Friday, August 04, 2006

Woolvs in the sitee


I'm planning to read this to my year 7 library classes next week- I can't wait. The words are images- strange, unsettling, alien and beautiful.

16 comments:

Darce said...

Read it a little while ago...strange book but intriguing. It invites you to make meaning but challenges you at the same time...Let us know what they think of it and what they come up with.

nb said...

What's it all about? It was about lots of different things to my year 7s and 8s. I like your description of it, Darce. My students came up with a number of possibilities for the circumstances of the narrator and his only friend, Mrs Radinski.
We also talked about why Margaret Wild chose to use wolves to represent what we 'fear' in the book, which led us on a somewhat winding road to talk about Aesop's fables and how different animals represent different human characteristics in literature. I ended the discussion by giving them a brief quiz- I called out the name of a series of animals and they had to respond with the characteristic that each animal exemplified.

Anonymous said...

I'm using this book as a supplementary text for my english hsc, and i think this Ben character has some sort of mental illness, maybe depression. I think this because people who suffer depression normally dont see the blue skies, it all looks black and grey to them, and Ben mentions the fact that he misses the blue....

Anonymous said...

I am a Tasmanian teacher and came across this interesting book. My 17 year old son read it and was intrigued. My 19 year old daughter, who incidently has just returned from Europe and attending university, believes it is an Aboriginal person who has had his land, valleys and environment taken away from him. That's why I love it so much and believe it is a great teaching resource.

anniespud said...

hi, as the illustrator of woolvs, i've just been working at fremantle children's literature centre with an exhibition of the entire work of Woolvs, including original artwork. I worked with students from grade 3 to year 9 and the diversity of interpretations of the book was rewarding. the aboriginal angle was also brought up, due to the handprints in the illustrations.
thanks for looking at Woolvs in the Sitee

anne spudvilas

more work at www.annespudvilas.com

Anonymous said...

hi,, i strongly beleive that it is conveying a story about world war II (in facist Germany or italy) and the Holacaust. The woolvs symbolise the Nazi and the illustrations of the deserted city and barbed wire highlights the enviroment during WWII. The name Radinski gives the resonder this clue also.

Anonymous said...

i agree with pru, my first impressions after reading the book made me think ben had a mental illness such as depression. I also thought that ben no longer has parents as he lives in an institution and missus Radinski is another patient, her dissapearance may be her death and bens resolve at the end is to overcome his fear of the world.
i was very interested to read the other impressions as well, especially the aboriginal perspective.

Stefan Sav HSC 07/08 GHS

katers said...

I just read this book to my fourth grade class and they loved it. Many had suggestions about the meaning of the woolvs and why Ben was so alone. One student thought Ben had a mental illness. Another suggested that Ben killed Missus Radinski and that is why he was free at the end. This is a great story to teach questioning and inference.

Anonymous said...

Maybe Ben has agoraphobia? I just thought of that, and it does make sense. The wolves are people, because wolves generally tend to represent the bad in people, like in Little Red Riding Hood.

Anonymous said...

Sorry, I think it's anthropophobia, agoraphobia is fear of open spaces and crowds, anthropophobia is fear of people or society.

Anonymous said...

i am a student my english teacher read me this book i love it but i feel very confused i am not sure if it is about nazis or ben having some form of depression it is hard to choose please help what one is more obvious?

Faye said...

Interesting book, enyoyed reading others comments, intrigued that it is on the premiers reading challenge list for grade 5 & 6 students. I wonder if children aged 10 and 11 are capable of having an opinion of it or whether they just read the words.

Anonymous said...

WJ: I have had my gr9 class working on this - lots of interpretations and connections are possible. They came up with mental illness, Holocaust, other wars, genocide, fear... I gave them the story without images first, and approached it as a mystery for them to figure out. Then we grappled with the images, which added layers of meaning. LOVE IT!

Anonymous said...

Hi, we as a class have just read 'Woolvs in The Sitee'. We are Year 5 and now lots of us are stumped. This is a confusing book that some of us have read when we were younger and didn't exactly understand. Reading again we can see the links it has with the War. We initally thought at beginning that it would be about wolves attacking the city... but now we are not so sure!

Anonymous said...

Hi I am a year 5 student and me and my class have worked on woolvs in the sitee for 3 weeks and I personaly believe Ben has a mental illness such as depression but I can also see along the line of the war this has made my class and my teachers think hard about this story we love it

Anonymous said...

Can anyone tell me why the cover looks like it was just in blood rain .