Wide reading log #2

Big Brother, Little sister

Short story

6/3/2020

This story is very confronting and shows how family violence is still going on and is not going to stop any time soon. This short story is about a mother that doesn’t have control over her two children so the pressure is on Henna (The older brother) to care and provide for his younger sister Janey. They go through alot but are mainly trying to get to Gisborne where their grandmother lives but trying to get a train ride there becomes a big problem. This is because they don’t have enough money to provide the tickets for two, only one and Janey does not want to go by herself.

A character I find interesting is Hema because of how mature he is for his age and that even though he always has to look after Janey he doesn’t complain and keeps on going on and persevering. I also like him because he understands what’s going on around him, like how his mother is getting abused and he tries to step in even though he can’t do much, he knows that she doesn’t like it.

A very big message I took from the story is how violent family violence is and that it was not a thing from the past. It is something that is happening right now and even probably in our school or at least in Wanaka. Also the family is obviously struggling for money shown in this short story with the quote “Janey and I sleep in the same bed” and also that they were in a flat with two bedrooms. Which I know I can not really relate to because I have grown up in a household that doesn’t have these problems. But the kids also didn’t want to believe that their mum didn’t love them with the quote “You’re good, you’re a good Mum”, but was that true? 

An obvious challenge the characters had to deal with was the family not having very much money and the violence going on around them. It’s shown that they don’t have much money because the kids struggle to get the train tickets for the train ride as well as many other problems that have already been mentioned, and the violence going on around the kids probably doesn’t help. I don’t really understand why the mum is not motivated to get the best for her kids, like to try and work more or get a better job because she is just setting the kids back in life.

I think the title could have had more meaning to it because “Big Brother, Little sister” does not teach us much about the story or how much emotion the story has. I would prefer the name to be something like “Families don’t work themselves”. Because it says what the story is about and has that emotion in the phrase that I was talking about.

I would recommend or give this short story to an eldrly because they probably had lots of this stuff going on when they were kids and don’t understand or know that it is still going on, which I think will surprise them because of how much society has not changed.