Summer Reading: Entry Four

8/5/15 - Wednesday

I chose this book because the cover drew my attention. When you look at a book you usually see covers that take up the whole page or covers that are very colorful. But on this cover all I saw was two people and that's what drew my in. It is a plain yellow/white background with a boy and a girl sitting next to each other. And the title was another thing I don't see often, just two peoples names Eleanor & Park.

Even though I did not see many connections between me and the characters in the book, one thing that did stand out was when she first got on the bus. She was nervous for her first day of school. I think everyone can relate to this no matter if its your first day of the year or your first day at a brand new school.

I would recommend this book to young adults. I loved this book and I have talked to most of my friends about it and they have also loved this book. So I think that many teens would like this book because it talks about the diversity between students in high school.

Summer Reading: Entry Three

8/3/15 - Monday

If I intended on hooking a reader I would put in my favorite passage of the book, when we first meet Eleanor. "Park noticed the new girl at about the same time everybody else did. She was standing at the front of the bus, next to the first available seat ... Not just new—but big and awkward. With crazy hair, bright red on top of curly. And she was dressed like… like she wanted people to look at her. Or maybe like she didn't get what a mess she was… Like something that wouldn't survive in the wild" (Rowell, 7-8).

I chose this quote with the intent of hooking readers because this is one of the biggest problems in the book, Eleanor's appearance. This shows what Parks' first opinion of Eleanor was, even though his opinion didn't stay like this for long it effected how he acted towards her at the beginning of the book. He had never talked to her before and half of his opinion was based on his peers surrounding him.

Summer Reading: Entry Two

7/26/15 - Sunday

Eleanor and Park are looking for different things. Eleanor just wants to get away from her dysfunctional family and Park isn't looking for anything specific right now. But by meeting each other they found what they are looking for. Park takes Eleanor's mind off her family and Eleanor just makes Park happy.

I see many different themes appearing in my book but one that sticks out to me the most is appearances. And that is, Appearances shouldn't matter what should matter is a persons personality. The first time Park ever saw Eleanor he said so himself that she had a crazy clothing style and that's why he didn't talk to her. But once he got over her style he realized how good of a person she was on the inside.

Eleanor and Park is structured by Chapters and those chapters are divided into different sections by their names. I like this because in each chapter something new is happening and you can get each of their opinions (example below).

Summer Reading: Entry One

7/20/15 - Monday

I chose to read Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell for my summer reading project. The two main characters in my book are Eleanor and Park.

Eleanor is the new kid, she has big red hair and has a crazy sense of clothing style. Eleanor has just moved back in with her mom and her step dad, which she isn't to happy about, she loves her mom but hates her step dad because he is a horrible dad and doesn't treat her mom right. Eleanor is having a very rough time coming back home and it gets even worse when she has to go to school. Her only friend is Park, who she met on the bus.

Park isn't a loser, but he isn't popular. His mom is the neighborhood hair dresser so he gets along with most of the kids in the neighborhood. When he first saw Eleanor he thought she was a freak just like everyone else. But when she didn't have a seat on the bus he was forced to let her sit with him.

I think that after Eleanor and Park get to know each other it will be just like any other love story. Soon enough they will figure out they are deeply in love but they can't be together because of Eleanors' family. My only two questions while reading this book is, after Eleanor and Park realize they love each other will they find a way to be together and will their relationship last?

American Sniper: Whats the Hype?

One thing I don't understand... Whats the Hype about American Sniper?

I read the book American Sniper for my book 4 and I thought it was a really great book because it kinda taught you about what the Army, Navy, and Marines do over seas. Chris Kyle was SEAL and inside his seal unit he was a sniper. Chris Kyle is known to be one of the most lethal snipers in U.S. history. There are many people saying that Chris killed many people for no reason and he didn't have many responsibilities but that's not true. Chris Kyle only shot someone he KNEW was trouble... if he couldn't prove them to be deadly or harmful, he couldn't kill them. And to go along with that Chris had responsibilities they were just different than everyone else's, God, Country, and Family.

