We'll be reading an award-winning,'Best Book for Young Adults.' However, we'll be wanting to find out what your thoughts and opinions are about this novel in our literature circles during class discussions as well as here at our blog. Post your comments, including your first name. You might want to start by connecting the novel title and cover illustration with the photograph, 'South Africa, 1981' by Chris Steele-Perkins.
25 comments:
We read a novel of a similar title last year called Rice Without Rain, I believe this novel will be of a similar plot but with a different culture and area; Rice Without Rain = Thailand & Waiting for Rain = Africa.
Yes, Tara is right, I also think that the book "Waiting for the Rain" is very similar as the book "Rice without Rain".
I agree with Tara. Last year we read a book called Rice Without Rain, I also do think that the plot will be similar. Although just placed in a different setting. I enjoyed readig Rice Without Rain.
I agree that this book may be a little similar to the book we read last year, "Rice Without Rain" They're both the same in terms of "Waiting for the rain"
Yes, I agree with Tara. I think that the book, Waiting for Rain will be very much like Rice Without Rain. I think it would be intersting to compare Africa and Thailand.
I think this book would be interesting once we get into the story, but right now, just looking at the cover, I think this book looks very boring. Hopefully, the book turns out to be a very moving and thought provoking book.
I think the book might have to do with racial difficulties (see the cover) and so on!!! :P
Over and Out,
HZ
Looking at the cover, it seems like there is going to be conflicts between the two boys.
If this book does indeed turn out to be rice with out rain then i might be interested in reading it. However i read the back of this book and i can tell you the plot in my view doesnt seem like rice with out rain.
I've never read this book, but i disagree with Tara. I believe that the plot would will not be similar to Rice Without Rain. From the title, i can see many children waiting for the rain, but some how there's a different sensation to it. I ASSUME that it will be like the book we've read in 6th grade, HOLES (except that this book will be much more austere and less humorous in style).
I agree with Peam,although I've never read the book and I have no idea what it is about although all these comments have given me some idea.
I think it WILL be kind of like Hles but without all the crazy stuff, and with characters more believable than Mr. Sir. . .
I think that (assuming from teh cover) the book is about some idea of racism, or difference between the main characters that leads to some conflict. We'll see later. . .
I think this book will reflect on Africa's geography and some of the political, economic issues. When i read the title Waiting for the Rain, it sounded like those two boys were farmers and farming in a desert area where rain doesn't come very often.
And ofcourse, if rain doesn't come, crops won't grow, and when crops won't grow, then the farmers won't have anything to sell...which will have a huge effect on the economy.
I haven't read "rice without rain", but in the cover of this book were written that "In the grip of South African apartheid, can this friendship survive?" So, I think this story is about apartheid.
I read this book a little bit, and it wasn't similar with Rice Without Rain. I was glad Waiting for the rain's story was different because It's fun to read other story.
I am dissapointed. Today I started this book and I was put down. It seems that the beginning of the book is so shallow. There is no real emotion. I hope that it will get better as I read on. I won't say this is a boring book yet, but I am leaning in that direction right now. I am interested in how people relate this to the book we read last year, "Rice Without Rain" when the only real connection on the cover is the word rain. Very interesting...
I am kind of like Daniel, although now I jsut read and I reached chapter 6. The book doesn't have much action or emotion(at least until now), so I haven't really liked it.
I still have to continue reading, but I seriously hope the book will become more interesting.
The book is beggining to get more into the big conflict, but I can't say more. . .
Don't know if you went to church today but i was thinking about the church minister in ch. 7 telling his congregation, 'We cannot allow our own Afrikaner people to live like kaffirs.' Isn't that word 'kaffir' a nasty way of calling blacks in South Africa? Doesn't sound much like Christianity that i learned about. But i'm giving Frikkie more credit if this is the kind of garbage talk he was getting at home and even in church.
Garbage talk to you, how are you sure it is to him or his people??????
I guess Irritated doesn't understand the emotion behind the word - kaffir. I never heard the word before reading this novel but i can see enough to tell me that i would be shocked if any religious leader used the word nigger in a church message. Sorry irritated, but that is what i mean by garbage talk, wouldn't you?!!
Irritated has a point. Look people, these people were raised probably not knowing that the word kaffir was so bad. For all we know, the Afrikaners may have thought the black people to have been there just for them to enslave. How would you look at, perhaps, those in hell? if u believe in that. Or those in Prison? Aren't these generally considered bad people to the general public? This is how the Afrikaners see these people, and it said in the bible that these poeple were turned black for their sins. I am not saying that I believe this, but this is how they see them. And the black people may not see this as garbage talk, but as who they are. Think about it.
DSG
Come on Vinnie, don't you remember the movie, color of friendship, and how the word kaffir was used with the black kid in the restaurant? And don't you remember the south african girl marlee (?) telling piper that she would never call her kaffir? But i was thinking if the blacks were the ones who had the most power in south aftica, would things have been just the opposite?
Well I think that if the blacks were the ones who had the most power in south africa, things could have been the oppisite, or the blacks could have noticed the problem before it got out of hand, and they could have let the whites have equal rights to everyone else. but they could have been just like the whites are in the book, w4tr, and could have enslaved them, and treated them like the whites in w4tr do to blacks. i also see another possibility, the blacks could have turned them away, and/or when the blacks treated them like the english did, they could have retreated back futher into the unknown.
aj
Some of you asked for the url address for the website that has the audio files of W4tR - here it is:
http://www2.isb.ac.th/ms/wfr/
um ok i havent read the blogs i just wanted to say the boook soo freaking good. i thought it would be so bad and boring but i was totally wrong. ily frikkie and tengo. mwa
i just finished our class novel a few days ago and i just wanted to say that i'm really glad we had the chance to read it, and reflect on our understanding of the novel in class, because i find the plot so intriguing and it really changed my outlook on many of the worlds' issues. i believe everyone should read this novel because it provokes readers to not only think about the problems of our society but also to develop an opinion on these issues.
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