1a. What is the first book in the nonfiction stacks to interest the author? What information does this book contain?
2a. What does Dillard notice about the book's card? What is her reaction?
3a. What does the author say about the other Homewood people who read the same books she read?
1b. Why do you think this book attracted her attention?
2b. Why does this fact interest her? Why does she react this way?
3b. Why would she think this?
4a. What different things frustrate the author about selecting books of fiction?
4b. In what ways might a good book appeal to a wide variety of people? Why might one person find a book to be good, while another reader thinks it is awful?
5a. What criteria would Dillard say are important in judging whether a book is good or not?
5b. What books would you suggest for her? Explain your answer.
First-Person Point of View. If the narrator's mother had told this story about her daughter, how might the story have differed?
Cliché. What clichés does the author use in this selection? What seems to be her attitude toward the advice they give?
Concrete Language. Find passages within this selection that provide concrete details about what the narrator sees, hears, thinks, and believes. Add them to the graphic organizer below.
1. Write a short review of a book, magazine, or newspaper you have recently read.
2. Imagine you have some free time and would like to volunteer at your local library. Write a request for information about volunteering there.
3. Imagine your town is building a new library and is having a contest, asking the public to submit suggestions for a slogan to appear over the front doors. Write a slogan for the contest.
Antonyms. An antonym is a word that means the opposite of another word. Find an antonym for each of the following words from An American Childhood. Use a dictionary or a thesaurus to check your answer, or to help you lead you to the answers.
1. subsequent:
2. noisome:
3. exasperate:
4. tedium:
5. bobble:
6. hearsay:
7. prerogative:
Identifying Pronouns and Point of View. Most stories are told from either first-person or third-person point of view. Occasionally, stories and poems are told from the second-person point of view, where the writer directly addresses the reader. These three groups of speakers—first-person, second-person, and third-person—each use specific pronouns.
First person: The speaker talks about himself/herself using the pronouns I, me, we, us, myself, ourselves. Second person: The speaker directly addresses the reader using the pronouns you, yourself, yourselves. Third person: The speaker talks about someone or something else using the pronouns he, she, it, they, them, himself, itself, themselves.
First person: The speaker talks about himself/herself using the pronouns I, me, we, us, myself, ourselves.
Second person: The speaker directly addresses the reader using the pronouns you, yourself, yourselves.
Third person: The speaker talks about someone or something else using the pronouns he, she, it, they, them, himself, itself, themselves.
In the sentences below, identify the bold pronouns as first-, second-, or third-person pronouns. Then rewrite each sentence from a different point of view, indicating the point of view from which it is written.
1. Dillard presents herself as an avid reader.
2. I wondered what cheesecloth was.
3. Give us the best book you've read.
4. You should go to the library more often.
5. We haven't read that ourselves.
