Edmunds Elementary School - Burlington, Vermont

Will

11/5/06

Response to Literature

Click here to go back to my home page.

Click here to go back to the class web page.

Don’t Judge a Book By Its Cover

Have you ever wanted a dog but your parents wouldn’t let you have one?  Our class read the story Stray by Cynthia Rylant.  In the story Doris Lacey finds a stray dog but her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Lacey, won’t let her keep it.  In this story Cynthia Rylant changes the readers opinion about Mr. Lacey.

          In the beginning of Stray, Cynthia Rylant makes the reader think that Mr. Lacey isn’t a very nice guy.  For example, in the beginning when Doris bursts in with the dog in her arms he is sitting at the kitchen table cleaning under his fingernails with his pocketknife, that is a nasty thing to do, especially at the kitchen table.  When he sees the dog, he says, “I don’t know where it came from, but I know for sure where it’s going”.  That is a very sarcastic and ill-mannered thing to say to Doris about the dog.  Then, on page 43, he grudgingly lets the dog sleep in the basement.  Although it is nice of him to let the dog stay, he could have given it better living quarters.  Next, when Doris says, “She’s a good dog isn’t she?  She’s not much trouble.   I figure I can teach her things, ”  He just ignores her.  You can see that he is very stubborn and rude.  This shows that in the beginning of Stray, Cynthia Rylant makes you think that Mr. Lacey is not very nice.

          By the end of the story Cynthia Rylant makes the reader think that Mr. Lacey is a great guy.  For example, when Doris comes down the stairs after crying herself to sleep on the day that Mr. Lacey took the dog to the pound, Mr. Lacey says; “You’d better feed that mutt before it dies of starvation.”  When she asks what he means he says, “I said you’d better feed your dog, I figure its looking for you.  ” That was very good of him not to take the dog to the pound.  Here is another quote that backs up that Cynthia Rylant is making the reader change the reader's opinion about Mr. Lacey.  When Doris asks if he brought the dog, he says, “Oh I brought her all right, worst looking place I’ve ever seen.  Smell was enough to knock you down.  They give a dog 6 days to live.  Then they kill it with some kind of shot.  I couldn’t leave an ant in that place, so I brought the dog back.”  Now the reader can see that Mr. Lacey is a really nice guy. 

          Cynthia Rylant changes the reader’s opinion about Mr. Lacey.  In the beginning of the story she makes you think that he isn’t a very nice guy.  By the end of the story she makes you think that he is very nice.  This shows that you should never be prejudiced to anyone, if they are in a book or in real life, for all you know they could be really nice.  Cynthia Rylant does a really good job about changing your opinion about Mr. Lacey.