WOW Reads: S2, E2 - MSRAP Reads Clarice the Brave by Lisa McMann

Join the Worlds of Words Center Middle School Reading Ambassadors (MSRAP) as we discuss Clarice the Brave by Lisa McMann.

In this episode, the Reading Ambassadors talk about the theme of separation. We also butcher the word "anthropomorphism" to discuss how human characteristics are attributed to the animals in Clarice the Brave. In our off-air literature discussions, we considered anthropomorphism as a basis for banning/challenging books.

This podcast was recorded in the Digital Innovation and Learning Lab (DIALL) in the UArizona College of Education with assistance from the UA COE Tech Team.

Producer/Host: Rebecca Ballenger, Worlds of Words Center Associate Director
Audio Engineer: Liam Arias, Student Employee and Radio, TV, Film Major
Coordinator: Vianey Torres, Student Employee and Nursing Major

Reading Ambassador Adviser:
Samantha Montes, Graduate Assistant

For more information on the Worlds of Words Middle School Reading Ambassadors (MSRAP), visit wowlit.org.

We Can Promote Global Literature Together!

The Worlds of Words Reading Ambassador program is completely free for participants who receive a book for themselves and a book to share with their school librarian, ELA/English teacher, or other school entity. If you would like to support this program, please make a gift on-line through the University of Arizona Foundation.

Thank you for listening and keep reading!

Transcript

Rebecca
Welcome to WOW Reads a podcast of the World's of Words Center of Global Literacies and Literatures. Worlds of Words is committed to creating an international network of people who share the vision of bringing books and children together, thereby opening windows on the world. We encourage thoughtful dialog around global literature so that children can reflect on their own cultural experiences and connect to the experiences of children across the globe. Today we are speaking to the middle school, reading Ambassadors.

Emily
Worlds of Word Center for Global Literacies and Literatures. Middle School Reading Ambassadors Initiative offers middle school students a college experience within the University of Arizona College of Education that focuses on books for middle school age readers. Ambassadors learn about adolescence literature under the direction of faculty and staff with expertise in children, literature, education, library, science and marketing. 

Graham
We respectfully acknowledge the University of Arizona is on the land and territory of indigenous peoples. Today, Arizona is home to 22 federally recognized tribes of Tucson being home to O'Odham and the Yaqui committed to diversity and inclusion. The university strives to build sustainable relationships with sovereign native nations and indigenous communities through education offerings, partnerships and community service.

Charlotte
Lisa McMahon is a- is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of dozens of books, including The Forgotten Five series, the Unwanted Series, and the Wake Trilogy. She is married to fellow writer Matt McMann, and they have two adult children. Their son is an artist, Kilian McMann, and their daughter is an actor Kennedy McMann. Lisa spends most of her time in Arizona, Arizona, California, Vancouver, British Columbia, and loves to read- loves to cook, read and watch TV realities.
The only good cat is a fed cat. Clarice, a young, ship mouse knows this to be true. She and her brother, Charles Sebastian, were taught to be careful, as all mice were. But caution is no match for the sea, which took their mother and is certainly no match for Special Lady, the horrid cat who ate their sister. Now the siblings hide in their pantry crate knowing every move they make could be their last. When a shocking mutiny forces Clarice into a small, leaky boat with Special Lady and a dozen hungry soldiers with deadly boots. Charles Sebastian is left on the ship to fend off mutineers, a flock of irritated chickens and an inquisitive human prisoner, a mouse's worst enemy. Being careful may have saved them in the past, but now Clarice and Charles Sebastian will need to grow bold if they are to survive and keep their promise to find each other again.

Rebecca
Thank you for that summary of the book, Clarice the Brave, Charlotte. Let's start out with introductions. I'll go first. My name is Rebecca, I’m the Associate Director of World of Words and Charlotte, since you just gave us that summary of Clarice the brave, why don't you introduce yourself next? 

Charlotte
Hello, I'm Charlotte, and I really enjoy reading.

Emily
Hello, I'm Emiline and I enjoy reading as well. 

Liliana
Hello. My name's Liliana, and my favorite hobby is reading.

Gabriel
Hi, I'm Gabriel, and I like reading.

Jenisha
Hello. My name is Janisha, and I enjoy reading as well. 

Graham
My name is Graham and I love reading.

Krish
My name is Krish, and I enjoy playing in my school's band.

Samantha
Hi. My name is Samantha, and I'm a graduate student here at the University of Arizona and Rebecca's partner in crime. 

Rebecca
First of all, I love that everybody loves reading. I mean, this is a reading program. Let's start off with a question. So in our program, we had an opportunity to have a literature discussion in which we talked about a lot of things, and then we just got finished meeting Lisa McMann, who is the author of Clarice The Brave, the book we read. I'm curious to know what connections each of you have made to this book. Let's go in reverse order.

