Blues Ain’t No Mockin Bird by Toni Cade Bambara.ppt

Blues Ain’t No Mockin Birdby Toni Cade Bambara Lesson developed by Susan Lenski sjlenski@ Please think about these questions and answer with “yes” or “no.” Friends can take my picture with their cell phones any time they want to. It’s OK for a stranger to take my picture with a cell phone when I’m not looking. Government officials have the right to take pictures of anyone at any time. Here is the first paragraph of the story. The puddle had frozen over, and me and Cathy went stompin in it. The twins from the next door, Tyrone and Terry, were swingin so high out of sight we forgot we were waitin our turn on the tire. Cathy jumped up and came down hard on her heels and started tap-dancin. And the frozen patch splinterin every which way underneath kinda spooky. “Looks like a plastic spider web, she said. “A sort of weird spider, I guess, with many mental problems.” But really it looked like the crystal paperweight Granny kept in the parlor. She was on the back porch, Granny was, making the cakes drunk. The old ladle dirpping rum into the Christmas tins, like it used to drip maple syrup into the pails when we lived in the Judson’s woods, like it poured cider into the vats when we were on the Cooper place, like it used to scoop buttermilk and soft cheese when we lived at the dairy. Role Playing Granny Cathy Tyrone Terry Narrator Man with camera “Go tell that man we ain’t a bunch of trees.” “Ma’m?” “I said to tell that man to get away from here with that camera.” Me and Cathy look over toward the meadow where the men with the station wagon’d been roamin around all morning. The tall man with a huge camera lassoed to his shoulder was buzzin our way. “They’re makin movie pictures,” yelled Tyrone, stiffenin his legs and twistin so the tire’d come down slow so they could see. “They’re making movie pictures,” sang out Terry. “That boy don’t never have anything original to say,” said Cathy grown-up. By the time the man with the camera had cut across our neighbor’s yard,