The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm

Summary

Thirteen-year-old Tende is the son of Zimbabwe's Cheif of Security. He and his brother and sister escape from the protective family compuound and set off on a coming-of-age adventure. This story is set in a 22nd century Africa, in a city of gleaming towers and high technology. During their adventure, the kids discover a different Zimbabwe than they have ever seen before - one of mutants, gangs, mysticism, and danger outside the sheltered compound in which they were raised. Their father hires "The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm Detective Agency" to find his children. As the result of a nuclear accident, the three detectives each have special powers which they use to locate the kids.

Instructional Activities

• Create a Venn diagram comparing the utopian/dystopian worlds in The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm and Lois Lowry's The Giver .

• Make a "plot map" of the city of Harare. The story is a journey across the city, so as you are reading, add illustrations to the map to represent the main plot points in the book.

• Make advertising posters for General Matsika's Zimbabwe, imploring city-dwellers to follow his authoritarian rules.

• Write post cards from the kids to their father from different points in their journey, describing the adventure and the strange characters they have met.

• Perform a Aaron Shepard's Reader's Theater script, Resthaven, based on the Resthaven section of the book. Click here for script.

• Give students a list of names from the book. The list should have the names in one column, followed by two blank columns. In the first column, make predictions about whether each is the name of a person, a place, or a thing. Next predict what part each may play in the story. As you read the story, fill in the actual answers in the third column. Click here for a suggested list of character names.

• Social Studies: Video report on Zimbabwe. How is it different from the futuristic Zimbabwe in the book? How is it similar?

• Science: Report on radiation. In the story, radiation has many bizarre effects on the inhabitants of Harare. What effects does radiation really have?

Vocabulary

ancestors

destiny

virtues

reverence

holograph

holophone

mellow

entranced

benevolent

strategy

martial

skulk

motivate

descendant

anatomy

realm

contentment

debris

devour

genetically engineered

tightwad

chloroform

vice

sleuth

solemnly

famine

stammered

bewildered

abruptly

camouflage

monotonous

mishmash

dank

riffraff

mournfully

fetter

mottled

remnants

flask

qualms

refuse

intensity

sober

veer

malicious

plasma

gyrate

insidious

ravenous

seething

resentment

aristocrat

siesta

Web Resources

SF Site

Masconomet Teaching Guide