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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
as a teaching tool--relevance to middle school students, February 7, 2006
This review is from: Flowers for Algernon (Mass Market Paperback)
Flowers for Algernon is the story of a man named Charlie who works in a factory. Charlie was eligible to partake in an experiment which would make him smarter. He was deemed low-functioning when he was approached about participating in the study and the researchers assured him that undergoing the operation in conjunction with the study would improve his cognitive capacity threefold. What he did not know was what the long-term repercussions of having this operation would be and whether the results would be permanent or not. The entire story line parallels the experience of Algernon- the mouse who the experiment is performed on at first. As the reader, we see Charlie's rise and subsequent deterioration follow that of the mouse.
The story follows Charlie's journal entries from the time he was a man with an IQ of 68 approaching the operation, to when he becomes a practical genius, having tripled his initial IQ. The story resolves itself as the reader follows the disintegration of Charlie's intellect back to the base from where he started, with the potential to drop even lower.
I think that this book is perfect for middle school-aged children because of the variety of issues that it addresses-both scientific and psychosocial. After Charlie undergoes the operation and his intellectual capacity nears its peak, Charlie's awareness of his self and the way that others perceive him, and did perceive him when he was low-functioning, becomes apparent to him. Charlie realizes that his coworkers made fun of him and he grapples with his ability to stay at a place where he had been treated with such little respect before.
Reading the story with middle schoolers, lends itself to discussing issues of tolerance, acceptance, and inclusion. It creates a forum to talk about disabilities and how to treat people we encounter who have disabilities. It forces the children to examine the idea of inclusion versus isolation and what that means and how that can impact children who exhibit no disabilities at all. The story also calls on readers to be critical about their own situations-how they perceive themselves, and what their level of awareness and consciousness is with respect to their peers and the social dynamics of their communities.
The story is also a great book to read with middle schoolers in the technology era because it lends itself to creating interdisciplinary units. The book is perfect for bringing in issues of medical ethics. It's possible to discuss topics with students like cloaning and cryogenic freezing-even robotics and reconstructive surgery. When do we take science too far and when does it do more harm than good?
Finally, this book is a great means for studying literary devices-like symbolism, metaphor, etc. Overall, the book is timeless in its application to life because it will only grow increasingly relevant as technology continues to confront us with moral and ethical dilemmas. The lessons that it teaches young teenagers about acceptance and tolerance are also invaluable.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great book, January 13, 2006
A Kid's Review
This review is from: Flowers for Algernon (Mass Market Paperback)
This was one of the few books I had to read as a school assignment that I really liked. Charlie is a janitor with a low IQ, and thanks to an experimental operation, slowly becomes smarter and smarter until he's an absolute genius. But when the mouse Algernon (who was also made smarter by the same operation) starts to lose his intelligence, Charlie realizes he will suffer the same fate and desperately tries to find a way to prevent it from happening, but without success. Eventually Charlie is right back where he started at the beginning of the novel. He even gets his old job back as a janitor, and so goes full circle. It's a sad story at the end, but at least Charlie had enjoyed a few weeks of being a genius, even though he hardly remembers anything about it at the end. The title comes from Charlie's request at the end to put "flowers on Algernon's grave," since the mouse died and Charlie remembers enough about what happened to want to show his respect. Another good book we read with this one that was An Audience for Einstein, a story about a young boy who also has an operation to become smarter, but isn't told that his personality will be lost forever if it works.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the best novels I've read in a very long time, May 16, 2005
This review is from: Flowers for Algernon (Mass Market Paperback)
With complete honesty, I can say that Flowers For Algernon is one of the best novels I've read in a very long time. Daniel Keyes tragic story about a human experiment gone terribly wrong is written in such a way that it is simultaneously poignant and thought provoking. His excellent writing and use of perspective takes us so deeply into Charlie's life that, by the end of the story, it takes a very strenuous effort for one to not feel sympathy towards Charlie's final fate.
Charlie Gordon is a 35-year-old man working in a bakery as a janitor. His IQ is 69, and he has a very hard time spelling and writing correctly. However, acting upon a leap of faith, Charlie agrees to allow his body to be experimented upon in an intelligence-increasing surgical operation. What happens after is nothing short of miraculous - Charlie soon turns into a genius with an IQ of 170, and becomes an "information sponge" that soaks in everything. His intelligence soon surpasses those of professors and the very same doctors who operated on him. His discussions with them soon turn one-sided, as his colleagues no longer have any idea what Charlie is talking about. However, he is still treated like a test subject instead of as a human being by other people. In his frustration and anger, Charlie runs away and decides to live independently. On this journey, we come to see of how intelligence is regarded in society, and how people have come to worship it. Towards the end of the story, Charlie makes a point of showing that intelligence by itself is nothing - only when intelligence pairs itself with affection will it ever amount to anything. Unfortunately, Charlie never retains the intelligence and knowledge he's gained, and by the end of the novel he loses it once again while returning back to a world of slow responses and poor writing and spelling.
Daniel Keyes represents the notion of intelligence excellently in this novel. By using Charlie's transformation from dimwit to genius as his vehicle, Keyes shows us that other virtues in life are regarded more highly then intelligence. Also, as we follow Charlie's tortured life, we can't help but realize that in some ways, a lack of higher intelligence can prove to be a benefit. Ignorance, in some parts of life, is bliss. By writing the novel as a collaboration of Charlie's private progress reports, the audience can easily connect with Charlie's personality. Thus, at the end of the story, when Charlie loses his intelligence once again, a feeling of sorrow can't help but be felt.
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