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After reading a number of books in grade ten English I came to enjoy reading on my own time, reading on my own terms and gaining awareness on different issues. My recent choice was the novel and inspired movie, “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”. Danica had recommended it and knowing that I was heading to Vancouver for the weekend I considered that the book would help take my mind of the flight. In the end it didn’t but I can’t complain because the book was very insightful and a good read.
“The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” is a best seller about concentration camps in Germany during World War 2. It’s a very powerful novel that gives a unique view on how the war had affected the innocent people of Germany. John Boyne writes the book in the eyes of an eight-year-old boy whose father receives the promotion of commandant in a near by camp. The story, though fictional, is a beautiful tale of two boys who are meant to be enemies but instead form a friendship.
The Holocaust is a subject that could be considered risky to write about, especially through a Germans point of view. Though these were terrible and frightful times I can honestly say that I have never considered how the innocent people of Germany viewed the war. Reading the book made me realize that not all of them had the same values as Hitler and we tend to forget that, if ever we even think of it.
German children, as described in this book, were barricaded by propaganda and lies. Because they were sheltered from the truth, they grew up thinking that the actions of their families weren’t wrong. Growing up in Germany through that time may have created countless numbers of children who became insensitive to violence and corruption.
As I read the book I became increasingly angry and watching the movie only enhanced that feeling. How could humans display ideas and actions that were so inhuman? This book prompted many questions, some of which I can’t even answer. Where we draw the line for what is right or wrong? Why do we need to be better than others? How does a person cope with taking others lives? How do German children of that time feel today? And the list goes on. After I read the book and finished the movie I was telling my mom about one of the scenes that really stood out to me. When I told my mom that the commandants wife didn’t know about the activities taking place in the camp she was upset and told me it wasn’t true. She said they all knew what their husbands were doing to the Jews. Basically reading this book and seeing this movie made me less bias and more open to other sides, whereas my mom was instantly irritated that I even said it. I’d say the book has given me more knowledge and insight on the issue.

What would it feel like to be fighting for your country. and your life, right after graduating from high school? Get a close-up view of the beginning of the current Iraq War in Sunrise Over Fallujah, another powerful novel by Walter Dean Myers. Against his father’s wishes, Robin Perry chooses the military over going to college in 2003. He finds himself near the border of Iraq, struggling to understand who he is and what he is doing there.

Jonesy, a soldier from Georgia, is Robin’s best friend in the military. He plans to open a blues club someday and compares everything to music, but for now they have each other’s back. Robin is not too sure about Marla, who dubs him “Birdy” and seems to enjoy teasing him endlessly. They, along with Captain Coles, are assigned a Humvee for their work on the Civilian Affairs team. In between missions they enjoy each others’ company over meals and in the safe zones during downtime. They even try to play soccer against some Iraqis. They lose of course.

The Civilian Affairs soldiers are supposed to help the people living in a war zone by providing them with medicine, water, or assistance in developing a new independent political system after Saddam Hussein is gone. But the Rules of Engagement change frequently, and Robin and his fellow soldiers learn that some civilians are from different warring tribes or simply want Americans dead.

When some people in an ambulance try to kill Robin and his comrades, Robin realizes he can no longer relax anywhere. Another time he sees an officer from his company killed by an IED (improvised explosive device) set off from a cell phone. Pulling that man from the remains of his vehicle haunts Robin’s thoughts for a long time afterward.

Soldiers who Robin talks to one day are kidnapped (or worse) the next. The author refers briefly in the story to Jessica Lynch and her comrades who were abducted. Details are well researched and recognizable, and readers will relate to the young soldiers. Through translators and contact with locals, Robin struggles to understand the way of life for the people in this sometimes beautiful, sometimes war-torn land.

At one hospital, Robin is forced to act quickly to save a female Captain. With each new experience, he feels he has become a different person, doing things he never would have imagined doing back in Harlem. As a result of their good work, Robin’s unit is asked to help with a dangerous and highly political assignment. It changes everyone involved.

