literature tlatof thunderbolt kid

• Engels
• Middelbare school
• havo
• Leerjaar 4

What do you think the book is about?

Get out your book

Put away your phone

Put your bag on the floor

What is a memoir?

Whose memoir would you like to read?

Read the blurb of the book

What do you expect?

Blurb

In this deeply funny and personal memoir, Bill Bryson travels back in time to explore the ordinary kid he once was, in the curious world of 1950s Middle America. It was a happy time, when almost everything was good for you, including DDT, cigarettes and nuclear fallout. This is a book about one boy’s growing up. But in Bryson’s hands, it becomes everyone’s story, one that will speak volumes – especially to anyone who has ever been young.

Do you think you will enjoy this book?

😒🙁😐🙂😃

Start reading

Read tlatot Thunderbolt Kid

Put away your phone

Put your bag on the floor 

What is Bryson's writing style?

What is Bryson's writing style?

• facts
• humour

The book is mostly about the 1950's in the USA. What were these years like in the Netherlands?

Do some research if you don't know.

Read tlatot Thunderbolt Kid (book or pdf)

Put away your phone

Put your bag on the floor 

Your questions about the book so far...

Imagine that you’re 8 years old again.
What kind of superhero would you be?

What powers would you have?

What would be your superhero name?

Read tlatot Thunderbolt Kid

Put away your phone

Put your bag on the floor 

Homework check

About what decade did Bryson write in this book?

Where did Bryson grow up?

1. Des Moines, Iowa
2. New York, New York
3. Houston, Texas
4. Doylestown, Pennsylvania

What kind of exercise did Bryson's father do a lot?

1. yoga
2. isometrics
3. baseball
4. dancercise

What kind of job did Bryson's parents have?

1. baseball player & housewife
2. they were both writers
3. they both worked in a store
4. traveling salesman & housewife

Who is the Thunderbolt Kid?

homework 3/6

lees hoofdstuk 2-4

Genre: memoir

The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid is a memoir about Bill Bryson’s childhood in America. 

In this assignment you will first have a closer look at this genre and what you expect of the book.

• Look up online what the genre of ‘memoir’ entails. Give a short account of your findings.

• Have you ever read a memoir before? If so, what was its title and what did you think of it?
  

• Whose memoir would you be interested in reading? About what period/event in their life? If you are not interested in reading any memoirs, explain why that is.
  

Start reading

Read the ‘Preface and Acknowledgements’ on page 13 – 14.

• Do you like the way the preface is written? Why (not)? What makes it so?
  
• Can you understand why Bill Bryson has chosen to write about his childhood?

Memoir?

Chapter 1: Hometown

page 16/19 I CAN’T IMAGINE...

page 22/33 THE ONLY DOWNSIDE...

• Silent reading
• Next slide: Birth of a Superhero (page 94)

• Who or what is the Thunderbolt Kid?
  
• Give a description of the Thunderbolt Kid? Why was he created?
• Did you have a similar experience as a child? How did you use your imagination back then?
  

Write down your answers using your own words in full English sentences. (exam practice)

alter-ego

childhood memories

pro and cons about growing up in the fifties vs now

Bryson paints the 50's as an innocent, almost idyllic time. Was it?

What was childhood like for American children in the 1950s? What concerns and excitements did they have?

How was Bill's childhood different than what a child might experience today? What things have changed? What has remained the same?

Discuss Bryson's mother, a professional woman, and his father, who was also absent a good deal of the time. How did their manner of parenting strike you? Do we have a different concept of parenting today?