Study guide for “Finding Melody Sullivan”
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Here are our recommended topics for the book “Finding Melody Sullivan” by Alice Rothchild.
Thinking about the novel, yourself, and your friends:
Name, write, or draw a time when you felt lost, hurt, disappointed with your life, and you had to figure out how to survive. What happened? Who helped you? What did you learn about yourself? Did something surprise you?
In this book, Melody experiences a number of major difficulties and disappointments. Why does Melody write poetry and how does it help her? Discuss how she is feeling when she writes. Write a poem about your own experience with pain and survival.
What do Melody’s tattoo and silver bracelet do for her?
How do Melody, Yasmina, and Aaron describe themselves? What words do they use? How do these words reflect their race, ethnicity, religious (or lack of religious) identification, age, family, experiences with joy, sadness, and disappointment?
Looking at the three main characters, what words would you use to describe them? Who are they and how are they different? What keeps them connected?
Pick three of your own friends. Describe them. Name how you are similar and different from them. What keeps you connected?
How does Melody’s father’s behavior affect Melody? Why do you think he behaves the way he does? What is the source of his pain and suffering and how does he survive?
What are the locations in which this story takes place? How are they the same or different? How do they affect each character? What does Melody learn in each location and how does it affect her feelings and understanding?
If you have traveled, think about a time when you were in a very unfamiliar place, how did you cope? What emotions did you have? What was hard and what surprised you?
The roles of families, (nuclear and extended) are important in this story. Compare the families of the three main characters and how they support, hurt, challenge the characters. How does Yasmina’s family affect Melody?
This novel is also about exploring how people communicate and how they hear each other. State all the methods of communication you find in the story. How do they lead to better intimacy, understanding, or misunderstanding?
Each main character has a particular journey. What are their challenges and what are their successes. How did they change and why? What does this tell us about each character’s growth and the issues that they need to continue working on as they continue to grow?
Melody is afraid to trust anyone but Yasmina and afraid of being close to a guy, yet she does end up falling in love. How did that happen?
Ultimately, this is a story about friendship, about creating family and community. What makes you similar to and different from your family and your friends? Why is it important to have all kinds of friends, especially ones that are different from you? If you have disagreements, how can you be supportive of your family and friends? What mindset and behaviors are important?
Talking with teachers and librarians, fellow children’s book writer Nora Lester Murad and I became of aware of the importance of teaching books about Palestine as part of an anti-racist, anticolonial curriculum that enables children to understand the world in all its diversity. It also became clear that some teachers and librarians face pushback for engaging in this topic; one tactic is falsely accusing the teacher or librarian of antisemitism. We developed a A toolkit to help teachers and librarians to anticipate and navigate false accusations of antisemitism. We hope this will be of use in the K-12 world of children’s literature.
Thinking about historical and political controversies:
Some of the book takes place in Israel, in East Jerusalem, and in the West Bank, particularly the city of Hebron. There is a lot of controversy and disagreement about these parts of the world, the policies of the Israeli government, the occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the experiences of Palestinians living under occupation. Both major and minor characters have some of these different viewpoints. What surprised you? Confused you? Made you feel angry? Made you feel sympathetic? Do you think the characters in this story rise to the level of maturity, insight, and empathy that life in Israel and Palestine demand of them?
Major human rights organizations in Israel and internationally have described Israel as an “apartheid state” and Palestinian struggles as “resisting colonialism” and “ethnic cleansing.” Opponents of this analysis feel that Israel has a “Biblical or historical right” to much of Historic Palestine and that Palestinian resistance is a form of “terrorism and anti-Semitism.” Discuss.
Compare a controversial situation based on your own lived experience and discuss and share your thoughts and writing, including how to find accurate sources of information, problem solve, search for areas of mutual agreement, and possible areas of conflict resolution that lead to a collaborative way of approaching disagreements. Try role playing different sides in a conflict situation.
One of the biggest challenges when thinking about the narratives of Jewish Israelis and Palestinians is the lack of agreement on what actually happened and how does a society acknowledge and come to terms with terrible moments in its history. I highly recommend listening to the podcast Memory Wars, from Radio IQ on NPR. Memory Wars is a six-part series about how Germany confronted its horrific past and whether America could ever do the same. Clearly the history of the founding of the State of Israel and the treatment of Palestinians is not the same as the US history of slavery or the German history of Nazism. The issues raised by this podcast, how do societies grapple with painful pasts and how do their attitudes and belief systems change and engage in repairing generations of trauma, are very relevant to understanding this part of the world and imagining a future that includes a mutually understood narrative and efforts at restorative justice.
Toolkit to Defend K-12 Educators and Librarians Against False Accusations of Antisemitism
rethinkingschools.org
Oct 11, 2023 article
Violence in Israel and Gaza