Book Club Response

     How does society put pressure on the characters in our books?  Pressure put on the characters in our books caused them to have trouble with finding where they belong.  It causes them to make decisions that are not great, or make decisions they don't want to make.  The lesson that can be extracted from this question and statement is that you need to make decisions for yourself, for your needs, and these decisions can't be affected by the people around you.  There are many paths a person can take, and that is why there are books.  Books show you through real and fictional examples how you will be affected by your choices, and help us decide what to do.

     The book I read was Wonder, a book about a boy named August.  August's face is deformed, and has trouble with people accepting him because of how he looks.  He had been home-schooled all of his life and 5th grade is his first year in "real" school with other kids.  Jack is one out of two friends he is able to make in the beginning of the year, but on Halloween, he hears something different.  Jack says to Julian, a popular boy, that he isn't really friends with August.  He actually does want to be friends with August because he is so nice and fun, but he is scared that he will not have any other friends.  Pressure was put on him by popularity, and he broke under the weight.

     There are many other people in this book that are socially affected by August's appearance.  His sister, Via or Olivia, depending on who you are to her, is one of those people.  She has carried the "sister of a deformed kid" for so long, and this is her first year in highschool, and a chance to have a fresh slate.  Olivia doesn't tell anyone about her brother for a while because she wants to be known for herself, and have real friends, not just people who feel sorry for her.  Through out this book, I wondered what Auggie's parents were thinking, wondering if they thought he was normal, that they weren't emotionally affected by it.  The only person that you got to truly see and read about that doesn't care what August look like is Summer.  She first sits with him because she feels bad for him, but it blossoms into true friendship.  Honestly, I would have trouble with maintaining a friendship with Auggie, and in a way, I'm amazed that she can do it.

Juvenile Offenders Prosecuted as Adults

     Should juvenile offenders be prosecuted as adults?  This is a very serious matter affecting many minors' lives.  There are many people voicing their opinions on this situation.  These opinions have helped me build what I think.  I believe that juvenile offenders shouldn't be charged as adults unless they have committed first degree murder or rape, what I think of as the worst crimes.
     Juvenile offenders should be given a second chance.  They are under aged, and if they are under eighteen, they are not adults and shouldn't be accounted for as one.  Adolescents have a greater chance of rehabilitation, or getting mentally better than adults have.  The article states that ninety percent of teen offenders do not become adult criminals, and this is a large cut.  That is only a tenth away from being one hundred percent.  The article also says that scientists have proved that the part of the brain that provides impulse control isn't yet fully developed in teenagers.  Looking at what a young teenager did doesn't secure what he will do in the future.
     For serious crimes like first degree murder and rape, it is largely unfair to the victims for that person to not be punished.  If your sibling, child, or relative was killed by a person meaning to do so, it would hurt all the more, wondering why in the world someone would hate them like that.  You would want to seek revenge, and I believe that you could do something horrible in the process.  When a person is raped, it puts a large mental scar in you.  It could be very hard to feel comfortable again with anybody.

People should be punished fairly to what they have done.

How to Salsa in a Sari Character Change

     How To Dance In a Sari is by Dona Sarkar.  The book is about a sixteen year old girl named Issa who is not accepted in the social circuit at school because as most people would say, she's a nerd.  Issa is living happily as a wallflower with perfect grades and three great friends, one of them being her mother, Alisha.     The one thing she isn't happy with is the future with twists and turns she has no idea about.
     It all begins when her boyfriend Adam dumps her for popular Cuban beauty, Cat Morena, her arch enemy.  Issa's insides twist into a not she thinks will never untie.  It then hits her quite hard when Alisha tells her that she is engaged to Cat's father, Diego.  All she wants is to break them up and ruin Cat's life in the process.  Cat pretends not to care that she has to share everything with her soon to be sister, including her dad, which is the most important thing to her.  Issa uses this and all the money Diego has to her advantage.  She becomes a new Cat, complete with designer bags, a posy, and a voice used specifically bringing people down.  When she finally and completely switches places with Cat and s badmouthing her in front of many people, her friends see her as the person she has become and leaves her.  After these incidents, she realizes how  bad she has gotten and how good Cat is, especially with her mom, Alisha.  Issa misses the people she loves and must work herself hard to return to the nice, straight A person she was, and must find a relationship with Cat.
     I have seen this particular kind of character change in many different books and movies.  I have noticed that most people in these books and movies do switch around their lives in anger and resentment.  This book was slightly repetitive for me, but was no humdrum.  I have come to realize that there is a major lesson in them.  Sometimes, the most horrible people need love to become better, not hate, and in the end, loving is the same amount of work.
   

