Book Group-- The Rickshaw Girl and The Giver

 We've gathered with our friends once again to discuss great literature.
This month we read  The Rickshaw Girl by Mitali Perkins.
It was set in modern day Bangladesh.  The back jacket of the book says:

 Namia loves to create the traditional alpana patterns Bangladeshi women and girls paint

 in their home for special celebrations.  Her designs are always the best in the village.

 But Naima wishes she could help earn money for her family. Her friend Saleem an 

drive his father's rickshaw.  If only I had been born a boy, Namia thinks.

The book goes on to show that Namia found a way to help her family using her talents in painting. I think we all enjoyed exploring another culture.
Bro. Mattson, while in India a year or so ago brought back clothing that the kids dressed up in. I brought out the scarfs that Barry got while in Afghanistan  These cultures are much the same.

The "skittles" group read  the Runaway Pancake.

 
For our crafting activities I made colored salt and they used it along with glue to make their own alpanas.

For the cooking craft we made Naan.  Jen made some yummy sauce from a spice package that Br. M brought from India.  It was all so yummy.

 The youthels group discussed the book-- The Giver by Lois Lowery.
Here's Cailin..... one of the three "youthels" (Jared, Beryl and Cailin. Connor was out working with Dad- yard season is beginning.)
We read The Giver for our book. Sister Mattson led our discussion and she brought four reviews from Amazon on the book. One was 5 star, one 3, and two were one star. It was surprising how much the people that wrote the one stars focused on the bad elements presented in The Giver and didn't see what it was saying about them and how to avoid them.
Overall, I really liked the book. It was a good story and had equally good morals to it. My favorite character in the book was Jonas's best friend, Asher. I don't know why he's my favorite. Sometimes I'll just really like a random side character.
I think when people read The Giver, they need to look for the good elements they see and not the bad, or if they do look for the bad, also look for how the book says to avoid or change that stuff.
Yeah.

As a side note, this is one of Connor's favorite books.  I believe he's read it three times, so maybe it's in his cannon.  I'm sure he was sad to miss this discussion.