Delaney Day

University of Cincinnati

World Literature

Major Project 2 REVISIONS

December 8, 2020 

Annotated bibliography

Jaffe, Meryl. “Using Graphic Novels in Education: Aya: Life in Yop City.” Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, cbldf.org/2015/03/using-graphic-novels-in-education-aya-life-in-yop-city/.

This site is perfect if you want to get to know all about Aya Life in Yop City. It talks about the overview and the summary of the book. This site is basically a good teller if you would or would not want to read this book. It talks about all the different themes that happen and go on in the book. It also tells you on what pages certain things happen. This is a really good site.

Sylla, Fanta, et al. “The Quotidian Life of a Neighborhood.” Africa Is a Country, africasacountry.com/2014/05/aya-of-yop-city.

This site is about African culture. This is also a big picture of some women and how these women are dressed is the exact same way I described how the book Aya Life in Yop City dressed. There are actually more pictures if you scroll all the way down to the bottom. You will see little pictures of what the area looks like and again this is how it looked in the book.

Milks, Megan. “’Aya’ by Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie.” PopMatters, PopMatters, 22 Feb. 2020, www.popmatters.com/aya-by-marguerite-abouet-and-clement-oubrerie-2496230789.html.

This site goes straight into the hard facts about this book. It walks about Aya and the hardships that were happening and that they were having to deal with, for example war, AIDS, and poverty. This is very serious in Africa and Aya was trying to get into a medical school and this is stuff that she will be having to deal with everyday because if she becomes that doctor she will have to know how to treat these illnesses and how to help people in poverty get treatment.

“Life In Yop City Analysis.” Cram, http://www.cram.com/essay/Life-In-Yop-City-Analysis/F39KVJXKGZKQ. 

This site is basically a summary of what happened in the book. I think this was an important site because if you chose to not read the book that you would be able to have a good understanding of the book itself by reading this site. It talks about Aya’s values and her goals for her life. I found this site to be quite accurate to the book. 

You Are Being Redirected…, drawnandquarterly.com/aya-life-in-yop-city. 

This site was short and sweet. It was straight to the point and a good snapshot of the book. It also gives the website users straight access to the book itself. It also recommends similar books that readers also might like, this site is very informative but short.

Aya Life in Yop City was a well thought out book. This book was all about the cultural differences and about all the imagery. This book’s graphic picture helped tell this story and all that went into it. You can tell that this author put in a lot of effort because not only did the author come up with this story line and the characters they had to collaborate with an artist to get the exact picture the author wanted. This book also has a lot of good metaphors within the writing. For example, on page 17: “That mouth of yours is bigger that a cow’s behind… Look at that butt it is as flat as a pancake.” This metaphor gave the writing a bit of humor and I enjoyed it because it definitely added character to the book. Another metaphor that was used in the book is on page 218: “Men are like hospital beds; they’ll take anyone under their skirts.” I like this metaphor because Aya is studying to become a doctor so it was making a joke and talking about hospital beds that are used in a hospital where she could be working. 

Culture affects our world, more than we realize. Culture is a foundation for most families. It is how kids are shaped and where they get their manners and how they learn what is right and what is wrong and what they believe in. Culture is about religious beliefs and food and clothing and how they raise children both boys and girls. Some girls are raised not to go to school and to learn to cook and clean and take care of children. Boys are taught to provide for their families and to work all day and come home to eat and sleep and repeat. This is just one example of hundreds of different expectations that families expect of their children. Cultures are so important and diverse and unique and are beautiful and, in the book, Aya Life in Yop City they are as well.

They also have the way they talk just like how we have a certain way we talk. They have a certain slang and how they speak also creates that imagery with their words and also with the pictures that are painted. They also have humor, but I discussed that earlier with the metaphors. An example of imagery is on page 218: “I guess the sun can shine on anybody.” This gives a pretty clear picture in the readers heads and it is funny. Another quote is on page 300: “Yes. Well. Mother Nature isn’t always the nicest person in the world…” This is true I even say that as well because let’s be honest Ohio weather is always something new. 

When reading Aya Life in Yop City the culture and the illustration were the most important part of the entirety of the book. The pictures are a huge part of what makes this book unique. The pictures contain much of the culture, and without the illustrations, I would have not focused on the culture as much. Specifically, the  drawings of the different families and their clothing exemplify the culture in one aspect. For women their clothing looks much like a beautiful dress with intricate patterns, no shoes and hair is tied up with a colorful head wrap paired with large earrings. There are many more that completely define their culture and how women in their city dress. The older women are more consiverative in what they wear, whereas the younger women are more open and free in what they chose to wear. The older women have clothing from their chest to their ankles. Younger women wear crop tops and short jean shorts. The younger women like to experiment a bit more. Men on the other hand they dress in tank tops with jean shorts and flip flops, they also have long jeans and sneakers with an overly large sized T-shirt. Again, this is just a few examples this is not what all men and women wear but it is just a few examples and how they dress is a part of their culture and how women accessories and how men keep their hair. The visuals of their clothing based on their culture are a few examples that make the illustrations and culture connection throughout the book.