Character Change in Elsewhere

     Elsewhere, by Gabrielle Zevin, is about a fifteen year old girl hit and killed by a cab. Liz, the girl killed must understand her new life in Elsewhere, her after and before life. In Elsewhere, time travels backwards, so every day, Liz gets younger. When she first gets to Elsewhere, she hates everything about it. All she wants is to go home, but without realizing it, she will going to find almost everything she wanted on the Earth.

     When Liz gets off the boat bringing her to Elsewhere, she is surprised to see her grandmother and wonders whether it is all a dream. On the ship there, she didn't understand anything that was going on at all, and when she did realize that she was dead her heart split into two. Liz spent hours at the binoculars that let her watch her friends and family. I noticed that watching the people she loved every minute of every day hurt her more. When she left the binoculars to work her avocation as a dog interviewer, therapist and welcomer for new dogs in Elsewhere, she found happiness. I think that her job numbed the pain because she was focusing on other problems that weren't hers. It brought her attention away from what she could be doing if she was on Earth and living in the now, or then.

      Another thing that helped her was Owen. Owen arrested her for going to the Well, a forbidden place where you can make contact with people. After this incident, Owen did Liz a favor and they became fast friends. Owen was still getting over is wife from Earth, but he fell in love with Liz anyway. They both got younger, and they always stayed together. Though they might have looked different, I believe that their hearts stayed the same. This unexpected love, along with the love from her grandmother filled the holes in her heart and stitched the two pieces together. This book explained to me that anything can happen. Any love, and any happiness.

The Green in Christmas

Middle School 51                                                                                                         Meredith Lunceford

English                                                                                                                                     11/5/13 707

Memoir:My Christmas Tree

     When the jolly Christmas music begins to play on the radio, I know that I can get excited about decorating a beautiful pine tree in our living room. I am always there to pick out a tree. I love that feeling where you can think Isn't that tree beautiful? I helped chose it. I look for a tree that is singing for me to come to it. I try and find a tree that wants me to find it. As we go through the place where my dad decides to get the tree that year, he feels each one looking for a tree that isn't too dry. Dad checks the body to make sure it's not lopsided or too tall. I just make sure that the tree seems right.

If Carolyn, my younger sister, doesn't join us to get the tree, she makes sure to see it as soon as we are home. She sprints to the door with a smile covering her entire face. Carolyn then pulls on my jacket repeatedly saying Can I see it?! She always chooses then to help us carry it. My dad puts the tree in the green and red base as I go to the kitchen to get a cup of water to fill the base. My older sister, Myah, and my mom find the box of ornaments and our Madame Alexander china angel doll that sits on the top of the tree watchfully.

     As the box of ornaments is opened, it feels like the paper wrapped objects in that box fill the room with happiness and excitement. The paper makes a dry crinkling noise as I find my favorites. I look for my snowflake decorated with tiny bells among many others. My dad always has to tell me to slow myself. My mother reminds me to be careful with the things that I love. I have never broken any of them and sometimes I wonder why they don't trust me with them. At least they let me do anything at all. I am always the first to place an ornament on the tree after the lights are stranded over the tree. Finding the right branch can be tricky, but it all pays off.

