Analysis of How My Parents Learned to Eat by Ina R. Friedman And

Analysis of How My Parents Learned to Eat by Ina R. Friedman and

The Moon Princess by Kancho Oda

By: Kaehla Hershey

April 15, 2013

For this assignment, I read both How My Parents Learned to Eat and The Moon Princess to my second grade WIN class. WIN in our school setting stands for “What I need” in reading comprehension and fluency skill. Currently, we are focusing on our ability to compare and contrast genres. This was a perfect opportunity to compare and contrast two books with Asia main characters. How My Parents Learned to Eat is more of a love story, a realistic fiction depiction of two people going out of their way to learn and embrace the other’s culture. Set in wartime, the narrator tells the story of how her parents met. Her mother, a Japanese schoolgirl, met her father, an American sailor, in Yokohama. The story tells the back and forth relationship that ensues where cultural boundaries are crossed and both try to learn as much as they can to impress the other. Aiko and John are most amused at the end of the story when they realize what they both are trying to do and decide to just be and meet each other halfway.

In The Moon Princess, quite a different fantasy takes place in old Japan. In the forest, a bamboo cutter and his wife discover a lovely baby girl in a stalk of bamboo. They baby brings them riches otherwise unimaginable to the couple. The Princess, Shining Bright as she is called, grows up to put her anxious suitors to a series of tests to prove their love. Shining Bright has other plans, and shares with her adoptive parents that she must return to her home in the moon. The couple begs her to stay, but she tells them that she will forever remember their love.

Where both stories tell very different interpretations of life in Japan, both center around love and the cultures present in this geographic region. Suited best for elementary aged students, my WIN class thoroughly enjoyed both selections. When asked their feedback, students remarked that How My Parents Learned to Eat was their favorite because it seemed more relatable to them and involved some more humor. It was brought up that The Moon Princess was geared more towards girls than boys, as more of a fairytale. In short, both picture stories were relatable to our second grade curriculum and main idea to compare and contrast across genres and worked very well. I highly recommend both.