Another part of their culture when discussing the pictures depicted in the story is their homes and what buildings look like. Each home and any other building are very close to one another. Their homes are built on dirt and they also do not have grass that is outside their homes which separates the different ways we visualize the differences in landscaping throughout the world. They have dirt roads, no concrete flat blacktop which is common in some other countries around the world. Therefore, some cars are depicted, but the story shows that not many people have them. The story seems to indicate that most walk to their destinations and everything is close by. They can walk to the market, their hair salons or even their friends’ houses. This is not how they prefer to choose to live life. I am sure if they had a car and could drive around town they would choose that but, they do not have that option because they do not have the wealth nor the amount of technology that we do. Doing laundry is the same way for them. If they could use a washer or dryer let alone afford one I’m sure they would. Yet since they can not afford one they are able to sit around and wash their clothes with their neighbors or they chose to wash their clothes by themselves. In the book “Aya Life in Yop City” they don’t have the money to have washers and dryers. I am sure the women would rather have a washer and dryer for their clothes and convenience but it just is not in their financial budget. Women know how to do this because of how they were raised. They were taught at a young age how to wash the clothes because they did not have washers or dryers either. A plus side for them about having to hand wash all the clothes is that they are able to do it with their neighbors and sit around and talk while washing the clothes. I think this a beautiful thing to do and I wish nowadays that was the case for most people to be able to have that much time but in my culture and how it is here in Cleves Ohio is all about the go go go. You barely have time to sit down and watch a thirty-minute episode on Netflix. But with COVID-19 going on now people everywhere have plenty of time to get things done now. I guarantee if I chose to hand wash all of my clothes, I would be able to do so with the amount of time I now have. 

The culture is very important in the story, but the book starts off with a glimpse of a television showing an image of an advertisement for Solibra, which is a local popular beer. There was also a statement about this beer that Aya spoke about. She said on page 15: “Why anyone would think of beer as a vitamin.” I think she was so frustrated at this point that people were thinking this because she knew it was not and she knew better than that. There are also references to the 1970s in this book. The 70s was a pretty big decade for America. The book makes references to the 70s on page 141: when it mentions Bobby from the television show Dallas.

This culture also does not seem to watch TV or have smartphones or anything like that. They get their entertainment through playing sports and watching others play sports or reading or working at the market or a hair salon etc. Most of them chose to spend their time outside and they are outside from dusk to dawn. They will fish and dance or go out to restaurants with great music. They chose to be with other people, and they want to go dance under the twinkling lights at this restaurant. They also enjoy getting all dressed up. That is something I have in common. I think many people have this in common. I would love to get all dressed up to go out with my friends and family rather than stay inside night after night and watch Netflix all day and just become a hermit and never come outside my house anymore. COVID-19 has taught me the luxuries we as America had and how quickly it could all be taken away if we do not live in America. American people are so lucky to be free. We used to be able to go out whenever we wanted and did not have a curfew. We used to be able to leave our homes without masks and we could go over to our friends’ homes without the fear of getting them sick or them getting us sick. Just like in the book Aya Life in Yop City. This culture and city they are free to do as they will they do not have a curfew they get to go out to restaurants until it closes and they do not have to wear masks and they get to hang out with their friends and families and they are not as scared to let their friends and families hold their new born babies. Right now, with everything with COVID-19, new mothers will not be comfortable with people holding their new babies or even hold them without a mask. I know this because my cousin just had a baby two months ago and I still have not met this baby because she is terrified of this virus and is very careful with who comes into contact with her baby. This is something that currently is not happening in this book but that was because this virus was not around when this book was written. If this virus had happened when the book was being written they would probably have the same regulations we have here in America right now. 

Reading this book was definitely an eye opener because when they are in their homes they just chose to leave their doors to their homes unlocked so anyone can walk in and I know within my own home every time I walk through that door I lock it again unless we are having a family party where people just walk in. We chose to lock our doors because people will break in and steal stuff within our homes. We also chose to lock our cars every time we got out to go into a store or into school or at a friend’s house. We lock our cars because we do not want people to steal what is inside of our cars and more importantly, we do not want them to steal our cars themselves. This is not also a solution because people can still break the windows to our homes and to our cars, but this is a solution that we can do ourselves and it usually works. In this book there is a group of women sitting in their house looking at this baby and a man just walks in and then they all look up to him saying “Hello ladies” now  this may be very common for their cultures for people to just walk into their homes but that is not as common here in my culture. I was always taught to lock my front door and the back door and the basement door I was also taught to make sure all the windows were locked after I shut them. I was also taught when I got out of my car to keep my keys in my hand and lock my car, I was also taught to make sure my windows were not down. Now the window rule is for if people want to break into my car all they have to do is unlock the car from the inside and they are free to take anything within my car or my car itself  because they clearly wanted to if they are trying to break in anyways. I was also taught to roll up my windows because we live in Ohio and the weather is unpredictable and if it rains it would ruin my car. I do not this is a major problem for Aya but who knows because some of them own cars but not all. But I am curious as to why they are so comfortable with leaving their doors unlocked. My idea with this is because they are all neighbors and that they are all close and they trust one another, and they would not steal from each other. This might go along with their culture and how they would not do that because they are all a close net group of people and that is something they would just not do and if they were really struggling to where they would need to steal something all they would have to do is ask because their community would help them out. I wish that was how it was everywhere because I know I would personally rather help someone out and give them what they need instead of them breaking the law to break into my house to steal things. But most of the time people aren’t even stealing food or things that are essential to life they are stealing things that they can make money off such as TV’s and radios and money etc.. so, they can buy drugs or alcohol. 

Culture is very important to people. It determines what they wear, how they act and what they chose to spend their time doing. If they chose to go to church or if they want to go to work, it all depends on their culture. Also not everyone lives by their culture some people tend to leave because this is not how they want to live and some cultures say if you leave you cannot come back and it can be really hard on people. Culture is very important, and it is something everyone should look into when they can and learn about it.

