Critical Analysis Essay: Click-Clack the Rattlebag

Click-Clack the Rattlebag

The book “Click-Clack the Rattlebag” by Neil Gaiman is an exciting and dreadful book. The main idea that the author explores from the book is about child upbringing and family life. The family is an essential part of our social life and children should be brought up in a culturally accepted manner (Gaiman,2015). In my view, the parents are the first teachers of their children. As the story revolves around the narrator and the child, the narrator educating the child is evident.
The book is about an adult who is the writer and a young child. The child wants the adult to narrate to him a story just before sleeping time. However, the writer ends up the one who receives an exciting story from the child. This is the basis of the click-clack the rattle bag. Majority of the stories occur while the unnamed narrator is walking a young child to the bedroom. Inside the bedroom, the child requests the adult who was escorting him to the bedroom to tell him a story — the bedtime stories.
The man, however, doesn’t know which story to tell the young child. The child, therefore, suggests the story about the click-clack. The unnamed narrator does not recognize the story. As a result, the child explains to him the click-clack story.
From the book, the child narrates that those click-clacks are creatures which looks like what somebody cannot expect. Usually, these creatures originate from the shadows, hunt and grab their prey and take it to their lair. Inside the lair the creatures consume the prey. Besides, the child also explains the meaning of the rattle bag. He says that the rattlebag are remains of the prey which blows into the wind.
The book introduces us to the traditional life set up. This is where the adults were expected to narrates to the young ones some stories (Niffenegger,2015). These stories were told to the children in the evening after works. The purpose of the stories was to impacts knowledge to the children. This concept is seen when the child asks the adult to narrate to him a story. It can be assumed that this was a standard way of life.
The author of the book is very creative. He helps the child to think critically in an innovative way. When the child asks for a story, he pretends that he does not know any story. Ideally, there is no way he could have lacked a story to tell the child (Constable,2016). Instead, he makes the child think of a story. The opportunity given for the child to think of a story helps in building the intelligence level of the child. As the young child narrates the story of the click-clack rattle bag, he learns an essential value of their community; the act of storytelling.
Children learn a lot from the adults around them. Most of the times, the lifestyle of the adults around them including their parents determines their behaviors. The narrator had a tendency telling stories to the young child. The child later learns from the narrator about storytelling skills. Even when the narrator lack stories to say, he quickly comes up with one, the click-clack ratting.

References
Constable, J. (2016). The Southwark Mysteries. Oberon Books.
Gaiman, N. (2015). Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances. Hachette UK.
Niffenegger, A. (Ed.). (2015). Ghostly: A collection of ghost stories. Simon and Schuster.

Reading reflection