In life, people can be different depending on what other people do. In the books My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother and Chicken Sunday, this theme stands out. I read both these books by Patrica Polacco in school and wrote an essay comparing them. Here it is:
In life, people can be different depending on what other people do. In the books My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother and Chicken Sunday, Tricia makes a difference to change other people’s feelings about her. In the beginning, middle, and end of both stories, something happens to change a character. That character then helps Tricia in some way and they form a relationship.
In the beginning of the book My Redheaded Older Brother, Richie and Tricia don’t like each other. Richie is always nice to Trica when there are adults around but is normally mean to her. He always argues with her and jeered “Bet I can pick more blackberries than you.” He even said that he didn’t like rhubarb so they had a competition with her and he won saying “I don’t like rhubarb, I love it!” When their grandma is there Richie always tries to be nice and help Tricia. One day Tricia beat her brother in a competition but got hurt. Richie then realized that he didn’t have to compete with Tricia and be mean to her all the time. He then ran to get a doctor for her and help her. This made them create a relationship together.
In the book, Chicken Sunday, Tricia and her brothers get accused of throwing eggs at Mr. Kodinski shop. The picture Mr. Kodinski as an old and grumpy man. Mr. Kodinski sees them as mean kids who hate him. The children, Tricia, Winston, and Stewards’ grandma then tells them that they have to find a way to convince Mr. Kodinsky that they didn’t throw the eggs. The three kids then realize that and changes this by giving Mr. Kodinski easter eggs. Mr. Kodinski loves the eggs and says “I haven’t seen this since I left my homeland” and was very happy. Mr. Kodinsky was so grateful and invited the kids for tea. While they were having tea they talked about their life. This then made them create a relationship. He then gave the kids a hat that the wanted to give their grandmother for Easter.
The stories, My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother, and Chicken Sunday are similar. They are similar because they both start with a conflict happening but then someone realizes that they shouldn’t do this so they solve the conflict and form a relationship. In My Rotten Redheaded older brother, Richie is mean to Tricia but when she gets hurt Richie realizes that he shouldn’t be men to Tricia. In Chicken Sunday, the kids, Tricia, Stewart, and Winston want to change each other’s perspectives about one another.
In life, people can be different depending on what other people do. This theme supports both My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother and Chicken Sunday. This is a really important theme that fixes the problem in both stories. This could be helpful in other people’s life.