Text title – The Magpies 

Author/Director – Dennis Glover

Text type – Poem 

Date read – 2/6/20

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In the poem it is about life as it starts when they are young until when they died. in the story it tells the audience that when they were younger they used to sleep on bracken which is another name for fern it is only found in new zealand so the story must have taken place in new zealand. The girl’s lips were red at the time so this means she was young because as you get older your lips lose colour as you age and it also shows that her boyfriend or husband is a hard worker. They worked for years on the farm and they were getting much older their farm then got taken off them by a mortgage man. Elizabeth eventually died when Tom was getting much older he could not take care of the farm. When Tom passed away the mortgage man could not sell it as it was an old farm. The story is and isn’t about Tom and Elizabeth as it is also about the Magpies as the Magpies live on after Tom and Elizabeth passed away.

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I found Tom and Elizabeth interesting as a lot of the story was about their life on the farm which they stayed on for years as they got older their farm got taken off them by a mortgage man and they both died and the mortgage man could not sell the house and the magpies they continue to live on but Tom and Elizabeth did not so this story is about Tom and Elizabeth and it is also about the Magpies as the magpies carry on their lives after Tom and Elizabeth die. The mortgage man eventually took their farm and tried to put it up for sale which no one wanted to buy as it was an old farm 

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The messages i took from the poem was that in the olden days they used to have to sleep on bracken as they might not have enough money to afford beds, they worked for years on their farm when the author said “year in year out they worked while the pines grew over head” this shows us that he used a passing of time as pine trees take a long time to grow as they got older Elizabeth eventually passed away and so did Tom then a mortgage man came and took away their farm and the mortgage man could not sell the property as it was old another message i took was their are going to be a few tough things and bad things happen to you in the future you just don’t know when they are going to come in your lifetime 

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The challenges that the characters had to deal with was that they grew up poor and then as they got older they worked hard on the farm for years and as they got older Elizabeth eventually passed away then Tom passed away not too long after that and then their farm got taken off them by a mortgage man and then the mortgage man tried selling the house but he could not as no one wanted to buy it as it was an old farm. When the characters Tom and Elizabeth were growing up they had to sleep on bracken which is a type of fern which is only found in New Zealand so the story must have taken place in new zealand also another challenge that they had to deal with was when Elizabeth passed away another challenge that was hard for them as well was when their farm got taken off them by a mortgage man then Tom eventually passed away which made this another challenge that was hard to deal with throughout the story.

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The title was appropriate as it relates to the magpies as well as the characters in the story as the magpies were their growing up till they died as the characters Tom and Elizabeth were growing up the magpies always seemed to have been their at their farm throughout the story the characters had to deal with a lot they worked hard on the farm and as they got older Elizabeth eventually past away then their farm got taken off them by a mortgage man later Tom passed away and the mortgage man could not sell the farm as it was an old farm every one of these situations the magpies seemed to be there so it kind of relates to the magpies as well as the characters Tom and Elizabeth.

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I would recommend these stories to young kids and young adults as they might want to learn about some hard stuff that they might go through in the future such as death and as they grow up they might not know what job they might want to do in the future so it might be a hard decision for them to make but when they make the right choice of what they want to be in the future this is probably the hardest choice for them to make but once they make that choice they won’t have many more hard choices after that there are more hard choices for them to make but not much more some more hard choices for them to make include wedding planning as this takes a lot of time and it is stressful because it is hard to choose what suit you want to wear or what dress you want to wear or what cake you want to have at your wedding or who you want to invite to the wedding so these choices are also hard to make so i recommend this story to young kids as they might go through the same situation as in the story.