A couple of weeks ago, as we exited from the Oscar-nominated documentary shorts, I was telling my nephew how one of them, Sun Come Up, reminded me of the second book in Jeanne DuPrau's City of Ember series, The People of Sparks. We had just seen five mini-movies about terrorism, industrial pollution, global warming, the aftermath of war, and educating refugees. In this particular movie, residents of a low-lying atoll which is gradually being flooded must go to a larger, neighboring island and literally beg for a place to relocate. Resources are limited on the larger island, and they are still recovering from a civil war. Most people there are not willing to help the islanders who are losing their home.
Likewise, the people in the fictional post-apocalyptic village of Sparks must decide if they can support the 300 refugees from Ember through the winter. The people of Ember will not survive without their assistance, but the resources are scarce.
"What happened to the world?" my nephew asked.
I told him it wasn't clear from the book. "Who knows? Maybe it was terrorism, global warming, pollution, or war," I shrugged. We laughed, but it was a bit of a sober moment.
(Click here for today's sample of my 6th grade students' response to the 2011 SOLSC challenge.)
I, too, found several thoughtful movies/documentaries I wanted to watch. I think this analogy--of scarity and of abundance--is a theme that seems to play out in our own lives right now. Sometimes you're up and sometimes you're down. We usually don't have this idea refer to life-threatening situations (like you write about), but sometimes it can be soul-threatening when faced with an extremely selfish person, or someone who is mean or means to do harm.
ReplyDeleteI'll add this book to my reading list, and look up that movie to add it to the watching list.