One book that I personally believe the children in the U.S. should read is one of the very first books we read, “The Little Hen.” I picked this book because of the lesson that came along with the assignment. I believe that the children could learn the very same thing. No matter how the story is told the ending is still the same! It does not matter what kind of animals the story had or if the Hen’s children ate the bread or if it was bread instead of cake. The moral of the story was that the other animals learned their lesson. They learned that if they could not help out to make the food that they will not eat the food they did not help with. I think this is a very important lesson for children to learn. If they learn to help and that when they help they will receive the benefits of helping that is great. It is a real easy book for children to read and understand the message of the book itself. Using animals is a key factor for children because that is what really draws children into a story and makes them want to read it.

I enjoyed several of the books this semester but my personal favorite was “American Born Chinese” but, I also like “Aya Life In Yop City.” I liked this book the best because of the message the book gave and how well it was told.I also am a huge sucker for culture and I love to learn about new cultures and see life from a different perspective and this book definitely did that. I was not a big fan of graphic novels because I was never used to reading them. I never went out of my way to read something like a graphic novel. I wanted to challenge myself this semester with the graphic novels and step out of my comfort zone. This year has been all about new experiences in life so I went into this semester with an open mind trying to challenge myself daily.

This semester has helped me grow in my knowledge of culture and new literature that I have not thought twice about before or the deeper meanings to them. It is important to learn about other people and their ways of life and this class really helped teach me that. I also get the importance of children nowadays coming to a new area from a different culture and how teachers need to be aware and know how to help them and make them feel welcomed. I can’t wait to be able to take this new insight this class gave me to my future class and be able to help all types of students.

Reading cultural texts is important and I think it is important other people read them as well because people need to understand that we are all not raised the same way and that we all have out own cultures. We need to learn and be understanding of one another. If we can all learn to get along and not judge someone because they are different than us we as a community and society will grow and thrive.

I also learned that just because it says it is a children’s book does not mean it the message within the book is strictly just meant for kids! Just like the lesson in “The Little Hen.” The Hen did not reward the other animals because they did not do their share of the work. When the animals learned this and wanted pieces of the bread/cake they chipped in and helped because they all wanted to share the reward that came with helping.

This semester definitely has impacted me as a person. I have never done online schooling before and I am sure many other students haven’t either. It was just extremely hard because I am not good with computers and it was a learning process trying to figure out how everything works online. I prefer a face to face conversation because I think feelings and thoughts and questions get lost in translation over a computer. Yet this has taught me to force myself to get more familiar with my computer and learn how to adapt to such situations life throws at us.

I did enjoy this class, not to say that I did not have my fair share of troubles with this class but I figured it out and enjoyed the readings. I like how it was all different types of reading from all round the world in this class. This was a very enjoyable class and the books were fun to read especially being stuck inside my house all day and getting to sit down and read something new, that I may not have picked out myself at the library. I enjoyed getting to learn more about the world and all the culture within it!

Delaney Day

Dr. Neely McLaughlin

World Literature

December 8, 2020

Major Project 4: Option B

Word Proposal

I am going to use the book Aya Like in Yop city for this major project. I would like to write about how culture can bring family together especially in such hard times like we are going through now. I want to go into the hard effects this pandemic has caused many families and the struggles they are going thought, not just as a family but as a community. I want to talk about how much our communities rely on our small businesses. I never really thought about the luxuries we had just to be able to go out to restaurants and to the store and over to our friends and families homes. We all have taken this for granted and never thought twice about it because our American Culture has allowed us to live a free life.

Going through this pandemic was definitely not expected but we are adapting and learning a new way of life. We are learning to keep our distance and have better hygiene; as in washing our hands and using hand sanitizer after touching anything. We have had to distance ourselves from our families and our friends to keep them safe. We are supposed to only go our for work and for essentials. We are trying to keep everyone safe so we wear masks when we are inside confined spaces or when we are in close proximity to other people.

Culture Recast

Instead of Aya living in Yop City I would have her living in the country. I want to put her in a completely different environment. She would not be as close to her neighbors and she is in the original book. She most likely would not pursue the career of a doctor. She would set out to become a farmer and she would settle down find a partner and start a family of her own. She would learn to cook and clean and raise a child and stay home to help with the house hold chores. Aya would attend church every Sunday with the children and her partner. The kids would go to school and come home to do their homework and help out with the animals and the chores that needed to be done around the house. The children would help with cutting the grass and feeding and grooming the horses. They would need to work on the farm before and after school. The kids would still put school first but they would have set times to get everything done. Once the children arrive home they will eat the fresh meal that is cooked for them Aya and her partner would sit down and eat with them as a family. This way of life is completely different that Aya’s life back in Yop City and it would be a complete cultural shock for her coming from Yop City to go into the country and live such a complete different life and to be expect to live a whole new life.

Annotated bibliography

Jaffe, Meryl. “Using Graphic Novels in Education: Aya: Life in Yop City.” Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, cbldf.org/2015/03/using-graphic-novels-in-education-aya-life-in-yop-city/.

This site is perfect if you want to get to know all about Aya Life in Yop City. It talks about the overview and the summary of the book. This site is basically a good teller if you would or would not want to read this book. It talks about all the different themes that happen and go on in the book. It also tells you on what pages certain things happen. This is a really good site.

Sylla, Fanta, et al. “The Quotidian Life of a Neighborhood.” Africa Is a Country, africasacountry.com/2014/05/aya-of-yop-city.