Tyler
Okay. One connection I made with this book, similar to Lisa McMann's connection, was the theme of separation. And during the COVID pandemic, my parents or my grandparents aren't in this country, so it's very hard for me to visit them. And this was supporting the theme of separation in the book.

Krish
I also had a connection to the book. I have an older brother who I like a lot. During COVID, he also he was at the University of Arizona, but he didn't really come home that much. And I was really missing him a lot.

Graham
I also had a very important connection to the book. My grandparents were live across country, and so I did not get to see them very much during the pandemic. 

Liliana
I have a younger sister and a connection that I feel like the book made with me was that if I was separated from my sister, I don't know what I would do without her. And I feel like the book really shows that. And I agree.

Gabriel
My family is divided into like four spheres of influence and four different cities. It's sort of hard to, you know, visit each other. It-it sort of breaks my heart that to see these characters separated, I can’t wait.

Jenisha
My connection with the book is that during COVID, I couldn't see my grandparents and I felt really sad and lonely without them. 

Emily
Much like everyone else, my connection was separation. And during COVID and being away from all my family, I'm all my other family lives on the East Coast, so I am far away from them. And it was sad that it wasn't able to see them for years.

Charlotte
My connection to the book is quite similar to everyone else. I was not able to see quite a few family members during the COVID pandemic, but I also connect with some of the characters in the book because while they were separated, they several characters helped each other, and me and my family were helping as much as we could our other family members during COVID.

Rebecca
So I relate to that. So Clarice and her brother, Charles Sebastian, were separated. What were some of the other separations that happened in Clarice the Brave?

Gabriel
Benjamin and Heyoon, much like Clarice and Charles, got separated. However, unlike Clarice and Charles, they were in a bit of a different situation. And one of them didn't make it out alive.

Rebecca
Okay, so spoiler alert.

Emily
There was Special Lady who was separated from her brother Robin. The name Robin.

Rebecca
And the captain was separated from his crew. Right? 

Charlotte
Well, although we're not really sure if that was a experience that he enjoyed or displeased. 

Rebecca
Yeah, maybe some separations are, you know, more complicated. And so today we got to meet Lisa and we asked her some questions. What stuck out to you in terms of how she answered your questions?

Gabriel
I mean, some of her questions were have a bit of loose ends. It was a bit creative. But it was breathtaking.

Graham
I think that she answered our questions well. And then, even if she didn't have an answer, she would try to give us the best answer that she could. 

Liliana
What stuck out to me was that some of the questions were like, related to each other. So she would pair it with other questions. That was, it was interesting to see how they related for her.

Charlotte
I found it really interesting to figure out more backstory to the characters and what she thought of different characters while writing. And I also found it very interesting to learn how she wrote the book and what her writing process was.

Tyler
I found it very insightful on how Lisa McMahon thinks about a book and how she comes up with the ideas and how she takes inspiration from other authors to write her own books.

Rebecca
Do you remember what she called her first draft?

Tyler
She called her first draft a skeleton and a lot of authors for their first draft write a lot of extra words, and then they eventually start cutting back on words. But Lisa McMann uses a skeleton, which is like very bare bones and as minimal words, and she eventually goes back and adds words.

Charlotte
I found that particular piece of information very helpful for I had a class last year that was a writing class, and I'm kind of continuing with the story I wrote. So it's very interesting to see the technique of different writers and to think how I could use that in my own story.

Gabriel
Some of her  techniques were used back in the olden days, so it's not really-

Rebecca
Gabriel let me stop you and ask you what do you mean by the olden days?

Gabriel
Like back in like the 1700s? It's nice to see like those themes revamped to modern day society.

Charlotte
Yeah. Like the theme of Mutiny on Ships. That's not an experience that is common in modern times. It was more common back when ships were going to and from places quite a bit often and carrying supplies and crew members were not always treated respectfully. And I think that was a very interesting topic. 

Rebecca
What did Lisa say and inspired the story of mutiny?

Emily
She said that Captain Bligh was her. One of her favorite books a true story during the 1700s about a captain that faced mutiny because he wasn't nice to his sailors. And she said that she really liked that story and wanted to do a take on it. And that was her inspiration.

Charlotte
It was really interesting to see that mutiny from the ship. My perspective, I really think that was an interesting perspective. 

Rebecca
Yeah. So our main character, in fact, most of our principal characters are animals. Are you guys reading a lot of books where the principal characters are animals?

Gabriel
I mean, there are some like mostly I think it's movies like The Lion King, Bambi.

Charlotte
It's not a common topic for books.

Tyler
We've once had a discussion about books with characters or characters as animals and how they were, like commonly banned because it was just like against the common trope of what characters were.