Walter Dean Myers draws readers right into his story with alternating beautiful scenery, searing emotions and life-threatening situations. Loosely set as a sequel to his notable Fallen Angels, in which Robin’s Uncle Richie fought in the Vietnam War, Sunrise Over Fallujah offers an unforgettable look at the war being fought by many young adults who will never return home.

The Glass Castle is a book by Jeannette Walls. It is a real life story about herself growing up. It tells about her family, her sisters Maureen and Lori. Her little brother Brian, and her parents, Rex and Rosemary. Her life was messed up from the day she came into the world. Her parents were people who really didn’t care much about anything. Her mom didn’t have a job, and her dad couldn’t keep one. She is telling us about all of the things that happened while she was growing up.

We should treat people with respect. And treat them like we want to be treated. Jeannette’s parents didn’t treat her or her siblings very well at times, but then at others, they treated them like there was no one else in the world. Her dad was an alcoholic and when he had been drinking, nobody wanted to be around him. He was violent and he scared his children, and his wife a lot of the time. Who would like to be treated like that? I know that I would hate it. Their mom didn’t do much for them either, she didn’t have a job and so there was hardly any money coming in for food. When their father would get a job and have money coming in, they would spend it on food, and he would spend it on alcohol. They would run out of food until the next time money came in.

They moved around all the time. Once Rex lost his job, they would pack up in the middle of the night and leave. They would go into the desert, or just park the car on the side of the road and sleep in there. They never had a home, but when they would go to a new town and find a small, cheap house, they would rent it for however long they were going to stay. They would just get up and leave whenever they wanted without telling anyone. They had to ‘run away’ from people, supposedly the police, but the kids would never find out who it was, because their parents didn’t want them to be worried.

Once in a while when they had nowhere to go, they would go and stay with their grandma, Rosemary’s mother. She was really rich and lived in a huge house in Phoenix. She owned two homes and just rented out the other. She would always have hot cream of wheat cereal for the kids in the morning, which Jeannette loved. She would let them do lots of things that were fun, and she always kept them safe. They all loved her alot, and thought visiting her was the greatest thing!

One day when they were moving Jeannette thought it would be nice to go and stay with their grandma. Her mother told them that it wasn’t possible because she had died a month or two before. Jeannette started crying and crying because she thought it was terrible, but to her mother, it was no big deal. Rosmary had the choice of living in one of the two homes that her mom had owned. She chose the smaller one that her mother had rented out because she thought that it would be easier to just get up and leave if she was in the smaller, less fancy one. So they moved in there and the children enrolled in school , which they only did if they were going to stay a while.

They moved in and loved it. They had a great life and never wanted to leave. But, their dad lost his job and so they ended up leaving, once again. They didn’t bother to tell the school they were leaving, or to sell the house. Their mom said it felt good to finally own something and actually say it was hers, so they left some lights on, dirty dishes in the sink, and the door unlocked to make it look like they were going to be home at any time. I don’t know where they went, but their life is always an adventure!

Young John Barron is only fourteen years of age and like his fathers before him he is expected to spend the entire summer looking after some six thousand sheep in a meadow up high in the mountains. With very little to serve as a distraction and only his four dogs to keep him company he is very much alone and the whole time he is forced to focus on nothing else but the task at hand and learn from his experiences. I ask myself what it is that makes him so strong, strong enough to preserver and never give up? what is his source of strength? What does he have to hold on to while he is up there alone, a thought a memory, perhaps he is just doing his duty mindlessly. No its more than that there’s something fueling him, but what?   

The Haymeadow is just one of those books that’s to tough to put down until you flip the next page and even then you hesitate to close the front cover because you truly believe that the character is in peril and that if you leave him hanging there he may not survive the night. At one moment John is face to face with a bear three times his size the next it is over and the bear is on the ground lying motionless, the past twenty seconds of reading where quick and vivid describing every excruciating detail. The adrenaline just bleeds off of the page, seeping through the eyes and into the mind making the danger seem very real. So many times John is faced with adversity and somehow finds a way to brush aside the fear and work through it or so it seems. What does fear limit us to?