This site is about African culture. This is also a big picture of some women and how these women are dressed is the exact same way I described how the book Aya Life in Yop City dressed. There are actually more pictures if you scroll all the way down to the bottom. You will see little pictures of what the area looks like and again this is how it looked in the book.

Milks, Megan. “’Aya’ by Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie.” PopMatters, PopMatters, 22 Feb. 2020, www.popmatters.com/aya-by-marguerite-abouet-and-clement-oubrerie-2496230789.html.

This site goes straight into the hard facts about this book. It walks about Aya and the hardships that were happening and that they were having to deal with, for example war, AIDS, and poverty. This is very serious in Africa and Aya was trying to get into a medical school and this is stuff that she will be having to deal with everyday because if she becomes that doctor she will have to know how to treat these illnesses and how to help people in poverty get treatment.

“Life In Yop City Analysis.” Cram, http://www.cram.com/essay/Life-In-Yop-City-Analysis/F39KVJXKGZKQ. 

This site is basically a summary of what happened in the book. I think this was an important site because if you chose to not read the book that you would be able to have a good understanding of the book itself by reading this site. It talks about Aya’s values and her goals for her life. I found this site to be quite accurate to the book. 

You Are Being Redirected…, drawnandquarterly.com/aya-life-in-yop-city. 

This site was short and sweet. It was straight to the point and a good snapshot of the book. It also gives the website users straight access to the book itself. It also recommends similar books that readers also might like, this site is very informative but short.

Reflective Learning Narrative

Coming up with a new Culture for Aya was very difficult. I wanted to do something completely different than her life in the book Aya Life in Yop City. I wanted her to get out of the city and in my mind the very first thing that popped into my head was out in the country with horses and fields and church and marriage with a big family that Aya and her partner would grow together.

I know first hand what growing on a farm is like because of my family. My mother was born in North Carolina and so I know all about cleaning up after the horses and the chores that come along with it. I know how to milk a cow and I also learned what it was like in the kitchen. I learned how to cook chicken and steak along with many other different meals. I learned the ins and outs of what goes on living out in the country on the farm. The neighbors Aya would have, would not be close. The closest neighbors she would have in her new life would be about half a mile down the road. She would have to take her bike and ride it down the street if she needed to borrow eggs or milk. She could even take the tractor but it would be tough because the gas is expensive to fill up the tractors just for her to ride it down the road. 

I also want to go into details about what her new life would be like if a pandemic hints where she would be living out in the country. Aya and her family would be okay because of how far away they live from everyone. The children would be homeschooled because Aya did not want her kids to get exposed to this virus. Her partner would go out for work and then come straight back home because they just as much as Aya do not want to get the virus and possibly give it to their family. Aya and her family would suffer some financial struggles because people were no longer buying their vegetables and their milk or eggs. People could not afford their products because they also lost their jobs due to the pandemic and they would have to learn a new way to provide for the kids and for their animal. Sadly when the hard times come they come hard and fast. Aya would have to sell two of her cows and a horse to keep her family fed and the electric on. The family ate the produce they made and that was helpful because they did not have to go out and buy food they are able to make and grow their own food. 

Aya stays home with the children to help with their school work. She becomes their new teacher and tries her very best to teach them the school’ s material but it is difficult because Aya never got the same schooling as her children are getting because back then times were different for women. 

These ideas and concepts just came to me the more and more I typed about what Aya’s life would be like. I really felt the need to include the pandemic in this new cultural world for Aya. I wanted to include this because of how relevant it is in today’s world. It is a very serious issue and nobody knows what the future holds and how this will all work out. Pandemics hit just like in Africa with Ebola, and with the Flu and now the Corna Virus. This stuff is very serious and we never know what will come next, all we can do is prepare and adapt for new tragedies and new beginnings to happen. We have to be able to adapt to whatever the world throws at us and keep on moving in life! 

This is why I wanted to incorporate the pandemic in my Major Project 4, because it is something that we are living through right now and I wanted to challenge myself to write a little bit about how Aya would try and live with this pandemic as well.

This site in particular I enjoyed and also helped me to decide on where Aya and her family world live because I just thought it was beautiful out in the country and it is a different way of life. It talks about what it was like coming from a city to the country and I couldn’t think it to be more perfect for Aya!

Bargen, Sarah Von. “This Is How Life Changes When You Move from the City to the Country.” MarketWatch, MarketWatch, 24 May 2019, http://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-how-life-changes-when-you-move-from-the-city-to-the-country-2019-04-02.

MP2

Delaney Day

World Lit

Neely McLaughlin

November 10th, 2020

MP2

Aya Life in Yop City was a well thought out book. This book was all about the cultural differences and about all the imagery. This book’s graphic picture helped tell this story and all that went into it. You can tell that this author put in a lot of effort because not only did the author come up with this story line and the characters they had to collaborate with an artist to get the exact picture the author wanted. This book also has a lot of good metaphors within the writing. For example on page 17: “That mouth of yours is bigger that a cow’s behind… Look at that butt it is as flat as a pancake.” This metaphor gave the writing a bit of humor and I enjoyed it because it definitely added character to the book. Another metaphor that was used in the book is on page 218: “Men are like hospital beds, they’ll take anyone under their skirts.” I like this metaphor because Aya is studying to become a doctor so it was making a joke and talking about hospital beds that are used in a hospital where she could be working. 