     Once the lights are turned on, the room comes to life. I want to pause that moment and keep it alive forever. We are all smiling, or at the very least having a nice expression. The ornaments shine reflecting the light. You can smell the pine and it always makes me feel like I'm back in Maine, the place where I feel most at home. We have the red, green, and white Christmas candles adding cinnamon to the mix of smells and putting a comforting dim, yellow light in the room which puts shadows that are almost graceful on the walls. Carolyn's brown eyes reflect the image of the tree and Myah is actually looking happy though she may be tired from homework and school. This Christmas, I will be sure to make a wish that it could always be that way.

Where Your Cellphone Goes to Die

     Americans alone throw away an average of 150 million cellphones a year. Almost none of the people that are throwing them know where their cellphones going when their put into their garbage. They don't know that these phones can kill a child or even a pregnant woman in Ghana, India, and/or China. I didn't know either, and that's why I am writing this piece. People in the US and many other places need to be informed of this problem and act on it.

     While children in the United States of America go to school daily, children in the countries listed above are working long hours extracting metal out of electronics. The children in China and the other countries are quite poor and need the copper, gold, and silver that is in your cellphone, even if it only sells for a few dollars. Boys in India sit in toxic flakes of cadmium while recovering this same thing from the inside if batteries. They must use mallets that could potentially hurt them. I don't believe that this is right. All children, internationally, should be getting an education. Women should be doing a job that doesn't hurt them, rather than sitting over a boiling pot of led, which is toxic, extracting gold from circuit boards.

     The article states that scientists agree that it is quite dangerous to people's health and that a low level of a toxic chemical can stop a child's growth or cause neurological damage. The US needs to act further on the Responsible Electronics Recycling Act, which would make it illegal for toxic waste to be exported to countries with very few or no safeguard. The Basel Convention is a similar treaty that makes it illegal to export toxic waste of any kind. The US is the only country that has yet to sign. I think that we need to think about others and stop being so selfish as a country. The children in China, India, and Ghana matter just as much as us.

Saving Their Skins

     Tigers and leopards are getting lower and lower in their population because of illegal poachers in Asia on the black market.  People in India are trying to stop these beautiful species from going away entirely by having protests consisting of burning leopard and tiger skins.  The amount of both leopards and tigers separately has gone down by nearly one third in the last nine years.  I believe that these innocent animals should stay in the world for longer than eighteen more years.
     China has the largest illegal market for tigers and leopards.  A single live tiger can sell up to $50,000 because their uses.  The beautiful coat of these animals is considered a perfect ornament for your house. Though I agree that the fur is in a pretty print, it should be kept on their alive bodies as long as possible.
The bones of tigers and pelts of the leopards are used for traditional medicines.  There are only about 10,000 leopards and 1,700 tigers remaining.  The population of these important animals should be fought for, not taken away.
     I know that there are many other animals that are becoming extinct. One animal is the African elephant, which is killed for it's ivory trunks that are thought to be very valuable, though  I believe that they are not as valuable as an animals life.  Two thirds of the elephants' population has died in the last decade.  5,000 of these animals lives were taken in two years by poacher who want their trunks. In the beginning of the twentieth century there were 500,000 rhinos roaming the earth which has dropped to under 29,000 today.  This animal was wanted for it's horn.  I believe that the human race needs to stop taking creatures' lives for their bodies.  If you truly think an animal is amazing or beautiful, you should leave it to live it's life.

