The lemming condition (A Bantam skylark book)

by Alan Arkin

Book Overview

The wonderful story of Bubber the Lemming that teaches everyone something about conformity and individual values This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0006WOE9K
• ISBN13: 9780553150162
• Release Date: January 1977
• Publisher: Bantam Books
• Length: 57 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.

Customer Reviews

it is for Adults, if you give this to a child, it may disturb them for a long time

The lemming condition is written like a Children's story but it is not. the message in it is for more adults than Kids. if read in schools I suggest above sixth grade, it is not descriptively Violent, it just is very unnatural for a book written like it to contain the things it does, most children will not expect such a ending do to it is a fairy tale sort of thing, and so get into the mind fix that the ending is happy, almost all the characters commit a unknowingly suicide, falling off the cliff one after another. Sincerely, disturbed Teenager P.s. Read it. It is good, just not for Kids.

!! EXCELLENT Read Aloud or Read Alone!!

As an elementary school teacher, I have read this book aloud to fourth, fifth, and sixth graders. It is an amazing springboard for discussion and can be tailored to any age group--adults included. Those who arrogantly posit how simplistic this book is, apparently have not dealt with children. I have been amazed with the many themes I have been able to use in the classroom--not just life lessons (not following the crowd, thinking for yourself, friendship, tolerance, etc.), but with teaching writing. Caveat: Make sure the children know that scientifically, it is not true that lemmings run off cliffs. Focus on the fact that because the main character chose to think for himself, he saved himself from a lot of heartache and was able to continue to grow and learn.

The Lemming Condition

I began using this book in my classroom about 20 years ago. I have read and discussed it with children 10-18. Most notably, I read it to students at a continuation high school where I worked for three years. Many of the students were in gangs and had already been to jail. Many of the girls already had their first child and had settled into a pattern that would spiral their lives and those of their children into misery. This book offered them an alegorical exposure to the idea that life need not be preset series of events leading to the leap of no return and the long death. It remains one of my most stolen books, always a compliment. Mr. Arkin reminds us that it is not only okay, but necessary that we break from the pack to survive. I am so grateful for his authorship and the effect it has had on so many. I wish he knew.

Powerful

Bubber's family was getting ready. So were all the lemmings families in burrow after burrow, all over the tundra. It was the morning of the great march west and the leap into the sea. Bubber was excited about it, until his crow friend starts asking some pretty pointed questions : Could a lemming even swim? What comes after the leap from the cliff? Bubber found that he couldn't say for sure. He had followed the crowd and taken it for granted like everybody else. The lemmings were doing something; he was a lemming. However, Crow's questions startle and unsettle him, and he starts having questions of his own - ones that had to be answered before the day was over. Short, very short, but wonderfully written, the several levels of storytelling meshing into one throughly enjoyable whole. However, despite it's shortness and cute illustrations, it is not for younger children - a few cuss words and the graphic, disturbing depiction of the mass lemming sucidide might not be apportiate. But everyone else will pick up important messages and meaning from this allegorical furry tale. Though I must add as a side note that lemmings do NOT kill themselves. It's a myth that was perpetuated by a few cameramen shoving them off a cliff for a Disney nature film in the fifties.

I found the moral of the novel both powerful and intriguing

The Lemming condition is a wounderfuly written allegory of the human condition of peer presure on the scale of masses.