Culture is a big thing anywhere. This is the foundation for so many different families. It is how kids are shaped and where they get their manners and how they learn what is right and what is wrong and what they believe in. Culture is about religious beliefs and food and clothing and how they raise children both boys and girls. Some girls are raised not to go to school and to learn to cook and clean and take care of children. Boys are taught to provide for their families and to work all day and come home to eat and sleep and repeat. This is just one example of hundreds of different expectations that families expect of their children. Cultures are so important and diverse and unique and are beautiful and in the book Aya Life in Yop City they are as well.

They also have the way they talk just like how we have a certain way we talk. They have a certain slang and how they speak also creates that imagery with their words and also with the pictures that are painted. They also have humor but I discussed that earlier with the metaphors. An example of imagery is on page 218: “I guess the sun can shine on anybody.” This gives a pretty clear picture in the readers heads and it is funny. Another quote is on page 300: “Yes. Well. Mother Nature isn’t always the nicest person in the world…” This is true I even say that as well because let’s be honest Ohio weather is always something new. 

When reading Aya Life in Yop City I noticed the culture and I believe I am going to be making this my main point throughout this entire assignment. I think that the pictures were the most important part of this whole book. The pictures are a huge part of what makes this book special. Honestly without the picture in this book I would not have thought culture was an important aspect of this book. This book has so many different pictures that will show all the readers what it is capable of. This book Aya Life in Yop City has drawings of families and their clothing. Their clothing for women is a beautiful red dress with a fun pattern on the dress with no shoes and her hair is up with a yellow headband and she has big dangly earrings. This is just one example of the women’s outfits. There are many more that completely define their culture and how women in their city dress. Men on the other hand they dress in tank tops with jean shorts and flip flops, they also have long jeans and sneakers with an overly large sized T-shirt. Again this is just a few examples this is not what all men and women wear but it is just a few examples and how they dress is a part of their culture and how women accessories and how men keep their hair. This is just a few examples and this here is to just help you visualize what the pictures look like. 

Another part of their culture is what their homes and buildings look like. They have very close buildings and their homes are very close to one another. Their homes are not built on normal cement like our homes are. Their homes are built on dirt they also do not have grass that is outside their homes and that children can play on. They have dirt roads. They also have cars but most of them do not. Most of them just walk to where they need to go because everything they need is within walking range so they do not feel the need for vehicles. They can walk to the market or to the hair salons and to friends houses. They feel they do not have a need for vehicles so they do not own them. They would prefer to walk anyhow because they get to talk with their neighbors who they run into on the street. They also do laundry a little bit different than how I myself do laundry. I use a washer and a dryer to do my laundry as to where they do not. They chose to hand wash their clothing and then after they hand washed their sheets and their clothes they chose to hang dry it outside. They allow their clothes to air dry. Now I know some people chose this method in my own culture because it saves money but it is also time consuming and people nowadays do not want to take the time to sit down and hand wash all their clothes and their sheets. They would rather throw their stuff onto the washer and let it be. I know I personally do not have the time or the will power to sit down and hand wash all of my clothing so I would prefer a washer and a dryer because if you do not have a dryer and it is raining out your clothes could take forever to dry and honestly I would chose to not wash my clothes if it was not a good day outside to wash them because if they won’t dry I would not want my clothes to smell because they did not dry and they just sat around all wet and smelling. I think in the book Aya Life in Yop City they don’t have the money to have washers and dryers and I think they honestly chose to hand wash their clothes. I think the women prefer to do it this way because that was how they were taught when they were little girls and even if they had the money for washers and dryers they would still hand wash it because they have plenty of time to do so. They can sit down with the other neighborhood women and they can sit and talk and wash their clothes at the same time while getting to catch up with the other women. I think this a beautiful thing to do and I wish nowadays that was the case for most people to be able to have that much time but in my culture and how it is here in Cleves Ohio is all about the go go go. You barely have time to sit down and watch a thirty minutes episode on Netflix. But with Covid going on now people everywhere have plenty of time to get things done now. I guarantee if I chose to hand wash all of my clothes I would be able to do so with the amount of time I now have. 

The culture is very important in the story but the book starts off with a glimpse of a television showing an image of an advertisement for Solibra, which is a local popular beer. There was also a statement about this beer that Aya spoke about. She said on page 15: “Why anyone would think of beer as a vitamin.” I think she was so frustrated at this point that people were thinking this because she knew it was not and she knew better than that. There are also references to the 1970s in this book. The 70s was a pretty big decade for America. The book makes references to the 70s on page 141: when it mentions Bobby from the television show Dallas.

This culture also does not seem to watch TV or have smartphones or anything like that. They get their entertainment through playing sports and watching others play sports or reading or working at the market or a hair salon etc.. Most of them chose to spend their time outside and they are outside from dusk to dawn. They will fish and dance or go out to restaurants with great music. They chose to be with other people and they want to go dance under the twinkling lights at this restaurant. They also enjoy getting all dressed up. That is something I have in common. I think many people have this in common actually. I would love to get all dressed up to go out with my friends and family rather than stay inside night after night and watch Netflix all day and just become a hermit and never come outside my house anymore. Covid has taught me the luguaries we as America had and how quickly it could all be taken away if we do not live in America. American people are so lucky to be free. We used to be able to go out whenever we wanted and did not have a curfew. We used to be able to leave our homes without masks and we could go over to our friends’ homes without the fear of getting them sick or them getting us sick. Just like in the book Aya Life in Yop City. This culture and city they are free to do as they will they do not have a curfew they get to go out to restaurants until it closes and they do not have to wear masks and they get to hangout with their friends and families and they are not as scared to let their friends and families hold their new born babies. Right now with everything with Covid I know personally that new mothers will not be comfortable with people holding their new babies or even hold them without a mask. I know this because my cousin just had a baby two months ago and I still have not met this baby because she is terrified of this virus and is very careful with who comes into contact with her baby. This is something that currently is not happening in this book but that was because this virus was not around when this book was written. I am sure if this virus had happened when the book was being written they would probably have the same regulations we have here in America right now. 

