Life Is Never Short of Sounds by Emily T. (G4)

Life Is Never Short of Sounds

By Emily T.

Grade 4

Sometimes, homework can be frustrating. In “An Earful” by Dale-Marie Bryan, the main character, Jacob, was annoyed by his homework. Jacob’s attitude about his homework changes from the beginning to the end. His homework was to collect sounds.

At the beginning of the story, Jacob felt annoyed because his homework was about collecting sounds, and he thought there were more sounds in the city than on his family farm. In the text, it says, “When he threw open the gate, it groaned like a ghost. That was how he felt about his homework.” Also, it says, “Not fair, he thought”. That meant he thought it was not fair that he lived on the farm and other people lived in the cities where he thought most of the sounds were. In addition, “Jacob glared out the window.” He thought it was not fair and glared out the window, so he was annoyed. That showed that he was annoyed about his homework and that he didn’t like it. 

Jacob was hearing a lot of sounds during the story. In “An Earful”, the author uses the words, purred, thumped, creaking, burped, rattled, crunched, gulped, woofed, yipped, snuffled, crunched, cackling, moo, tap, clatter clink, rattled chuffed, chugged, humming, scolding, chattering, mooed, yipped, cackled, and barking. These words are all sounds he heard during the story. Some of them even happened twice! He was first annoyed, and the gate groaned like a ghost and the kittens purred. He thumped his book bag down, and the rocker in the nursery was creaking, and the baby burped. He rattled the carton, he crunched some crackers, and he gulped down some milk. The dog woofed, the puppies were yipping, and the pups snuffled and crunched. There were cackling hens, the cows were mooing, and Jacob still didn’t realize. The truck was making the sounds, tap, clatter, clink, rattled, chuffed, and chugged. Bees were humming, but they couldn’t be heard under the scolding and chattering of the birds. Finally, Jacob realized. There were too many sounds, and it was too loud. The cows mooed, puppies yipped, chickens cackled, and Goldie was barking.

At the end of the story, Jacob felt happy and inspired about his homework because he was hearing a lot of noises/sounds on the farm. In the text it says, “‘I hear you!’ he called”, “Cows mooed and puppies yipped”, and “Jacob grinned”. These examples show Jacob was happy and inspired by the farm sounds, and he realized there were sounds all around him. For example, if he were happy, he would have grinned. In the story, Jacob grinned. That means he was happy. He also called, ”I hear you!”. That means he realized that there were sounds all around him and that the noises inspired him. 

His feelings changed from annoyed to happy because of all the noises he was hearing. In paragraph 20, “‘QUIET!’ Jacob shouted.” Since he thought it was too noisy and that there were too many sounds, he yelled, “Quiet!”. After that, things changed. Jacob realizes that there were sounds all around him. 

In conclusion, Jacob’s attitude about his homework changes from the beginning to the end. At the beginning of the story, Jacob felt annoyed about his homework, and at the end of the story, he felt happy with his homework. The same thing can look different depending on your attitude. Life is never short of sounds. Those who pay attention and care will always discover more color and meanings in the world.