Reading Response 11/30 using social action question

The thief lord

In this book, Prosper and Boniface run away from home, from their crazy aunt – but is she really crazy? The only perspectives included are those of Prosper, Bo, and the friends they meet on the streets of Venice. Often, books told from the perspective of children portray adults, particularly step-relatives, as pure evil. The reader is so engrossed in what Prosper and Bo have to say about their aunt that they only hear their side – only one side to the story.

Firstly, when their aunt hires a detective to track down the boys, once he meets them, he lets their opinion on their aunt sway his entirely. He goes from thinking, “OK, I will try this job,” to, “NO! I don’t want to work for these people!” He knows nothing of Prosper and Bo’s aunt that she said herself, because she said nothing of herself to him, just what the boys told him.

Then, again, when the aunt finally finds Bo, but not Prosper, Bo tries to make it seem like his aunt is abusive. They stay at a hotel while Venice police help to look for Bo’s brother. Bo throws things out windows, screams all the time, and tries to escape from her, back to his brother. When his aunt takes him to a fancy restaurant, for example, he yanks the tablecloth down and runs away in the chaos.

In this essay, I question whether or not only one perspective can tell a factual story, and what was found, when multiple are put together, is that that is not true. While one perspective may recall what happened to them, it does not hold what took place at that time. All in all, one perspective is a simple recollection, while many make up a great tale.

Young Adult Controversy -ESSAY-

 

Should access to Young Adult books be limited in any way?

 

Young Adult books are extremely helpful to distressed teens – they can help them get through troubling events or issues in their lives. There are people who praise these books and their authors more than life itself. Likewise, there are always people who don’t agree with the majority – there are always outliers – and that’s why a rating system should be put in place. It should not restrict any books from teens, but instead provide a heads up of what they’re getting into.

Young Adult books help teens face their real life issues based on lessons portrayed by their characters in their books. In Sherman Alexie’s article, he says how he “writes in blood because he remembers what he felt like to bleed,” implying he wants to help kids stop bleeding or get through it, because he knows that there is no way to not bleed. He describes how some times he feels like he’s writing to his former self. He also recalls “when I think of the poverty stricken, self-loathing, sexually and physically abused Native American teenager that I was, I can only wish, immodestly, that I’d been given the opportunity to read ‘the absolutely true diary of a part time Indian…”

YA books often address troubling events and issues for teens, usually from their young and immature perspective. For most people, these books teach children how to cope with their problems and “fight their monsters.” On the other hand, for some children YA books just cause added stress and anxiety about their world and their own well-being. “It’s not just the fact that these books feature terminally ill teens that makes them so questionable – they’re also aimed at children as young as twelve years old,” says Tanith Carey, author of an article dealing with the YA controversy. Twelve year old children don’t need to hear about the types of issues that YA books address, such as different types of abuse, drug use, and other dark things, since these kids are still young and haven’t yet been corrupted by the 21^st century’s technology and issues.  While Carey makes a reasonable claim, she doesn’t take into account the fact that any of these types of things could happen to a kid.  By reading about how the characters in YA books cope with difficult situations, it could help them cope with them if it happened in their lives. Yes, YA can be dark, but they provide sanctuary and aid for so many children that banning them could do more harm than good. Young Adult books do so much to relieve stress by helping teens cope with life. Many teens across the world encounter bumps in their lives, and YA books are what contribute to them getting through it. In Sherman Alexie’s article, a boy says to him, “I don’t want to be like my father, I want to be myself. Just like in your book.” He went to Alexie and his books to understand and find himself – to uncover his destiny.

One solution for addressing this issue is to add a rating system to YA fiction.  Young Adult books should have, not traditional age ratings or restrictions, but a recommendation to give people an overview of what they may or may not encounter inside. These ratings will be like those on video games, movies, apps, TV shows, and products. Ratings, instead of censors or bans, will allow kids and parents to choose books for themselves, without being shocked if it’s of a sensitive topic. “For children, we have to be careful. We’ve got to have a guide for parents.”