 I got to see inside on what Chris did over seas and I learned about what each section of the military does. The book definitely lived up to what people said, well when people talked good about the book. Many people had different thoughts on the book and I think that it's just about where peoples morals stand because technically Chris didn't do anything wrong throughout the book, I actually thing he was a great person while fighting for out country and he always had his head in the right mid sight while on the battle field.

I read a couple articles on American Sniper and what people think of the movie compared to the book. Most people have the same thing to say. The movie and the book are almost identical, now I haven't seen the movie so I can't really compare the two but from what I have heard there are many reasons they are alike.

Not all people are fond of the movie though, some actually were "offended" by it. In the second article linked out of the four Michael Moore tweeted - "My uncle killed by a sniper in WW2. We were taught snipers were cowards. Will shoot u in the back. Snipers aren't heroes. And invaders r worse". I think that these people are overreacting. Yes, a sniper did hurt a family member of yours but Chris Kyle didn't so you can't compare Chris to someone in WW2.

I think a big part of the hype was that this was one of the first if not the first book to be written from this perspective and it just shocked people that someone could be so open about this. Another big thing was that Chris opened up about his personal life and I think that was a big thing that people liked to read about because it showed them that not all relationships are perfect and many have lots of flaws.

There was also a lot of negative hype towards the book because people were offended by it, or thought it was too graphic. A critic from Rolling Stone (fourth link) also said "(The most disturbing passage in the book to me was the one where Kyle talked about being competitive with other snipers, and how when one in particular began to threaten his "legendary" number, Kyle "all of the sudden" seemed to have "every stinkin' bad guy in the city running across my scope." As in, wink wink, my luck suddenly changed when the sniper-race got close, get it? It's super-ugly stuff)". I never thought of that passage as being rude or a bad passage but know that it is pointed out to me I see how it was wrong of Chris to talk about being a sniper like it's a competition.

American Sniper gives you a lot of inside to families in the military and how fighting effects a person thoughts and friendships. Over all I think that American Sniper was a very good book and it did live up to the hype... but I don't think it lived up to the drama it brought.

http://www.katelynholm.com/blog/2015/1/19/why-should-you-be-offended-by-american-sniper
http://www.businessinsider.com/people-are-freaking-out-over-responses-to-american-sniper-2015-1
http://mtsusidelines.com/2015/01/american-sniper-lives-up-to-the-hype/
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/american-sniper-is-almost-too-dumb-to-criticize-20150121?page=3

Reading Wishlist

1. Eleanor and Park by: Rainbow Rowell (summer reading choice - book 5)

2. Unbroken by: Laura Hillenbrand

3. Orphan Train by: Christina Baker Kline

4. Dark Places by: Gillian Flynn

5. Gone Girl by: Gillian Flynn

6. Looking for Alaska by: John Green

Book Talk: The Longest Ride

4 Reasons Why Aibileen from The Help says 'Law'

4 Reasons Why Aibileen from The Help says 'Law'

 

Aibileen Clark from The Help by Kathryn Stockett, cleans, cooks, and raises the children for Mr. and Miss. Leefolt. Aibileen’s specialty is raising kids and everyday Aibileen encounters something different from watching the white people. She sees so many things that sometimes the only thing to describe what she is seeing is… ‘Law’.

1. When she is proud.

                It isn’t hard to make Aibileen proud, but one thing that made her especially proud was her son, Treelore. Treelore was young when he died at work but that didn’t stop her from being proud of him. Before he died he started to write a book.  A book about being a colored man that was living and working in Mississippi. Aibileen was so proud of Treelore all should thought was, “Law, that made me proud” (Stockett, 2). Usually when Aibileen says something serious she’s not lying, she means everything she says.

