms, it might be used as a picture book. Because the drawings are show more so well-done, I was thinking that the students could work together to construct their own narrative based on what they see. That would be one cool activity to do. Another activity I was thinking of would be for me to read them the book in French, during story time, and to give them some exposure to hearing the French pronunciation and rhythm. At the end of each page of text (just a short paragraph) I could translate the story into English for them. show less

Assez poulpien.