The Best Christmas Ever!

‘The Best Christmas Ever!’ by Marni McGee and Gavin Scott is about a little mouse called Millicent who discovers that the true meaning of Christmas is kindness, caring for others and valuing your friends – not having the perfect tree!

Ler o mundo, escrever um poema, fazer um desenho: concepções do universo concentracionário no poema “The Little Mouse” e nos desenhos de Terezín

Este artigo apresenta a análise do poema “The Little Mouse” e de 4 desenhos, realizados por 6 crianças, com idades entre 7 e 13 anos, que estiveram confinadas no campo de concentração nazista de Terezín, na República Tcheca, entre 1941 e 1945, buscando encontrar elementos que ampliem nossa compreensão sobre a perspectiva da criança em relação ao universo concentracionário. Partimos da hipótese de que tanto os desenhos quanto os poemas produzidos pelas crianças em Terezín possuem teor e valor testemunhal, sendo outro testemunho do Holocausto, um registro poético pautado na percepção da criança sobre os eventos e em sua forma muito particular de expressá-los. A análise indicou que os sujeitos da experiência foram capazes de atribuir poeticamente sentido a diferentes aspectos do contexto, de formas muito particulares e pessoais, demonstrando grande sensibilidade e consciência do meio bastante desenvolvida, o que contribuiu para a construção de outras narrativas sobre o universo concentracionário.

Preys’ exploitation of predators’ fear: when the caterpillar plays the Gruffalo

Alike the little mouse of the Gruffalo's tale, many harmless preys use intimidating deceptive signals as anti-predator strategies. For example, several caterpillars display eyespots and face-like colour patterns that are thought to mimic the face of snakes as deterrents to insectivorous birds. We develop a theoretical model to investigate the hypothesis that these defensive strategies exploit adaptive cognitive biases of birds, which make them much more likely to confound caterpillars with snakes than vice versa. By focusing on the information-processing mechanisms of decision-making, the model assumes that, during prey assessment, the bird accumulates noisy evidence supporting either the snake-escape or the caterpillar-attack motor responses, which compete against each other for execution. Competition terminates when the evidence for either one of the responses reaches a critical threshold. This model predicts a strong asymmetry and a strong negative correlation between the prey- and the predator-decision thresholds, which increase with the increasing risk of snake predation and assessment uncertainty. The threshold asymmetry causes an asymmetric distribution of false-negative and false-positive errors in the snake–caterpillar decision plane, which makes birds much more likely to be deceived by the intimidating signals of snake-mimicking caterpillars than by the alluring signals of caterpillar-mimicking snakes.

Gustave by R. Simard

Simard, Rémy . Gustave. Illus. Pierre Pratt. Groundwood Books, 2014. Print.A young mouse has been playing with his friend, Gustav, just a little too far from home, and tragedy has struck. Pierre Pratt signals despair and disaster in the blackened pages and the first two words, “He’s gone.” The grim grey streets echo a little mouse’s grief and fear, for it is a cat who has seized Gustav. “Run. Escape.” The mouse cries on his way home, worried about what his mother will say.Just a moment… black as the story seems, grim as the dark colours are that echo the mouse’s grief, look back. Look at the eyes of the two little mice as they cling. Are Gustav’s eyes those of a living mouse, or are they those of a toy?All is dark, only to become lighter as the mouse reaches home and tells his mother what has happened. She comforts him, and when he is calm, she takes him to a cupboard where there is another little stuffed mouse with Gustav’s button eyes. The little mouse looks, little mouse eyes to toy mouse’s button eyes. The young mouse finds that he can like his new toy.Rémy Simard’s tale expresses that deep affection for a toy that brings it alive in a special relationship - think of Christopher Robin and Pooh. The loss of that toy may be devastating, but it can be relieved by an understanding adult and the coming of a new companion.A strong short tale completed by sensitive illustrations express first terror and then love and relief. That first childhood loss of a beloved companion, a teddy left on the bus, a doll abandoned at a picnic, whatever the scenario, here is the dark world of that loss and the warm comfort of a new companion.The tale may be seemingly too dark for many young children to read on their own. This is a book to share where re-assurance can make this expression of a first loss a story to appreciate.Recommended: 3 out of 4 starsReviewer: Andrea DeakinAndrea has been involved with books since she was class librarian in Primary School, Student Librarian in Grammar School, student librarian for the Education Faculty when she was a student, and school librarian in schools both in England and in Canada, except for the first two years in Canada where she arrived in 1959. When she retired from teaching ( English and History) she was invited to review in February 1971, and continued to review for press, radio, and finally on the Internet (Deakin Newsletter from Okanagan College) until she retired in 2011. Forty years seemed sufficient- although she still cannot keep her nose out of good children's and YA fare.