My Prezi: The Graveyard Book

Link: The Graveyard Book: Text Satellite

Above is a link to my Prezi which is based around The Graveyard Book, a supernatural novel by Neil Gaiman. I chose this book because I felt that it was seasonal and would appeal to a wider range of students than the texts that I have chosen previously for work in our class. My intended grade level for these lessons would be 8th grade. Though the actual text in the novel is fairly easy to read and comprehend, I believe that the issues and concepts presented in this novel hold potential for deep discussion and higher thinking among older middle school readers.

If you are unfamiliar with the novel, it centers on the life and growing up of a young boy named Nobody Owens. Nobody, better known as "Bod" throughout the book, is left to survive on his own as a baby when a man named Jack breaks into his home and murders his parents and older sister. Bod crawls away to safety, eventually ending up in a cemetery in which he is adopted by a husband and wife--who happen to be ghosts.

Some of the themes of the novel are family, self-identity, traumatic life events, loss/gain, growing up (coming of age), good vs. evil, and perseverance. I included two articles about adoption. The first, "Russian Kids in America: When the Adopted Can't Adapt," is from Time and discusses the problems experienced by those adopting children from Russia, mainly due to the traumatic events in the children's lives prior to their life in America. I accessed the other article, "Cross Cultural Adoption: Adults Say the Darndest Things," through the Washington Post online. This article features a discussion about the reaction adoptees and their parents receive from the public. Both of these articles are meant to serve as a basis for discussion about what family is, how families are formed, and the different forms that family may take.

Other texts I've chosen to include are parts of the Harry Potter series novels and movies, a movie trailer for Disney's Tarzan, "After 20 Years" by O. Henry, "Loss and Gain" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, "Second Chance" by Shinedown, and a quote from Virginia Woolf. All of these texts are meant to converse together, mainly about growing up, family/friends, and how people change over time. Additionally, the Harry Potter and Tarzan story lines work very well beside The Graveyard Book, as they are very similar.

I hope you enjoy my Text Satellite! I enjoyed creating it!

Note: For some reason, my first Article of the Week link is inaccessible through my Prezi. Here is the link: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1997439,00.html