Project Mulberry

The book Project Mulberry I thought dealt with a few different issues, but only seemed to touch on them. Racism is brought up quite a bit throughout the book. It didn’t seem like there was ever a conclusion on the topic. This is not to say that everything that is brought up in the book needs to have a solution, but with something like racism, which I thought was a prominent issue throughout, there should have been some type of closure to the issue. There were many times where Julia questions her mother and thinks that she doesn’t like Mr. Dixon because he is black. She also mentioned that her mother questioned one of Julia’s teachers who was also black. Mrs. Song told Julia that she just didn’t think that her teacher had enough experience to teach the class correctly. Julia thought that this may have been true, but assumed it was because she was black. To me, as a college student it is pretty clear what is going on, but a young child may not pick up on the clues. I think Julia could have went more in depth with the issue and maybe talked with her mom and figured out why she felt such a way and maybe the two of them could have come to some type of understanding on the issue.
I also did not think the authors’ notes in between the chapters were necessary. It did mention that we did not have to read them, but when they are placed between the chapters you can’t help but read them. I did not think they gave much insight or extra information about the characters. It did say how some of them got their names and why they liked certain things but that is about it. I think Park was letting the reader know that she was an inside author, but that is something that could have been researched if it was necessary. While reading the commentary I began to get a bit annoyed and thought that they seemed very childish. This is a children’s book, I know, but it almost made the author seem as if she was immature. There was one point where the author and Julia were arguing back and fourth about a very unimportant issue. I do think the commentary adds something different to the book, and a little extra something, but nothing that is really of interest to the reader. I can’t speak for everyone who has read the book that is just my opinion. I think there could have been more important information placed in between the chapters which would have made it much more interesting and worthwhile.