CRR 1 Weslandia

Weslandia

By: Paul Fleischman

Weslandia is about a boy that doesn’t fit in with his peers. He is constantly being made fun of for trying to be different. He doesn’t like pizza, soda, or sports. So he isn’t the average kid. After school each day, his mother asks him what he learned. So everyday he told her. The three days that are mentioned here in the book are Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. On Wednesday he learned about how seeds are carried in the wind. On Thursday he learned about how each civilization has a staple food crop. On Friday he told his mom that his teacher said that he should find a good summer project. That is when the light bulb in Wesley’s head turned on. He decided that he would grow his own staple crop and from that start his own civilization.

That very next day Wesley goes outside and tills an area for his staple crop to grow. That night, the wind planted Wesley’s garden. His crop begins to grow. And soon it is taller than he is! And Wesley can’t find the name of this plant anywhere. The plant produces an amazing fruit. Wesley says that it tastes like peaches, strawberries, pumpkin pie, and many other unnamable flavors. He then discovered that he could make hats from the roots and clothing from the soft inner fibers of the plants. The oil from the plant worked as sun tan lotion and bug repellent. This is the part of the book when the kids that used to pick on Wesley want to play in his garden and be a part of this adventure that he is having.

Throughout the rest of the book, Wesley invents sports to play, he makes a hammock to sleep in, and he creates a new counting system which was based upon the number eight. He makes a sundial in the middle of the garden based on his new counting system. At the end, he creates a whole alphabet and records the history of Weslandia in his new language. When Wesley returns to school, the picture shows him walking on the sidewalk wearing his clothes that he made with a bunch of other children following him wearing the same kinds of clothes. This shows that Wesley made friends by involving them in what he liked to do, not conforming to the other children. As the book says, “he had no shortage of friends.”

I believe that this book connects to the chapter because of the way Wesley creates his own culture. Wesley creates his own “civilization” and soon develops a culture to go along with it. The clothes, sports, alphabet, language, and numerical system created a unique experience when the other children entered into Weslandia. In the beginning of the book, Wesley didn’t fit into the pizza, soda, and professional football loving culture that all of the other children were a part of. So when he gets his idea to create his own civilization, the other students want to come and join in and become a part of his culture.

I believe that children would be able to connect with this book because most children have experienced bullying at one point in time. Wesley was bullied and made fun of at the beginning of the book because he did not fit in with his peers. I think that kids can connect with that on some level. As the Child’s Voice section of the book says on page 27:

My favorite Patricia Polacco book is Thank you Mr. Falker because Mr. Falker helped Patricia with reading and writing and Mrs. Altland my teacher helped me with things I have trouble with. Patricia was a good artist in school and I ove art and I draw a lot. I think the message in this book is it doesn’t matter if you are different you always can do something good.

This student responded to the book on a personal level because she could see the characters point of view. I think that students would respond similarly to Weslandia. Even though not every kid wants to go and create their own civilization, many want to have a club house or an escape where the possibilities are endless. And Paul Fleischman gave children that kind of place with this book.