Moth: An Evolution Story

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Year 5 and 6 pupils at West Park Primary School were tasked with retelling the story of the peppered moth as a Shakespearean sonnet

Moth: An Evolution Story by Isabel Thomas | Goodreads Moth: An Evolution Story by Isabel Thomas | Goodreads

I won’t say this is by far the best partition literature that I have read, however I did enjoy this unique insight which encapsulated historical events and experiences flawlessly. There were a few instances where Hindi phrases were misprinted which I am willing to overlook as it was written by someone who is uninitiated to the language and they were far and few! Ma and Bappu are liberal intellectuals teaching at the local university. Their fourteen year-old daughter – precocious, headstrong Alma– is soon to be married: Alma is mostly interested in the wedding shoes and in spinning wild stories for her beloved younger sister Roop, a restless child obsessed with death. Both live with Daddee Ma – Bappu’s mother – now a bitter and bigoted old woman after the loss of her husband and many babies. Pupils at Holbrook School in Coventry used Readers Theatre to read and perform the peppered moth’s life cycle – amazing! Not all moth species feed as adults, but those that do feed, do so on nectar, sap and sugary liquids from plants and fruits.' Nine colourful and distinctive types of UK mothsI felt that the last part of this novel was more of a "misery, begets misery, begets misery, begets misery, etc." We know. She did not understand that her setting and time period spoke to that implicitly without having to overexplain or emphasize. Moth by Melody Razak was published June 24th with Weidenfeld & Nicolson (W&N Books) with The Observer describing it as ‘powerful and heartbreaking.’ I finished reading Moth with a lump in my throat and my mind in turmoil. Cogan Primary ran their own Biodiversity Picture Book Award #GwobrLlyfrLluniauBioamrwyiaethCogan2020 for picture books which show concern for and celebrate our environment. I was so happy that Moth got nominated by the pupils! Year 6 pupils at Grange Farm Primary School in Coventry worked in small teams to explore the impact of pollution on the peppered moth, natural selection and survival! Her younger sister Roop is a free spirited individual with a very quirky personality. Roop sees the world very differently from others in her family. She fears nothing, has a peculiar relationship with death and, as the story progresses, she becomes very important to the family’s survival.

The Moth | Books The Moth | Books

Children from years 1 & 2 at Egremont Primary have created some wonderful work. Their last few moths flew up today. Well done!Whilst it is Partition that drives the book forward, the focus is predominantly on the women. The Guardian review finishes by saying: With its unflinching focus on violence against women, her strong, captivating debut tells a story that is at once firmly rooted in a time and place and yet pressingly relevant to the here and now. Summary: I enjoyed this book. I thought it was a great visual and explanation of natural selection and how animals adapt to their environment. I really enjoyed the illustrations in this book and how it helped readers grasp the concept of adaptation. Story tellers range from Darryl of Run DMC, to acclaimed reporter, one of 2005 Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People, Malcolm Gladwell. We hear from an airline stewardess, a man who worked a record-setting four years as a volunteer for a suicide hot-line, and the one that I've retold the most: a dad, desperately trying to communicate with his teen-aged son and grossly misunderstanding, therefore constantly misusing, "LOL". My only other gripe is that I had heard at least a third of the stories already, on The Moth podcast. Some of them I reread and enjoyed all over again, but others I skipped, in favor of discovering a new story. This was of course unavoidable--based on how the stories were collected in the first place--but as a reader and a Moth listener, I was slightly put off.

Moth by Melody Razak | Goodreads

Nature literature? Always on my radar, and the synopsis for Moth sounded special. Bloomsbury Children's Books provided a review copy in exchange for an honest review. Melody Razak tells this story in Moth, her remarkable debut novel. A pastry chef and café owner, she was inspired to go for an MFA in her forties after listening to elderly survivors recount their experiences on a radio program, Partition Voices, (ah, BBC Radio 4 . . .) “It wasn’t just about the political and geographical rupture in India,”she said in an interview for the Telegraph of India, “It was ruptures between families, between friends, between people because there was so much love there. And that was kind of ripped apart.” They are also important pollinators. Alessandro says, 'Moths pollinate a wide variety of plants, including wildflowers and some crops, as they search for nectar.' What do moths eat? There are also rites of passage and social history elements to the story, which is at heart a family story. The main protagonists are a prosperous Brahmin family in which the main protagonist Alma and her tomboyish younger sister Roop grow up. Other characters exist mainly to demonstrate the religious and cultural diversity of Delhi. It was a need to write about something political, intimate and about women that led Razak to the trauma of Indian Partition in 1947. Listening to the radio one night in her cafe, she heard a show called Partition Voices –– interviews of elderly survivors and their experiences of living through the Partition of India. She was moved. “It wasn’t just about the political and geographical rupture in India. It was ruptures between families, between friends, between people because there was so much love there. And that was kind of ripped apart,” she said.

What do moths eat?

Also, the end is meant to be inspirational despite the previous gratuitous and horrifying scene but I struggled to see the point of inspiration or the point of that last scene. Was it really her India? No. Her body wasn't even her body. She was abducted. You can't take your audience through that entire novel in which you emphasize that women are not equal humans in this scenario and don't have the same agency as men in any capacity and then try to convince us in the last scene that it is somehow "her India", it felt patronizing. Why end on a high note when the entire point of your novel was meant to emphasize suffering and horror, and the crimes of humanity against one another? It's like putting a bow on a pile of shit, what's the point? A huge welcome to everyone taking part in the Great Science Share for Schools! Here are some ideas and resources for exploring the wonderful world of moths in your classroom over the coming weeks: Their food supply can be a good starting point when looking for moths and caterpillars, with each species preferring certain plants and flowers. When they hatch, the caterpillars burrow into the trees, feeding on the lower trunk and upper roots.'

isabel thomas » MOTH – an evolution story

This is the first partition book I have read from a non-Indian author and all I can say is Melody Razak has done a commendable job. The research is impeccable and the atmosphere she creates with her sense of time and the place will drag you right in and make you a part of the story; living and breathing with the characters. Red apple hair clip. Sweet milk pudding. A fair haired boy at the shore. The sacrifice? The moth. Ninety three women dead in the well. For a longer look at natural selection and the story behind Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace’s theory, I have written a book especially for KS2 readers, published by Oxford University Press – The Misadventures of Charles Darwin. Have a look inside here.

Nine colourful and distinctive types of UK moths

They frequent fens, open woodland, heaths and scrubby places, laying their eggs on the bark of the larval foodplants such as goat willow, grey willow and poplars.