 

Young Adult books are too good for banning, really. Even if that were to happen, teenagers would find a way to read them anyway. They’re just too beneficial to take away. But there are always going to be people who take offense at or disagree with others – there are always two sides to a story. Due to this, there should be a rating system put in place to serve as an early warning. This way, people will know what they’re getting into before they put themselves into it. Teens know what they’re doing when they read – it’s their parents who need a little reassurance.

 

Legend Trilogy Reponse

The Legend Trilogy, by Marie Lu, is about the love between two people, and what they go through to stay together. The book follows the theme of how love is powerful and that destiny always guides us, using the tale of a boy from the slums who also happens to be the country’s most wanted criminal, and a girl from the country’s richest sectors who is the nation’s prodigy. The story takes place in a future totalitarian society, in what was once the US, that’s now the Republic of America, a small part of the original country because it was devastated by floods and a nuclear war. These two, Day and June, come from the complete opposite backgrounds, but, because of love and destiny, fall for each other. The book shows the power of love by showing how it can change your life, how it allows you to do amazing things, and how it also never lets you go once it catches you.

The story first presents the idea of how love can change your life. In Legend, June, the prodigy, turns her back on her country for Day, when they discover that it’s corrupt. She loses her family fortune, her high ranking military position, and her life as a wealthy upper class citizenship all for him. In the book, they discover that the country had been doing experiments on the poor sectors with bio-weapons, with hope that they would create a virus to use in wars. When Day is finally arrested, June helps him break out, revealing that she is no longer for her country.

The story also describes how love allows you to do amazing things. The Republic falls to a new leader, one who is thought to be a bad as the previous, but ends up having completely different ideas and wanting to change the country for the better. But, the people of the Republic don’t believe him and thoughts of revolution start to enter their minds. In the text it describes how June and Day realize that they don’t want to see their country fall, but that they want to see it change. They’re originally part of a plan to assassinate the leader with a resistance group, but June finds out the truth about the Republic’s leader and tries to warn Day. Because of his love for her he blindly ruins the assassination, hoping that June’s right. When Day is climbing the highest building in the capitol to address the Republic and save the nation, he’s still not completely sure of the leader, but is doing it for June. For motivation he thinks, “Imagine June is right behind you, cheering you on.”

The story also describes how “once love gets hold of you, it never lets you go,” meaning that no matter what happens along the way, the power of love still holds them together. In the text, June, when she is still a Republic Agent, is tasked with tracking down Day. She gets his family killed, and even though this happens he still loves her, even though it hurts him every time he sees her. She realizes this and tries to separate them so he isn’t pained anymore. Then, presenting her with the perfect solution, Day suffers from brain damage and loses all his recent memories, his memories of her. She tries to stay out of his life, so that he stops hurting so much, but destiny and love doesn’t let them go. They encounter each other again, several years later, and he says to her, “I feel like I should remember and know you, but right now I don’t, and it feels wrong. I hope we can become friends in the future.”

The Legend Trilogy, by Marie Lu, is a love story, which represents the theme and main idea of how love is powerful. Love brings Day and June together, from the most unlikely backgrounds, and then pushes them apart. But then, years later, they find each other again, no matter how hard June tries to stay away from him, because she loves him but she also hurts him. At the end of the book, June realizes she can’t simply avoid him, because no matter what they’ll always find each other, but what she can do is start over.  

 

 

Non-Fiction Critical Analysis on Sherman Alexie's "Why the best children's books are written in blood."

The article, “Why the best kid’s books are written in blood,” by Sherman Alexie, is about how YA books enormously help young readers to get through troubling times in their lives. To prove this point, Alexie includes aspects from multiple other writers and students, such as Meghan Cox Gurdon and students from High Schools that Alexie spoke as a guest at. Gurdon says in her article how modern YA novels are corrupting our youth and are giving them “bad ideas.” She says that the novels just put bad ideas in kid’s heads and give them dark and menacing thoughts.