Reading this book was definitely an eye opener because when they are in their homes I guess they just chose to leave their doors to their homes unlocked so anyone can walk in and I know within my own home every time I walk through that door I lock it again unless we are having a family party where people just walk in. We chose to lock our doors because people will break in and steal stuff within our homes. We also chose to lock our cars everytime we got out to go into a store or into school or at a friend’s house. We lock our cars because we do not want people to steal what is inside of our cars and more importantly we do not want them to steal our cars themselves. This is not also a solution because people can still break the windows to our homes and to our cars but this is a solution that we can do ourselves and it usually works. In this book there is a group of women sitting in their house looking at this baby and a man just walks in and then they all look up to him saying “Hello ladies” now  this may be very common for their cultures for people to just walk into their homes but that is not as common here in my culture. I was always taught to lock my front door and the back door and the basement door I was also taught to make sure all the windows were locked after I shut them. I was also taught when I get out of my car to keep my keys in my hand and lock my car I was also taught to make sure my windows were not down. Now the window rule is for if people want to break into my car all they have to do is unlock the car from the inside and they are free to take anything within my car or my car itself  because they clearly wanted to if they are trying to break in anyways. I was also taught to roll up my windows because we live in Ohio and the weather is unpredictable and if it rains it would ruin my car. I do not this is a major problem for Aya but who knows because some of them own cars but not all. But I am curious as to why they are so comfortable with leaving their doors unlocked. My idea with this is because they are all neighbors and that they are all close and they trust one another and they would not steal from each other. This might go along with their culture and how they would not do that because they are all a closenet group of people and that is something they would just not do and if they were really struggling to where they would need to steal something all they would have to do is ask because their community would help them out. I wish that was how it was everywhere because I know I would personally rather help someone out and give them what they need instead of them breaking the law to break into my house to steal things. But most of the time people aren’t even stealing food or things that are essential to life they are stealing things that they can make money off such as TV’s and radios and money etc.. so they can buy drugs or alcohol. 

I think culture is a very important thing to people. It determines what they wear, how they act and what they chose to spend their time doing. If they chose to go to church or if they want to go to work it all depends on their culture. Also not everyone lives by their culture some people tend to leave because this is not how they want to live and some cultures say if you leave you can not come back and it can be really hard on people. Culture is very important and I think it is something everyone should look into when they can and learn about it.

Annotated bibliography

Jaffe, Meryl. “Using Graphic Novels in Education: Aya: Life in Yop City.” Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, cbldf.org/2015/03/using-graphic-novels-in-education-aya-life-in-yop-city/.

This site is perfect if you want to get to know all about Aya Life in Yop City. It talks about the overview and the summary of the book. This site is basically a good teller if you would or would not want to read this book. It talks about all the different themes that happen and go on in the book. It also tells you on what pages certain things happen. This is a really good site.

Sylla, Fanta, et al. “The Quotidian Life of a Neighborhood.” Africa Is a Country, africasacountry.com/2014/05/aya-of-yop-city.

This site is about African culture. This is also a big picture of some women and how these women are dressed is the exact same way I described how the book Aya Life in Yop City dressed. There are actually more pictures if you scroll all the way down to the bottom. You will see little pictures of what the area looks like and again this is how it looked in the book.

Milks, Megan. “’Aya’ by Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie.” PopMatters, PopMatters, 22 Feb. 2020, www.popmatters.com/aya-by-marguerite-abouet-and-clement-oubrerie-2496230789.html.

This site goes straight into the hard facts about this book. It walks about Aya and the hardships that were happening and that they were having to deal with, for example war, AIDS, and poverty. This is very serious in Africa and Aya was trying to get into a medical school and this is stuff that she will be having to deal with everyday because if she becomes that doctor she will have to know how to treat these illnesses and how to help people in poverty get treatment.

I think the Rainbow Troops is a book for younger readers probably 10 years old and up. This book is not really that graphic and visual but if younger than 10 read this it might be difficult because the content is a bit difficult to read. It talks about capitalism and colonialism. In Ikal’s village there is such a lack of education and poverty is hitting people pretty hard.

The Estate might be the root of these struggles. This estate is about high-tech school for the upper class who won’t have to struggle with much in life because of where they come from. Class segregation definitely has an affect on children. This allows the upper class to think they are better and plus they are getting better education and it is not fair to the children who come from poverty.  The causes and consequences of class segregation is very serious because the children are the ones who suffer. The children who are struggling for their education and are struggling with poverty still keep their high spirits and motivation up. They are still hopeful even though they are having all these struggles that are stacked against them. The chapters set a scene and they kind of jump around quite a bit. The theme tends to change throughout the book which is another reason why I think this is for a bit of a mature younger audience.

I just think this book was a good read I really did enjoy reading it. I know personally what it is like to not come from the upper class and to feel left out and mis understood because of where I came from. I grew up living off hammy-downs and I am the oldest of four girls and they got my hammy-downs so not having the cool shoes or the best education because we could not afford it was tough but I still made the most of the cards I was dealt and I still have optimism that I can keep getting dealt better cards so life will go on and get better and soon enough I can deal my own cards. But I relate with the children in the story and I think that is a part of the reason whyI enjoyed this story so much.