2. When she is disappointed.

                One thing you have to understand is that when you work for a white family, you also work for their friends. And white people have a lot of friends especially Miss Leefolt. Aibileen has to deal with them every day. Aibileen tries to stay around Miss Leefolt for as long as she can but sometimes what they talk about disappoints her because of how rude they can be. One day Miss Leefolt had her friends over for bridge and Miss Hilly (the leader and the rudest) started to talk about her outdoor bathroom plan because she doesn’t want to go in the same bathroom as the “help”. “Law, not this mess again. They all look over at me straightening the silver drawer in the sideboard and I know it’s time for me to leave” (Stockett, 7). Aibileen gets so disappointed because she doesn’t do anything wrong but for some reason they always look at her like she does.

3. When she is worried.

Sometimes Aibileen is just trying to look out for her friends but it makes them mad and that’s when she realizes maybe she shouldn’t have said anything. One of Aibilieen’s best friends if Minny Jackson. Minny works for Miss Walter so her job is to not only please Miss Walter - which isn’t too hard - but also try to please Miss Hilly. Now Miss Hilly is probably the hardest person to please, everything has to go her way and if it doesn’t somebody either ends up hurt, in jail, or without a job. One day they were on the bus and Aibileen had overheard Miss Leefolt and Miss Hilly talking about Minny and how she wasn’t a good cook so Aibileen decided it would be best to tell Minny about it. Well Minny didn’t take it very nicely, “‘she ever say that to me, she gone get a piece a Minny for lunch.’ She huff down the steps… Law, maybe I should a just kept it to myself” (Stockett, 14). Now Aibileen knows that it was right to tell Minny but sometimes Minny gets so mad Aibileen gets worried about what Minny will say/do after she tells her.

4. When she is surprised.

For a couple months Aibileen and Miss Skeeter have been working together on a book, a book that includes Minny and various other maids. Miss Skeeter asked them to help her out because her goal in writing this book is to change the way people think in Mississippi and Jackson, Mississippi in particular. They all worked so hard to complete the book and send it in before the New Year to a publishing company in New York City and when Miss Skeeter first got the news from the company she went straight to Aibileen’s, “’Harper and Row,’ I say, ‘wants to publish it.’ Everyone is quiet. Even the flies stop buzzing… Aibileen lets out a whoop like I’ve never heard come out of her before. ‘Law, I can’t believe it!’” (Stockett, 452). This was one of the biggest moments in the book because they had not expected the book to do so well and they thought it would be denied so Aibileen could not hold in her joy when she heard it actually was going to happen.

Aibileen is one of my favorite characters because she always knows how to help someone and she puts everyone before herself. Throughout the book she uses the saying ‘law’ to express her emotions. She says it when she is happy, sad, excited, worried, and disappointed. There is not one thing Aibileen does not use ‘law’ to describe.

 

 

Truth in Memoir

I think for a book to be non-fiction is should be 98%-100% true. I think this because if the author is changing more than that in a book they are not writing about a true story anymore and they are making it up. I think it is OK for an author maybe add some parts but if they are changing/ exaggerating parts in their story it is no longer true. Just like when James Frey exaggerated how long he was in jail. He wrote that he was in jail for a couple months when in reality it was only a couple hours.

I think that if someone has a couple half-truths in their story it is OK. But if an author has lots of half-truths filling the book then it should not be considered a memoir and it should be considered more of a “good” story. When Frey bent the truth in his story it wasn't just “bending” the truth he completely changed his story at points and I do not think that it is fair to readers to believe that it was a true story because these things actually happen to people and an author can hurt people’s feelings/ insult them while bending the truth because it might have happened to them and now that they lied and put it in their story it seems like they think it’s just a joke.

I don’t think that lines between genres are necessary but I do think that they help guide people in a direction and help people decide what kind of books they like. Because of this I think David Shields has the right idea because he is trying to get people to not categorize things and judge books so easily. 

