Professional Documents
Culture Documents
IB English A1 Yr. 1
Small Wonder –
Kingsolver
Due: 5th March, 09
1. Small Wonder
In the first very first essay of Kingsolver, she starts by talking about how one’s fear can
actually save someone by overcoming their fears. She also adds how countries waste their
money by making people buy things rather than directly helping them. She later on also
talks about the worst enemy of human, anger. She believes that even though one tries its
In this piece of Kingsolver’s work, the author tries to show the relationship and
importance between humans and nature. She tries to say that the beautiful nature helps in
soothing one’s mind. She also adds that today humans are directly surviving on nature
This essay is basically based on genetic engineering. As she talks about it, she also
mentions Charles Darwin and his theories. She believes that most people don’t
understand the true and deep meaning of his theory of evolution. Later on she shows her
appreciation and fascination about nature and how it works. She also mentions Nikolai
Vavilov, a great explorer who travelled around the world looking for answers in genetics.
4. Lily’s Chicken
In ‘Lily’s Chicken’, Kingsolver tells a delightful story about her five year old
daughter’s relationship with a rooster. She tries to explain how her daughter grows and
how it affects her thinking and her actions. In this essay she focuses more on the
In this essay, Kingsolver talks about how the Television (to which she calls the
one eyed monster) has negative affects on humans. She personifies the television and
says that it tries to take the spot of the newspaper. She says that TV creates a loss in
contentment. But at the same time she enjoys keeping a VCR in her house.
In this essay, Kingsolver is writing a letter to her daughter where she describes about the
relationship between a mother and a child. She starts off by talking about how mothers
keep an eye on their children and she describes her teenage life to het daughter. She later
on talks about how she takes care of her daughter as she also talks about being careful in
7. A Letter To My Mother
essay, Kingsolver starts off by saying how different letters are from other communication
communication as she explains a lot of her feelings in letters, feelings that cannot be
expressed in other ways. She also adds that writing letters tend to open one’s mind.
Overall, she basically talks about the important relationship between a mother and a
daughter.
8. Going To Japan
In this essay, Kingsolver briefly describes her great experiences when she went to
Japan for the first time. As she starts on with the essay she describes how she struggled
to communicate with the native people and how she tried to adapt herself into the society
by learning a few Japanese phrases. She also describes about the Japanese culture and
basic dressing rules of the society. Finally, she tries to spread the means of peace by
Kingsolver refers to the columbine flower initially in the essay as she later on
refers to the unfortunate shooting in Columbine High School in Colorado. She tries to
explain how children of today’s world get psychologically affected by the world around
them and tend to choose the door of violence. In the end she gives possible ways to
remove this from its roots by saying that today’s technologies and media are its main
source.
In this essay, Kingsolver focuses the theme of ‘war on terrorism’. She explains the
importance of it by referring to Gandhi and Martin Luther Jr. She says that violence is
actually eating up this world and it must be stopped. She mentions the 9/11 event and