This saga was really good at the start. The first chapter was interesting because we do no find out the main characters name until the end of the chapter or much about him. Within the first chapter we really only read about the family life. The protagonist starts the story off with a mystery named crow who I think is imaginary. By the end of the chapter the protagonist leaves and goes to Shikoku on a bus. This was a great beginning and I liked the chapter and how it kept the readers hooked and engaged in the story and how it was a bit of a mystery and how we had adventure and travel in the chapter! I think this book so far could be read by age 13 plus I do not see the harm in this age group reading this book.

Saga Volume 1 is another graphic novel, this was a good read I enjoyed it but again I feel like I repeat myself constantly saying that graphic novels are not my favorite books to read but lately we have been reading lots of graphic novels. It is a very different perspective reading a graphic novel rather than a non fiction book. Any how this is a very powerful graphic novel it is about culture war and race. I think every single one of these topics is important.

Culture is so important and this book’s author really portrayed their views on this subject. This book should definitely be read by adults because it really does talk about some heavy topics and it just should not be read by children. War is really tough to read about because it is a tough topic Im sure for anyone but especially for people who have been to war and have lost people to violence. This is one of the reasons I joined the military I wanted to be apart of something bigger than myself and I wanted to protect my family and friends and if I could make even one difference in a single persons life I would be satisfied.

I enjoyed this read and I thought that having this as a graphic novel was really interesting. I think the author did a great job and I think having the pictures really helped convey the message and helped paint the picture of what was going on!

Delaney Day

World Lit

Neely McLaughlin

November 10th, 2020

MP2

Aya Life in Yop City was a well thought out book. This book was all about the cultural differences and about all the imagery. This book’s graphic picture helped tell this story and all that went into it. You can tell that this author put in a lot of effort because not only did the author come up with this story line and the characters they had to collaborate with an artist to get the exact picture the author wanted.

Culture is a big thing anywhere. This is the foundation for so many different families. It is how kids are shaped and where they get their manners and how they learn what is right and what is wrong and what they believe in. Culture is about religious beliefs and food and clothing and how they raise children both boys and girls. Some girls are raised not to go to school and to learn to cook and clean and take care of children. Boys are taught to provide for their families and to work all day and come home to eat and sleep and repeat. This is just one example of hundreds of different expectations that families expect of their children. Cultures are so important and diverse and unique and are beautiful and in the book Aya Life in Yop City they are as well.

When reading Aya Life in Yop City I noticed the culture and I believe I am going to be making this my main point throughout this entire assignment. I think that the pictures were the most important part of this whole book. The pictures are a huge part of what makes this book special. Honestly without the picture in this book I would not have thought culture was an important aspect of this book. This book has so many different pictures that will show all the readers what it is capable of. This book Aya Life in Yop City has drawings of families and their clothing. Their clothing for women is a beautiful red dress with a fun pattern on the dress with no shoes and her hair is up with a yellow headband and she has big dangly earrings. This is just one example of the women’s outfits. There are many more that completely define their culture and how women in their city dress. Men on the other hand they dress in tank tops with jean shorts and flip flops, they also have long jeans and sneakers with an overly large sized T-shirt. Again this is just a few examples this is not what all men and women wear but it is just a few examples and how they dress is a part of their culture and how women accessories and how men keep their hair. This is just a few examples and this here is to just help you visualize what the pictures look like. 

Another part of their culture is what their homes and buildings look like. They have very close buildings and their homes are very close to one another. Their homes are not built on normal cement like our homes are. Their homes are built on dirt they also do not have grass that is outside their homes and that children can play on. They have dirt roads. They also have cars but most of them do not. Most of them just walk to where they need to go because everything they need is within walking range so they do not feel the need for vehicles. They can walk to the market or to the hair salons and to friends houses. They feel they do not have a need for vehicles so they do not own them. They would prefer to walk anyhow because they get to talk with their neighbors who they run into on the street. They also do laundry a little bit different than how I myself do laundry. I use a washer and a dryer to do my laundry as to where they do not. They chose to hand wash their clothing and then after they hand washed their sheets and their clothes they chose to hang dry it outside. They allow their clothes to air dry. Now I know some people chose this method in my own culture because it saves money but it is also time consuming and people nowadays do not want to take the time to sit down and hand wash all their clothes and their sheets. They would rather throw their stuff onto the washer and let it be. I know I personally do not have the time or the will power to sit down and hand wash all of my clothing so I would prefer a washer and a dryer because if you do not have a dryer and it is raining out your clothes could take forever to dry and honestly I would chose to not wash my clothes if it was not a good day outside to wash them because if they won’t dry I would not want my clothes to smell because they did not dry and they just sat around all wet and smelling. I think in the book Aya Life in Yop City they don’t have the money to have washers and dryers and I think they honestly chose to hand wash their clothes. I think the women prefer to do it this way because that was how they were taught when they were little girls and even if they had the money for washers and dryers they would still hand wash it because they have plenty of time to do so. They can sit down with the other neighborhood women and they can sit and talk and wash their clothes at the same time while getting to catch up with the other women. I think this a beautiful thing to do and I wish nowadays that was the case for most people to be able to have that much time but in my culture and how it is here in Cleves Ohio is all about the go go go. You barely have time to sit down and watch a thirty minutes episode on Netflix. But with Covid going on now people everywhere have plenty of time to get things done now. I guarantee if I chose to hand wash all of my clothes I would be able to do so with the amount of time I now have. 

