English Children's Literature week 11

• To kill a mockingbird

  

To Kill a Mockingbird is a novel by Harper Lee published in 1960. It was immediately successful, winning the Pulitzer Prize, and has become a classic of modern American literature. The plot and characters are loosely based on the author's observations of her family and neighbors, as well as on an event that occurred near her hometown in 1936, when she was 10 years old.

The novel is renowned for its warmth and humor, despite dealing with the serious issues of rape and racial inequality. The narrator's father, Atticus Finch, has served as a moral hero for many readers and as a model of integrity for lawyers. One critic explains the novel's impact by writing, "In the twentieth century, To Kill a Mockingbird is probably the most widely read book dealing with race in America, and its protagonist, Atticus Finch, the most enduring fictional image of racial heroism."

As a Southern Gothic novel and a Bildungsroman, the primary themes of To Kill a Mockingbird involve racial injustice and the destruction of innocence. Scholars have noted that Lee also addresses issues of class, courage, compassion, and gender roles in the American Deep South. The book is widely taught in schools in the United States with lessons that emphasize tolerance and decry prejudice. Despite its themes, To Kill a Mockingbird has been subject to campaigns for removal from public classrooms, often challenged for its use of racial epithets.

• Superstition

Superstition is the belief in supernatural causality—that one event causes another without any natural process linking the two events—such as astrology and religions, like omens, witchcraft, and prophecies, that contradict natural science.

The word superstition is generally used to refer to the religion not practiced by the majority of a given society – such as Christianity in Western culture – regardless of whether the prevailing religion contains superstitions. It is also commonly applied to beliefs and practices surrounding luck, prophecy, and certain spiritual beings, particularly the belief that future events can be foretold by specific (apparently) unrelated prior events.

• Godiva Chocolatier

  

Godiva Chocolatier is a manufacturer of premium fine chocolates and related products. Godiva, founded in Belgium in 1926, was purchased by the Turkish Yıldız Holding, owner of the Ülker Group, on November 20, 2007. Godiva owns and operates more than 600 retail boutiques and shops in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia and is available via over 10,000 speciality retailers.

• Lady Godiva

  

Godiva, Countess of Mercia, in Old English Godgifu, was an English noblewoman who, according to a legend dating at least to the 13th century, rode naked – covered only in her long hair – through the streets of Coventry to gain a remission of the oppressive taxation that her husband imposed on his tenants. The name "Peeping Tom" for a voyeur originates from later versions of this legend in which a man named Tom watched her ride and was struck blind or dead.

• Peeping Tom(偷窺者)

  

The story of "Peeping Tom", who alone among the townsfolk spied on the Lady Godiva's naked ride, probably did not originate in literature, but came about through popular lore in the locality of Coventry. Reference by 17th-century chroniclers has been claimed, but all the published accounts are 18th-century or later.

• Doubting Thomas

  

A doubting Thomas is a skeptic who refuses to believe without direct personal experience—a reference to the Apostle Thomas, who refused to believe that the resurrected Jesus had appeared to the ten other apostles, until he could see and feel the wounds received by Jesus on the cross.

In art, the episode (formally called the Incredulity of Thomas) has been frequently depicted since at least the 5th century, with its depiction reflecting a range of theological interpretations.

• Vocabularies

Respectively	used for saying that something happens separately to each of the people or things mentioned in the order in which they were mentioned
Respectful	feeling or showing respect

Malevolent	showing that you want to do something bad to someone
Benevolent	willing to help and be generous towards people
Intention	a plan in your mind to do something

Malicious	unkind and showing a strong feeling of wanting to hurt someone
Malicious gossip	Disgraceful gossip about the private lives of others

Benefit	an advantage you get from a situation
Beneficiary	someone who gets money or other things from someone who has died

Ex-	1.      Out 2.      Used with nouns that describe someone’s job, rank, or relationship to someone, for showing that they no longer have that job, rank, or relationship
Exclude	to deliberately not include something e.g. These figures exclude cash receipts