Sherman Alexie wants readers to understand him. He wants them to know why he writes what he writes, and why others do it too. To show readers this, Alexie describes how, in his youth, he was constantly fighting his “monsters” – the problems and issues that faced him in life. He recalls that the only place that he felt “safe,” was in his books, and that the books gave him weapons – “in the form of words and phrases – to fight his monsters. He says that the reasons he writes now is to pass those weapons on to today’s youth.

Alexie’s article made me feel inspired – inspired to write or to help others. Sherman Alexie’s writing and explanations left me wondering why anyone could ever think modern YA to be bad. Even though on the outside they appear dark, sinister novels, their only goal is to make sure other kids don’t make the same mistakes that the authors made in their childhood. “I write in blood because I remember what it felt like to bleed.” – Sherman Alexie

The Giver Reading Response 4

The Giver, by Lois Lowry, is about a boy named Jonas who’s different. He sees everything differently. He thinks differently. He believes for a difference. But he wasn’t always like this. Not until he met the Giver –not until he was chosen to be the next Receiver of Memory. Even though he can “See Beyond,” or see color in a bleak world, his ideas didn’t start until he had the knowledge to understand his world. The Receiver of Memory advises the Community, and then when the Receiver gets old, a new one is chosen. The Giver, the previous receiver, must pass on memories to Jonas. With that, Jonas realizes the truth, and knows that he must leave the community with a new child to find a new place to live, so that he and those who can see beyond can experience life – the way it should be. Throughout the book, Jonas changes drastically – and in many ways.

At the beginning of the story, Jonas is a scared 12 year old, who has been singled out in the ceremony where everyone’s jobs are chosen. He doesn’t understand why this is happening to him. He is afraid that something bad is happening to him, and, in a way, it is. He’s forcibly taking on all the pain and suffering of the community and the world in general. In the text, it says, “Earlier that day, dressing in his own dwelling, he had practiced the kind of jaunty, self-assured walk that he hoped he could make to the stage when his turn came. All of that was forgotten now. He simply willed himself to stand, to move his feet that felt weighted and clumsy, to go forward, up the steps and across the platform until he stood at her side.”

As the story progresses, Jonas starts to uncover the truth of his bleak community, and how the true meaning of life had been stolen from him and the community. The Giver teaches him to see beyond, and see the colors for what they are. The Giver teaches him love, teaches him joy, and pure-happiness as well – but he also teaches him pain. Jonas questions his world for what it is and why it exists, and why people are denied the wonders he is granted through memory. In the text, Jonas asks his parents if they love him, and his parents chuckle, saying how he needs to remember precision of language. “’Your father means that you used a very generalized word, so meaningless that it’s become obsolete,’ his mother carefully explained. Jonas stared at them. Meaningless? He had never before felt anything as meaningful as the memory.”

At the end of the book, Jonas and the Giver realize how they must make a change in the community. If they were to leave, their memories would be released into the community, and then the people would have to bear them themselves – but Jonas and the Giver are not trying to ruin the community, they’re trying to help them. So Jonas decides to leave so that the community will get his memories, and the Giver would stay behind to help the community deal with them, so that they could become wiser and stronger – so that everyone could know the true meaning of life.

The Giver, by Lois Lowry is a story that uncovers the true meaning of life, what it’s like without it, and the measures people will take to achieve it – or, in Jonas and the Giver’s case, share it with others and do what’s right. The book gives Lowry’s perspective to what life would be like in a total-totalitarian society, where there is no pain or choices, but more importantly, no freedoms, self-control, or life.

READING RESPONSE 3 ARGUMENT --EBOLA--

Africa is struggling with one of the largest Ebola outbreaks in history that has already killed more than all of the other Ebola outbreaks combined. Africa is in need of as much aid as we can give to the area, not necessarily as work towards a cure, but more towards containment to stop the virus’ spread to other countries. Without the support of the United States and other western governments, Africa has little chance of preventing this from becoming a global pandemic.

