I'm a member of a site called Goodreads, and I often browse the discussions on it. I found a really interesting one. Ten girl characters from popular Young Adult books were listed and given 15 points each. People would post comments (or messages), adding 1 point to characters they liked, removing 1 point from characters they didn't and leaving those they didn't know or didn't have an opinion on.
I really liked the idea and set up my own version in my class. I chose 8 female characters and 8 male characters from 4 Young Adult fiction series, with the help of four of my classmates and gave each character 10 points. I opened the polls on Monday and Tuesday.
12 kids voted.
The characters were:
I got some interesting results.
The most popular girl character was Annabeth from Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
The runner-up in the girls category was Hazel from The Heroes of Olympus.
The least popular girl character was Reyna from The Heroes of Olympus.
The girl who narrowly escaped being the least popular (by 2 points) was Katniss from The Hunger Games.
The most popular boy character was Leo from The Heroes of Olympus.
The runner-up in the boys category was Percy from Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
The least popular boy character was Jason from The Heroes of Olympus.
The boy who narrowly escaped being the least popular (by 1 point!) was Peeta, from The Hunger Games.
I came home on Tuesday, excited, and made charts showing the results.
The charts:
(I know it's sticking out of the post margins, but otherwise you couldn't see it.)
Any surprises? For me:
-Katniss and Peeta scored really low.
-Reyna and Jason got the same.
-The difference between the highest (Leo) and lowest (Jason) in the boys' category is 15 points...and in the books, they're best friends.
I was expecting Leo to win, Percy to come second, and Jason to score low in the boys' category. No offence to Jason fans, but I knew my class has a low opinion of him. For girls, I was guessing that Annabeth and Hazel would do pretty well (they came first and second, respectively).
But for the other characters...why did Katniss score so low? Why did Peeta score so low? Why was Ron apparently more popular than Harry? How come Reyna was so unpopular, nobody voted positively for her? Why is it that in a pair of best friends, one was super-popular and the other was the opposite? And this is intriguing, because in the books, Leo, who won the boys category in my poll, is the 'seventh wheel' and Jason, who lost to every other boy character, is the 'hero' type.
Yes, lots of questions to be answered. They will be answered next time on...
Cartwheels in the Rain!
I really liked the idea and set up my own version in my class. I chose 8 female characters and 8 male characters from 4 Young Adult fiction series, with the help of four of my classmates and gave each character 10 points. I opened the polls on Monday and Tuesday.
12 kids voted.
The characters were:
- Percy, Annabeth, and Clarisse from Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan
- Leo, Jason, Frank, Hazel, and Reyna from The Heroes of Olympus by Rick Riordan
- Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Luna from Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
- Katniss, Peeta, Gale, and Rue from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
- I can't describe the characters in a few sentences so I'm not going to try.
I got some interesting results.
The most popular girl character was Annabeth from Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
The runner-up in the girls category was Hazel from The Heroes of Olympus.
The least popular girl character was Reyna from The Heroes of Olympus.
The girl who narrowly escaped being the least popular (by 2 points) was Katniss from The Hunger Games.
The most popular boy character was Leo from The Heroes of Olympus.
The runner-up in the boys category was Percy from Percy Jackson and the Olympians.
The least popular boy character was Jason from The Heroes of Olympus.
The boy who narrowly escaped being the least popular (by 1 point!) was Peeta, from The Hunger Games.
I came home on Tuesday, excited, and made charts showing the results.
The charts:
(I know it's sticking out of the post margins, but otherwise you couldn't see it.)
Any surprises? For me:
-Katniss and Peeta scored really low.
-Reyna and Jason got the same.
-The difference between the highest (Leo) and lowest (Jason) in the boys' category is 15 points...and in the books, they're best friends.
I was expecting Leo to win, Percy to come second, and Jason to score low in the boys' category. No offence to Jason fans, but I knew my class has a low opinion of him. For girls, I was guessing that Annabeth and Hazel would do pretty well (they came first and second, respectively).
But for the other characters...why did Katniss score so low? Why did Peeta score so low? Why was Ron apparently more popular than Harry? How come Reyna was so unpopular, nobody voted positively for her? Why is it that in a pair of best friends, one was super-popular and the other was the opposite? And this is intriguing, because in the books, Leo, who won the boys category in my poll, is the 'seventh wheel' and Jason, who lost to every other boy character, is the 'hero' type.
Yes, lots of questions to be answered. They will be answered next time on...
Cartwheels in the Rain!