My 4th Birthday Present

     At three years old, I was content with my life.  I had my mom and dad almost all to myself because I was smaller than my then six year old sister Myah.  I had plenty of love and plenty of play time, everything a little kid wants.  I remember that when my mom was 7 or 8 months pregnant, I was sitting with her on her bed and we were talking about names and I wanted to name her Honey Bird.  Those were the days when I thought she would be a cute, innocent little thing that would never bother me.  I had no idea what I was in for.
     On July 25th, 2005, shortly after my birthday on the 16th, the baby came.  I remember holding her in my lap the day after she was born with my dad's reassuring arms around me holding her head and side, making sure that I didn't drop her.  I decided I loved her, and that I always would.  I kept that promise to myself to this very day and is still in play.  But when she came home, things changed for me.  When I wanted or needed something, it was always Carolyn who needed some thing else before that I got what I had asked for. My mom was too tired to do the simplest of things, like reading a story. And then came the biggest change of all.
    Leaving in the middle of kindergarten was strange for me, not understanding that I would never see any of these particular friends again.  We had run out of space, and my parents decided to try something new.  That something was Maine.  Friends weren't a problem, for I'm a natural at meeting new people.  I loved going home in a bus and walking down my dirt road driveway feeling so grown up.  The crisp smell of the air in autumn is amazing, nearly overwhelming.  I could venture into the woods by stepping out of my doorway.  Moving back to New York was the hardest part of it.  I had to leave the place I love most to go to a ghost of a memory, something that is alive to me now, but still isn't what I would chose if it weren't for my friends here.  All of this because of one person.  What if there was no Carolyn?

Watching You

    It is amazing how many things our country, the USA, does for us to keep us safe from terrorist attacks from other countries.  The president has people check phone calls from foreigners, do body scans in airports, and has put many surveillance cameras in every major cities.  You may think that people working for The National Security Agency are invading your privacy, but these acts keep us safe day to day.
     The article says that the United States of  America has increased our security standards since the deadly and devastating 9/11.  Edward Snowden, who was a former contractor of The National Security Agency, leaked the information that the US has been looking at citizens phone records and tracking foreigners on Facebook and Yahoo.  Edward showed this information to the public because he believed that "the public needs to decide whether these program and policies are right or wrong.  But as Barack Obama stated in June, Americans can't have both 100% privacy and 100% safety.  In 2009, the NSA intercepted an e-mail from an Al Qaeda operative who was planning on bombing the NYC subway.  Suspects from the Boston bombing were found and captured within a week because of surveillance cameras in the area of the bombing.
     Many Americans believe that the NSA is invading their privacy, but it is to keep every citizen safe.  Cameras are mounted on many buildings, but they are only searching for  possible terrorists could be fatal, not for a normal and an actor of safety.  Improved technology has helped people secure America's safety in the past few years.  Travelers go through more accurate scanners in airports and smartphones have made every situation into a "possible video fodder."  These new technological advances have made America the "surveillance state," and this is not creepy as it sounds, but safe. Rob Johnson a 21 year old living in Chicago agrees that it is okay for them to track us if it can save American's lives.  The government tracking people should not alarm you if you are following the laws and doing right.

Anna and the French Kiss

     I have recently read Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins.  Anna and the French Kiss is about a 17 year old girl named Anna who moves to Paris for her senior year.  Anna has never truly been in love, and when she meets charming Etienne St. Clair, she is utterly unprepared.  In this book she learns to understand, and even trust her feelings.  No one can pass up love in the most romantic city in the world.
     When Anna first arrives in Paris, she wants to go home, to the place that is comfortable,  She wants to go back to her kind-of boyfriend who she doesn't feel anything for.  Anna wants to go home to her best friend Bridgette, she wants to go back to everything she knows.  When she meets a girl, Meredith, Anna thinks that she might have a new friend.  While in Meredith's room, who has paper and picture covered walls and things everywhere, Anna tells Meredith that she wished that she could have a room like hers but she thinks to herself 'I need clean walls and a clean desktop and everything put way in its right place at all times.'  When the author wrote this, I think that she was hinting more at the fact that Anna likes everything the same.Anna was upset about the move, about the fact that she wasn't being put away in the right spot.
     As the book progresses, Anna becomes more open to change and people.  She becomes best friends with St. Clair, the heartthrob of the school and Merediths crush.  When Anna is falling in love with him, she comes to realize that home is not just a place or a house, it's the people within.  Spoiler alert.  In the end of the book she says she has finally come home, referring to Etienne, her new boyfriend.  This made me think a lot about how certain people are home to me, and I couldn't feel comfortable without them.  Anna unlocked a thought for me, and I loved this book.