The healthcare systems of most African nations do not have the capabilities or resources to contain a disease of this magnitude. There is a lack of hospitals and medical facilities, as well as limited access to medications, antibiotics, and have few means of transporting infected. The US and other Western powers can send aid and teams to build and establish infrastructure such as medical facilities, which can help people in the affected countries get the help that they need where it is needed most.  Although these changes would take a while to fully implement, Africa cannot make these changes without the aid of western governments.

In addition, compared to population, Africa has a relatively small number of trained medical professionals who can combat the disease and stop the spread of deadly viruses such as Ebola. Even before this outbreak, Africa had limited doctors, and many of them were from aid organizations such as “Doctors without Borders.”  And now that many of them have died, there is even more of a need for trained professionals. American doctors with extensive medical training could travel to Africa to provide the much needed support and healthcare work to potentially prevent many deaths.

On the other hand, some may believe that this is a bad and unjustified idea due to the fact that many of the healthcare workers who have gone to Africa to help out have contracted Ebola. However, since Africa does not have a very strong infrastructure, many workers have been infected with the virus due to poor conditions near the infected Ebola patients. American doctors are much less likely to be infected because of their better training, resources, and protective equipment.

Africa needs us, American aid and that of the other Western powers, to help manage the spread of disease that they are unable to control. If we continue to send medical support to Africa, we will without a doubt be able to settle the storm that Ebola is and restore order to the region.   

Reading Response 2 - Faithful Elephants

In Faithful Elephants, by Yukio Tsuchiya, the author heavily relies on symbols throughout the text, such as cherry blossoms, bombs, and the elephants themselves, to communicate the deep emotion of powerlessness that seems to define every aspect of the story. Faithful Elephants tells of three elephants, John, Tonky, and Wanly, who are ordered to be put down because of the war, for fear that they could get loose. The story focuses on the suffering this decision causes the keepers, while they’re in the midst of seeing it through to completion.

One of the most important symbols in Faithful Elephants are the Cherry Blossoms that bloom in Ueno Zoo during the spring. The blossoms symbolize simplicity, peace, and life, and are described as being "in full bloom" at the beginning of the story.  Only the petals are said to be falling at the story’s opening, as if when you read the first sentence, you’ve taken a step into Ueno Zoo, where it’s warm and there’s a slight breeze, in which the flowers sway to as they fall. It’s a peaceful opening that leaves the reader naïve to what they’re about to walk into. The second time the Cherry Blossoms are mentioned takes place at the story’s closure, where, after all the keepers have gone through, the flowers are described as "falling on the grave like snowflakes".  Now, they symbolize death.

Another symbol seen throughout Faithful Elephants, are the elephants themselves. The keepers say throughout the story how the elephants are like their children, and innocent. It is also implied that they’re also the keeper’s source of hope. The keepers believed that, as long as the elephants lived at the zoo with them, they would survive too, and maybe the war would end. The elephants were hope in its tangible form – they were the only reason the keepers still had their hope to survive the war, and once the elephants were lost, all was lost.

The third of three important symbols in Faithful Elephants was the bombs. The “bomb dropping” was mentioned in the beginning of the story, as well as after the elephants had died, representing how the mass-confusion, fear, and hopelessness of the war was unavoidable. The keepers gave up once they lost the elephants, not just because they were like their children, but because they were their symbol of hope, and without them, they had no thoughts of a possible ending to the war. 

Throughout Faithful Elephants the author heavily relies on symbols throughout the text, such as the cherry blossoms, bombs, and even the elephants themselves, to portray the hopelessness and powerlessness that remains a constant from the beginning to its end. The theme of this story is that war causes suffering, and the keepers and elephants are just innocent victims. The author is trying to make his point by showing the reader how war affects people, and how innocent people’s lives were destroyed by WWII.