Rebecca
So personification or anthro- oh say that for me. An- An-

Gabriel
Anthromo- (Anthropomorphization!)

Rebecca
We'll put that in the podcast notes!

Graham
I also think that one thing with the characters is- being animals - was that she mentioned was that they were more vulnerable than, say, a human sailor. 

Liliana
I think it's super interesting how you can find like it's in a different point of view than you would regularly expect and it gives a sense of like adventure and like interestingness. I saw it as kind of interesting that she took animals into it.

Emily
I it's a really cool perspective to write in, but I was wondering, like when I was reading, like, why not choose maybe the chickens? Because the chickens are a huge part, like a smallish but kind of big part of the book. So maybe she could have elaborated on maybe what the chickens were feeling.

Rebecca
For sure the chickens didn't get the same personality treatments that the cats and the mice got.

Jenisha
When Lisa McMann said that mice were more vulnerable than sailors, I thought mice would be more interesting for as main characters. When she said that. 

Gabriel
So I think that when she chose mice, it also helped that we couldn't relate to the story as much as maybe human characters, you know, give more of a mystery feel to it, like you don't know what's going to happen next.

Charlotte
It's really interesting to see both sides to see a - different side of the story from the mice perspective. I've read a book with a similar topic. Charlotte Doyle It's another book with mutiny, but it's from the perspective of a human. And while it's a very good book, it doesn't really capture the fear and mystery that Clarice the Brave does with animals. And not a lot of attention is drawn to the animals. And it was kind of interesting to see how the mutiny affected their lives, but they couldn't have an active part in it.

Gabriel
It was nice that she had the mice, that she had an end to the story because it brought dynamic. It also allowed her to bring the introduction of some other animals, like the chickens and more specifically, the cats. It was nice that she had a three cats that could show, like all of the sides of cats.

Rebecca
Some on the sides of cats for sure. So let's talk about what it was like to meet Lisa.

Tyler
Meeting Lisa was like mind opening to be able to see how she comes up with ideas and how she thought of the ideas for this book. It was really interesting. And yeah, I think I can implement some of her. I like some of her weight techniques. I'm getting ideas into my own writing.

Rebecca
Okay. We're about at the point where we were going to wrap up. So are there any last thoughts, any last impressions, anything that you want to share?

Emily
It was really nice meeting Lisa McMann because we were able to learn about her perspective on the writing rather than our own and see what she was thinking when she was writing the book that we're enjoying today.

Gabriel
I mean, it was very nice to see the book. It was mind opening. The only thing that I think could have been fixed was a bit less loose ends, like Marigold, Robin, how did they find out what happened to the captain? That's the only complaint that I have.

Charlotte
This was a very interesting story. It had incredible themes like separation, but also unlikely friendships formed in dire situations. Two characters. I'm not going to give spoilers here, but two very unlikely friendships were formed between the main characters and the ending of the book was not something I've seen in most other books, and it was very, very interesting.

Rebecca
I really enjoyed reading it. I agree. Charlotte. There is a moment of trust that we could learn from in this book too.

Graham
I also think that, one of the big themes that helped Clarice throughout the story was hope. Even when his brother got separated and also the closeness that they have. Like he says that knowing that Charles Sebastian is looking at the same sky brings them closer together.

Rebecca
And that was- on that point- was when she talked to us about her original title, was about them being under that same sky. I can't remember exactly what it was, but she changed the title from that. But that was like a pivotal- pivotal piece of our understanding of the separation as you can be under the same sky.

Graham
I think this, the original title was The Same Sky Between. Excellent. Thank you. 

Jenisha
It was really nice to meet Lisa McMann, and I would definitely recommend Clarice the Brave.

Liliana
I agree.

Gabriel
And some of her other books, The Unwanted.

Charlotte
The Forgotten Five. I'm currently reading that series, and it's so good.

Krish
I found it very interesting that, like, when we're increases mind she'll use like words like ostracized and like very big words but like Clarice she doesn't know what mutiny is.

Rebecca
But what did Lisa why didn't Lisa told us why she did that? Do you remember?

Tyler
This is Lisa's little way for getting children like us to look up words while reading books and. Yeah.

Rebecca
Way to go, Lisa. All right. Thanks to Lisa McMann for coming to speak with the middle school reading ambassadors. Thanks also to the Digital Innovation and Learning Lab in the University of Arizona College of Education, where we are currently recording, thanks to Liam Arias, our sound engineer. Thanks to Vianey for keeping us all together. We also want to thank Matt McMann, who came to us to speak about his Monsteriousseries. We all received a copy of Escape from Grimstone Manor, the first one in this series. It is such a fun book about three friends who are caught in a haunted house. In our next episode, we will be talking about Kingdom Over the Sea by Zohra Nabi.