My Response To Literature As a Child

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Seth Mier Eng. 103 Paper #1 Response to Literature as a Child For this paper I chose to go back to a piece of literature I briefly touched on in one of our online discussion forums. I had not really thought about the book since my childhood until this week when I was asked what one of my favorite characters was. I am not sure what made me think of Ferdinand, especially because most books I read as a child never really stuck with me through the years. In fact, “Ferdinand the Bull”, is probably the only book that I clearly remember reading when I was young. Nevertheless, the thought of this story sparked a lot of feelings. I figured it would be perfect for me to revisit this classic through my paper to see how I felt about it now as an adult. I also chose to get a little background information to help with my analysis. The book, “The Story of Ferdinand”, was written by American author Munro Leaf and illustrated by Robert Lawson. It was published in 1936; the same year the Spanish Civil War started. Along with the large success of the book also sprung great controversy because of its blatant message of pacifism and peace and also because of it was set in Spain. For this reason the book was labeled as anti-fascist propaganda. Because of the rising conflicts in Europe, the book was burned in Nazi Germany and banned by Spain’s leader, Francisco Franco, during the revolt. Munro Leaf was accused of writing the story with the intention to criticize the fascist revolt. This controversy sparked my interest to figure out why the book caused such a fuss. After all, it was just a children’s picture book, not some literary masterpiece or novel with a clearer message used to attack the views of the fascist movement. I soon remembered studying propaganda in history and how fascists often used it to target children because of how easy they were to
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