Reading

Reading is a hobby of mine so I have been ended many journeys with some old characters, started new ones, and I am even in the middle of many adventures. I read anything and everything, it is really hard to find a book I do not like. Just to list a few books I have read this school year to give you an idea:

• The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver
• Lord of the Flies by William Golding
• Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Adichie
• MacBeth by Shakespeare 
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
• The Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
• The Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard
• The King's Cage by Victoria Aveyard
• The Infinite Sea by Rick Yancey
• The Cellar by Natasha Preston
• Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
• Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi
• 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher
• These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly
• Michael Vey 6: Fall of Hades by Richard Paul Evans
• The Escape by Hannah Jayne
• Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo
• The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
• The New World by Patrick Ness

And those are just some of my adventures that I have taken this year, I cannot say that any of the above listed stories is not worth your time. I enjoyed all of them and would read them all again. Over the course of this year I have learned how to summarize a story better because I have learned how to be an analytical and critical reader. I can pick out the main ideas and main plot line, while understanding the hidden messages in character's thoughts, words, and actions to better understand the plot. I can figure out what is most important to the plot in order to give someone a summary or a clip into the book I am reading. Before this year I was not very good at picking out the main ideas and few details that give another person the full idea of the story. I also could not analyze a book as well as I can now by interpreting the language, organization, and pulling apart the plot. 

Here are two of my reading responses from this school year:

1. A response to a scene in the book Lord of the Flies:

The scene that I chose is found on page 89. This scene takes place during a meeting about the beast and Simon has the conch. He says, "Maybe, maybe there is a beast." The reaction to this is described as a "savage cry" The reader then hears Ralph stand up in disbelief to Simon's betrayal and the boys are still going crazy as a storm broke. Then Simon says, "What I mean is.....maybe its only us." And the first person to say something is Piggy, "Nuts!" Simon tries to convey what he means, but dies not take the right approach and asks, "What's the dirtiest thing there is?" Jack responds to this with a word that the boys never hear. And this is where the scene ends.Things to note:-Simon thinks the beast is them-Ralph feels betrayed by Simon's disagreement-Piggy doesn't want to accept people can be bad-Jack takes everyone's thoughts away from reality and makes them have funThis scene is important to the book because it is our first look at the basic cycle of the events in this book. Throughout the book "the beast" has caused something awful to happen, Ralph and Piggy are either betrayed, don't believe it, or both, and then Jack makes fun out of it. Also, this scene is major foreshadowing for the book. As we found out that Simon was right, Piggy and Ralph couldn't believe it, and Jack is taking the boys, or rather, savages to have fun. The boys really are the beast and Simon knew it would destroy them and it did.

2. A response to the book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian:

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a title that applies to Junior and comes with consequences. Junior lost the respect of most people in the reservation and he lost his best friend Rowdy when he decided to go to Reardon. Alexie makes this conflict see more silly than it actually is by using humor to cover the seriousness of it up. It actually is a good strategy for the young audience she is writing this book for.

Junior's time at Reardon is not too much better than his time at the reservation. The only person who seems to care about him is Gordy. Gordy is like the nerdy and white version of Rowdy. I feel that Gordy is a representation of the opposite of what Junior thinks the white people at Reardon will treat him like. Gordy is accepting of Junior and likes to hang out to with Junior and they are both outsiders because Gordy is super smart and Junior is an Indian. Alexie does a good job with creating special relationship and interactions between Junior and other characters like his sister,  Rowdy, his dad, his grandmother, Penelope, the reservation, and all of the people at Reardon. Alexis's message is starting to get clearer through these relationships and I'm excited to see the full picture once we finish reading.