The Maze Runner: Adaption

              I was given the task to adapt the Book the Maze Runner by James Dashner. To adapt it I think the best choice would be to make a movie because it could capture the most out of the book. While making this movie I am going to have to keep some scenes and cut some scenes. I think I should keep the scenes that help the plot out the most which include, when Thomas first arrives at the glade because it explains how he feels and what his surroundings look like. When Thomas first goes into the Maze because it shows you how dangerous the maze is at night and how he survives the night. When the girl arrives at the glade because that had one of the biggest impacts on every character in the book considering none of the boys had ever seen a girl since they started living in the glade and she brought a note with her that said "this is the last one ever". And I think I should also try to include each time a character went through "the changing" and said they saw Thomas because this gets him into a lot of trouble with some of the gladers. There are also lots of minor parts in the book that I can cut so our movie isn't 5 hours long. I think I can cut some of the eating scenes and some of the parts where Thomas is just wandering around the glade exploring and thinking. I think that the soundtrack can sometimes be one of the hardest parts because you don't want the viewers to be focused on the music playing in the background. For the soundtrack I would only like to put in music when is necessary, so during the maze scenes I am going to want an intense and suspenseful feel for the background music. One last thing I would like to capture is that in the book James Dashner goes into a lot of detail when describing the glade, the characters, and the different aspects of the maze so I would like to match those details as close as I can.

Fan Experience!

Want a chance to own some of the famous paintings and artifacts from The Longest Ride? Then come to Wake Forest for our annual auction! This year our auction will showcase many different objects from the book The Longest Ride by Nicholas Sparks. Some of the most important objects will be:

Ø  Tickets to a rodeo for a chance to meet a cowboy of your own

Ø  Portrait of Ruth by David McCallum and…

Ø  One of Luke’s favorite Cowboy hats

Don’t forget there could be some secrets behind each item… just like in the book! Each item has their own significance. By coming to this auction you might have the chance to meet the author himself!

                When Marcia, Sophia’s friend, realizes that Sophia has done nothing since her break-up with her boyfriend Brian she decides to take her to a rodeo so they can have fun and let loose.  Once they are there Sophia unexpectedly meets a guy named Luke while outside. Soon enough Sophia finds herself falling head over heels for him. “It had less to do with his appearance… what appealed to her most was the way he made everything appear easy, from the unflappable way he’d handled Brian to their meandering conversation. She never had the sense that he was trying to impress her,” From then on out they spent as much time together as they could. When Sophia and Luke are traveling home they find Ira- a 96 year old man stuck in a car- immediately they call for an ambulance. Once at the hospital with Ira Sophia cannot bring herself to leave, she feels inclined to stay until family arrives. Little does she know… he doesn’t have anyone, his wife has passed and they never had the chance to have kids. A couple weeks later Sophia- A college student majoring in art history- hears about a live auction with hundreds of paintings. A newspaper comes out about the auction. When reading the details, she finds out that all the paintings were Ira’s and his wife’s. Further into the article she finds that he passed away after the car crash Sophia and Luke found him in. This left Sophia and Luke stunned, they didn’t know whether they should go to the auction or not. On the day of, they decided to go because they thought it was the right thing to do. After looking through all the paintings they were both in awe. “”Do you think that the sale prices will approach the estimates?’… ‘A few of those paintings are worth more than twenty of my ranches.’” The first painting was, Portrait of Ruth a painting drawn by a kid (David McCallum).  No one was interested in the painting, except Sophia. She thought it was different and without her saying anything Luke knew that that was the one. He waited until the biding offer went down to $400 and immediately made a bid. But the painting wasn’t the only thing he bought… read the book to find out!

                This auction was thought of with you in mind! We hope that this auction is enjoyable and allows you to feel like you can put yourself into the book and become a character. Hopefully everyone can find an item we are auctioning off to love and cherish. Each item has a different meaning to each person in the book, which can allow you to create meaning towards the items too. You will be able to meet and discuss with other readers and fans about the book while giving your point of view. You never know you might find yourself connecting with someone at the auction and you can have a love story just like Sophia and Luke. If you get really lucky you might even be able to interact with Nicholas Sparks himself, maybe even see what his thoughts are on how his book turned out and what he was thinking of wile writing. But the only way all this can happen is if you come to Wake Forest, North Carolina for a once in a lifetime auction.