Book Report on "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret"

     Are You There God?  It's Me, Margaret is about a girl named Margaret who moves from New York to New Jersey.  She is in a new school with new friends and is happy to join a secret club where her and three others talk to each other about growing up.  She experiences the ups and downs of being a pre-teen  and learns lessons on the way.
     This story shows a lot of inner thinking because Margaret tells the story in the third person.  It helped me to feel her emotions and understand what she is going through.  For example, when she says rude things to Laura Danker because she heard a rumor, I would have thought that she is mean.  When the book shows her inner thinking, I understand that Margaret made a mistake and that she felt really horrible about it.  As I read through the book I learned about her different qualities, both good and bad.  Listening to Margarets thought guided me through the book and helped me understand the other characters.  I enjoyed reading from Margarets point of view, and I would recommend this book to others.

My Name Piece

     My name connects to me through both the sound and the meaning.  Meredith.  It sounds unique and different, just the way my personality is.  Meredith means lord which connects to princesses and nobility.  I have always loved the Disney princesses in their flowy, shimmery dresses, and their perfect hair.  I specifically loved, and still love, Sleeping Beauty or Aurora, as she goes by name.  I thought that I looked very much like her when i was little.  We had the same long blond hair and i decided I was a princess, too.  I would prance around the house claiming my name was Sleeping Beauty, and my dad decided to have a little fun with it.  He made a name that I thought was like a sparkly tiara or a beautiful gown into a disgusting bug.  He called me 'Stinky Booty.'
     Though I had a nickname that I hated, I have always loved the name Meredith.  Besides the fact that the name connects to princesses and being noble, people have written on what people named Meredith are like, and it's ridiculous how much the writing describes me.  SheKnows.com states that people named Meredith tend to be leaders rather than followers and I am very different and do what I want to do instead of what everyone else does.  The website also says that we have creative goals and ideas and we work very hard to get them, and I am a person that is very determined to get or achieve what I set my eyes on.  It says that we can be aggressive, impatient, proud, and/or stubborn, and I can't argue with any of that, and I can't fight with the fact that they say Merediths are courageous and unique.  My name is like a key that unlocks my inner self, and I would never want to be called anything else.

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane

     This summer I read a book by the name of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo.  It is a tale about a china rabbit by the name of Edward Tulane.  He begins his journey as the property of a wealthy girl named Abilene.  When Edward is lost on a ship to England, he discovers that there is more to life than he had thought.  Edward goes through many owners all with different lives and all have different opinions and uses of him.
     In the beginning of the book, Edward is spoiled and thinks of himself so highly, it's as if he is a king, and with good reason.  Abilene gives Edward all the love she could possibly give him.  He has a wardrobe almost large enough for a human.  He has the finest handmade silk suits and leather shoes.  Edward has beautiful hats made specially so that his ears may go through the top.  He has the life of a true gentleman. When he is lost, he finally sees that without dark there is no light in life.
     Edward is found by a fisherman and goes home to his wife.  When she mistakes Edward for a girl and he's dressed in dresses he feels like his pride has been dented.  But when he was thrown away his heart called out to him and said to him two names Nelly.  Lawrence.  
    After two more owners he again finds love when a boy takes him home for his sister, Sarah.  Edward brought joy to a small dying girl with not much money and a alcoholic father that doesn't seem to love her. For the first time he felt warmth in a touch.  Edward liked Sarah holding him.  He didn't mind that he was called by a different name.  When she leaves him along with the rest of the world he is heart broken.
     In the end he is found by a new old friend.  This book shows love in the small world we live in.  I would strongly recommend this book.  You are able to feel the emotions in the words.  It is a exciting book that you never want to put down and you can read it again and again.  You can't stop turning the pages, wanting to know what will happen next.  I loved this book and anyone else who reads it will love it too.