This culture also does not seem to watch TV or have smartphones or anything like that. They get their entertainment through playing sports and watching others play sports or reading or working at the market or a hair salon etc.. Most of them chose to spend their time outside and they are outside from dusk to dawn. They will fish and dance or go out to restaurants with great music. They chose to be with other people and they want to go dance under the twinkling lights at this restaurant. They also enjoy getting all dressed up. That is something I have in common. I think many people have this in common actually. I would love to get all dressed up to go out with my friends and family rather than stay inside night after night and watch Netflix all day and just become a hermit and never come outside my house anymore. Covid has taught me the luguaries we as America had and how quickly it could all be taken away if we do not live in America. American people are so lucky to be free. We used to be able to go out whenever we wanted and did not have a curfew. We used to be able to leave our homes without masks and we could go over to our friends’ homes without the fear of getting them sick or them getting us sick. Just like in the book Aya Life in Yop City. This culture and city they are free to do as they will they do not have a curfew they get to go out to restaurants until it closes and they do not have to wear masks and they get to hangout with their friends and families and they are not as scared to let their friends and families hold their new born babies. Right now with everything with Covid I know personally that new mothers will not be comfortable with people holding their new babies or even hold them without a mask. I know this because my cousin just had a baby two months ago and I still have not met this baby because she is terrified of this virus and is very careful with who comes into contact with her baby. This is something that currently is not happening in this book but that was because this virus was not around when this book was written. I am sure if this virus had happened when the book was being written they would probably have the same regulations we have here in America right now. 

Reading this book was definitely an eye opener because when they are in their homes I guess they just chose to leave their doors to their homes unlocked so anyone can walk in and I know within my own home every time I walk through that door I lock it again unless we are having a family party where people just walk in. We chose to lock our doors because people will break in and steal stuff within our homes. We also chose to lock our cars everytime we got out to go into a store or into school or at a friend’s house. We lock our cars because we do not want people to steal what is inside of our cars and more importantly we do not want them to steal our cars themselves. This is not also a solution because people can still break the windows to our homes and to our cars but this is a solution that we can do ourselves and it usually works. In this book there is a group of women sitting in their house looking at this baby and a man just walks in and then they all look up to him saying “Hello ladies” now  this may be very common for their cultures for people to just walk into their homes but that is not as common here in my culture. I was always taught to lock my front door and the back door and the basement door I was also taught to make sure all the windows were locked after I shut them. I was also taught when I get out of my car to keep my keys in my hand and lock my car I was also taught to make sure my windows were not down. Now the window rule is for if people want to break into my car all they have to do is unlock the car from the inside and they are free to take anything within my car or my car itself  because they clearly wanted to if they are trying to break in anyways. I was also taught to roll up my windows because we live in Ohio and the weather is unpredictable and if it rains it would ruin my car. I do not this is a major problem for Aya but who knows because some of them own cars but not all. But I am curious as to why they are so comfortable with leaving their doors unlocked. My idea with this is because they are all neighbors and that they are all close and they trust one another and they would not steal from each other. This might go along with their culture and how they would not do that because they are all a closenet group of people and that is something they would just not do and if they were really struggling to where they would need to steal something all they would have to do is ask because their community would help them out. I wish that was how it was everywhere because I know I would personally rather help someone out and give them what they need instead of them breaking the law to break into my house to steal things. But most of the time people aren’t even stealing food or things that are essential to life they are stealing things that they can make money off such as TV’s and radios and money etc.. so they can buy drugs or alcohol. 

I think culture is a very important thing to people. It determines what they wear, how they act and what they chose to spend their time doing. If they chose to go to church or if they want to go to work it all depends on their culture. Also not everyone lives by their culture some people tend to leave because this is not how they want to live and some cultures say if you leave you can not come back and it can be really hard on people. Culture is very important and I think it is something everyone should look into when they can and learn about it.

Delaney Day

World Lit

Neely McLaughlin

November 10th, 2020

Aya Life in Yop City was a well thought out book. This book was all about the cultural differences and about all the imagery. This books graphic picture helped tell this story and all that went into it. You can tell that this author put in a lot of effort because not only did the author come up with this story line and the characters they had to collaborate with an artist to get the exact picture the author wanted.

Culture is a big thing anywhere. This is the foundation for so many different families. It is how kids are shaped and where they get their manners and how they learn what is right and what is wrong and what they believe in. Culture is about religious beliefs and food and clothing and how they raise children both boys and girls. Some girls are raised not to go to school and to learn to cook and clean and take care of children. Boys are taught to provide for their families and to work all day and come home to eat and sleep and repeat. This is just one example of hundreds of different expectations that families expect of there children. Cultures are so important and diverse and unique and are beautiful and in the book Aya Life in Yop City they are as well.

etc..

I would like to analyze Aya Life in Yop City. I would like to go into detail about the culture and how a graphic novel was able to convey the story and how the pictures in this graphic novel piece the story together. I would also like to talk about how childhood can be so important in a child’s growth and development.

I want to break down how different cultures can shape children to having different beliefs and different ways to do somethings and I want to just dive into how culture can really make someone who they are. I also want to do this with a graphic novel because I see it as a challenge. I see this as a challenge because I am not the biggest fan of comic books or graphic novels and this gives me the opportunity to look into them more and become more comfortable with this type of book! I also want to go into any type of struggles that people face just because of their cultures and how they do things differently that other cultures and how people can help fix this by learning about the other cultures.