Ink and Insight

This book is one that needs no words for me and my eldest daughter, Sarah. The protagonist, Trisha, lives with her mother, brother, grandmother, and grandfather after her parents’ divorce. Trisha, who had a hard time reading, finds school life difficult. After her grandmother and grandfather, who always gave her strength and courage, passed away, Trisha’s family moved. She wanted to get along well at the school she transferred to, but she was severely teased by the pranksters because she was not good at anything other than drawing and especially became a fool during literacy class. Trisha, who used to avoid teasing and always be alone, meets Mr. Falker and comes out from darkness to light. Mr. Falker and the reading guidance teacher keep Trisha after school for reading guidance, and after several months of effort, Trisha finally reads a book and learns what it is like to pursue knowledge. I remember crying a lot while reading this book to my three children. There were several reasons, ...

I finally finished reading Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” that I had been reluctantly reading. It’s not so enjoyable to read a novel, following the author’s narrative description, when you already know the content. I think having to read a book you don’t want to read for a class is one of the things to be thankful for though... ^^ There was this in the preface written by Mary Shelley: As Sancho said, everything has a beginning. And that beginning is always connected with something that existed before. From the preface of “Frankenstein” I ended my first reading diary, “Thank You, Mr. Falker,” with a suggestion to write a letter to the author of the book that moved you. So, to continue writing in a chain, I chose a book about writing a letter to an author. “Dear Mr. Henshaw". This book is a treasure I found in Aladdin during the days when we lived with my in-laws after returning from Shanghai, and I took refuge in libraries and cafes whenever I had the chance. The illustrations were ...

  I need to tell the story of a baby who desperately waits for his mother, just like Leigh Botts from “Dear Mr. Henshaw” always missed his father and waited for his call. I vividly remember wiping away my endless tears after closing the book in the library. A baby, who appears to be about four years old, stares blankly at me from the cover. It seems like he has something to say… When I turn the cover, I see a winding alleyway where the baby has toddled down. On the next page, he looks at me again as if asking me to follow him, then toddles away busily. The baby waits endlessly for his mother at the tram stop. He asks the conductor, “Isn’t my mom coming?” but only receives a cold response. The baby imagines where the tram his mother is riding might be. Even though it’s a freezing winter that turns the tip of his nose red, in the baby’s heart, his mother’s tram is flying over a colorful field of flowers, the sea, and the sky. Several trams pass by and the kind conductor calls this na...