“After The Fall” is a motivating children’s book written by Dan Santat. The book follows the adventures of Humpty Dumpty after his great fall. Of course, when he falls, he is put back together with glue and bandages, but no glue or bandage can overcome the fear of going the a wall that Humpty has recently developed. His love for birds, however, winds him back up there because the plane he built to see the birds lands on the wall and he must go retrieve it. So, he climbs higher and higher, and when he reaches the top, he flies with his plane like a bird. The first connection I can make to this story is a “text-to-self” connection. As a child, I, like Humpty Dumpty, began fearing something. I feared that there were ghosts and that a specific ghost named Bloody Mary was after me. So, every night, I wouldn’t be able to go to bed or to the bathroom alone, and we must keep in mind that I was in fourth grade at this time so not being able to go to the bathroom alone was sort of humiliating. Anyways, one night I really had to go pee, but it was like 3 A.M and I didn’t want to wake my mom up, so I went to the bathroom alone and nothing bad happened. The next day, I made a story for Bloody Mary. I called it “Pickle Mary”. The story was that Mary would go around selling red pickles, but people always assumed that they were bloody pickles, and this story made me laugh at the thought of “Bloody Mary”. That’s how I, alike Humpty, got over my fear. The second connection I can make to this story is a “text-to-text” connection. I can relate this Humpty Dumpty story to the Humpty Dumpty story in one of the Puss in Boots books. In both stories, Humpty Dumpty loves birds, and in both stories, Humpty Dumpty creates a plane to fly with. The biggest difference between the two is that Puss in Boots Humpty is evil and the other is just another bright-minded, talking, walking egg. The last connection I can make to this story is a “text-to-world” connection. I know this happened a while back, but Malala Yousafzai’s actions are still just as brave as they were 7 years ago. I’m sure that, alike Humpty Dumpty, Malala had some fear of the Taliban, but she stood against them nonetheless and maybe even grew out of her fear at some point. Perhaps the biggest connection between Malala and Humpty Dumpty is that they both did something that was risky, even though they were afraid of doing it, for the things they loved. Malala did it for her rights and country, and Humpty Dumpty did it for his love of birds. Overall, I think this was a motivational story and I really enjoyed reading it.