Room

          The book I am reading is Room by Emma Donoghue. In this story the main conflict is that Jack and his mother are trapped inside a room (a shed) and cannot get out because Old Nick has them locked into room and only opens the door to give them food and get the trash. The setting of this book is mostly in room which is located in someones backyard. The main characters in room are Jack, a 5 year old boy who has never seen the outside of the shed before. And Ma, Jack's mom who was abducted by Old Nick when she was in college. The time period is set in the early 2000s and everything is pretty up to date and modern.

          The MIP of Room is, "Its's happening just like Ma said, we're at the eight that's police already and I haven't even showed the Note or said about Room, I'm doing it backwards. I'm meant to wlak to the somebody just like they're human. I start to say, "I've been kidnapped," but it only comes out whispery because Old Nick's picked me up again, he's heading for the truck, I'm all shaking to pieces, I can't find to hit, he's going to-" (Donoghue, 142). I thought that this was the most important passage because it expresses how nervous Jack was to be running away from room and how inexperienced he is in the outside world since he has only talked to his.

          The SOB of Room is, "'I don't know,' says Ma. "How could he not? If he's the least bit human...' I thought Humans were or weren't, I didn't know someone could be a bit human. Then what are his other bits?" (Donoghue, 135). I believe that this was a good sentence of brilliance because you can get a feel for how Jack thinks about different subjects and since he has been in room for his whole life he doesn't know better than what his mom has taught him.

 

What is a Book?

A book is a thing you can use to relax and escape to another place. You can use this book to image another world and create your own stories and pictures. A book is like a vacation, there are so many choices of where to go (what to read) and so many activities you can do while you are there. You can even write a book so that it is your exact vacation, so that you are doing what you want on that vacation, and so you can imagine the perfect vacation.

Every book is different, some have pictures to guide you through the story, and some have lots of words to tell you a story and let you imagine your own pictures and scenarios. Each book looks different. There are small books and big books and books that have accessories - like maps and compasses - to help you interact more with the story.

I agreed with Joe Meno’s definition of a book because he stated, “For me, a book, in whatever form it takes – hardbound copy, paperback, electronic version, online instrument, text download on a cell phone, even a story read orally – a book is actually a place, a place where we, as readers, still have the chance to engage in active imagining, translating word into image”. I agreed with this because people read books many different ways but no matter which way they read a book they are able to take the words the author wrote and translate them into their own images.

Joe Meno had lots of great things to say about what a book was to him and one of my favorite things he said was “but the book in whatever form we choose to interact with it, forces us to complete it”. I thought this was amazing because that is my favorite part about reading, the fact that you can share with people what you thought the characters looked like and compare

it to their image of what the person looked like.
I think that there is a difference between reading on a Kindle, an iPad, or a phone and reading from an actual book. The difference is that in an actual book you can smell the old or new pages and in a book you can look at the color of the cover page and you can see how the rustic and discolored look of the pages gives it character and on a tablet or electronic device you get none of that. One last thing I like about books is that every time you buy a book you can call it yours and soon enough you will have shelves of books you can look back on.

Why I Read

I read because it allows me to escape into a different mindset so for the period of time you are reading you aren't thinking about anything but the book and the characters. It also helps you relax and I also like that there are books about everything and there are so many different genres so whatever you want to read about there is probably a book somewhere about it and you can never run out of books to read because new ones are coming out all the time! You also have the option of reading independently or in a group like a book club. One thing I like about reading in book clubs is that when you talk about the book it allows you to see what other people interpreted from a chapter or what they think about the characters and this shows you how differently people interpret a book. One last thing I like about reading is that it can also give you ideas for writing your own books or articles and it can help expand your horizon to new vocabulary by reading books with a bigger word range. Because of all these things I like to read!