Week 4, Reflection 1; In the Beginning

Hamilton, V., & Moser, B. (1988). In the beginning. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

This book contains many stories of how the world was created according to various cultures.  I really enjoyed reading through this because of how the different groups of people can be compared.  The book even tells what culture the story is from which is a nice touch.  This book contains a good mix showing a diverse world.  This book contains over 25 creation stories from over 25 cultures.  This show of diversity is something that all students should be exposed to and understand.  Not only that, this book also can be show how similar multiple cultures are as many of the stories have commonalities.  These stories also show the values of the people.  This can be seen by how people and animals were created.  For example, the Egyptians placed grave importance and worship upon Ra, the sun god.  Because of how important they felt he was, it is only appropriate that he would be the creator.  The Egyptians also worshiped him for light, growth, and warmth.  Many of these stories also contain personification.  Personification is the giving of human qualities to animals.  This can be seen in having many of the animals in the stories like the raven, rat, and dogs talk.  This book is a great multicultural piece of literature because it helps students to be able to see and relate with other cultures.