Is fear alone what acts as a barrier to the path that exists to triumph? Or is it I who chooses to avoid confrontation who is the barrier to my own path to freedom? Must I pave my own road and clear my own path through the dense fields of foreign grasses and the unknown? Or am I doing enough by limiting myself to what I know, staying safe, eliminating the need for risk? But if that is true than what are the characteristics of fear. Do we take the sword to this dark horse or should we attempt to break him.

The sense of defeating fear is a strong message that resonates through this book from start to finish. Although personally fear, I believe, is not something to be overcome, but rather an ignominious character that must be persuaded to act as my strength, not my weakness. John on the other hand thinks that we as humans do what we can and do what we must to move along and live life as it is. As much as I do not agree with that in the sense that we have a choice and are capable of shaping our life no matter the situation,  I suppose it is what he uses to to help ride out the storm and cope with tough times.

The entire story is an enormous lesson on how to cope with difficult times and how to thrive off of mistakes and learn as life goes on. These as they are stand as great life lessons and I know that with reading this I have found insight into what I know to be fear. The Haymeadow is not only a thrill ride and an adventure worth reading twice but also a story rich with profound thought and delicate situations that require more than a simple solution. The story also tells of a brave young man who spends his summer up in the mountains with six thousand sheep,four dogs and the sky above. This griping novel demand attention and is like glue for the eyes. Its a must read by definition.

Stephanie Meyer captured my attention once again with her Twilight Saga. Her novel is definitely far-fetched, but its popularity caught my attention. I would never expect an author to be able to successfully write a plot that incorporated vampires, werewolves, and mythical legends into a romance story. Eclipse explores the emotions involved in true love. Bella and Edward’s relationship questions what it means to be human, the pursuit of happiness, immortal soul, and relationships.

To be human not only means to have a heartbeat, but to feel strong emotion. I believe we root our emotions in the relationships with hold with our family, friends, and peers. Bella’s relationship with Edward is serious, passionate, and protective. This differs greatly from when she is with Jacob. Together, they are fun, immature, and slightly irresponsible. Plus, there’s a tiny problem; Jacob wants more than friends. I can relate to this simply with my own life. This concept answers the question: What role do people play in our lives? Dellaney and I tend to laugh over the stupidest thing. We fascinate ourselves with baking cupcakes, telling each other about our weird dreams, and trying to drive through puddles. It’s not as pathetic as it sounds. I know that I could also turn for her for advice and to talk about what’s seriously going on in our lives, like boyfriends and parents. It’s a two in one deal.

More on an individual level, humans can feel protective. While our class has been reading “The Shack,” there was a story about the Multnomah princess. She sacrifices herself to save her tribe. In the Quileute legends, there is a story about the third wife. She stabs herself to distract a vampire and allow the wolves to attack. Bella also thinks about attempting this when Seth gets hurt during the fight. Why is it that humans feel the need to sacrifice when we feel helpless? This can be answered by explaining that love can be destructive. To be human is to fear heartbreak. This means to feel empty and fear failure. When a life passes, we usually feel hurt like this. I’ve never lost anyone so close to me, and I hope I never have to. I would never sacrifice myself through suicide or anything that severe. I feel that if I was hurting this much, I would sacrifice my happiness. I would probably grieve and try to stay miserable. I would feel guilty for moving on too quick. Perhaps, this is why Bella greived so mcuh when Edward left. Love is fulfilling enough to capture the whole heart just as easily as it can break it.

Destructive love also explains that as our relationships change as we love people for different reasons. Bella realized she loved Edward and Jacob, even if it was one more than the other. I think this is completely ridiculous. How would you not feel like you were lying to yourself? Or worse, she was unfaithful.

Another touchy topic with Edward was the idea of immortal souls. Do I have immortal soul? Edward never believed he did. He was immortal, but he was supposed to be a blood-sucking monster after all. Yet, he’s in love with a human. He would never get the chance to die, unless his own kind killed him. His family was peaceful. They saved themselves on the brink of death. What are the criteria for an immortal soul or life after death? I’m not baptised or an extremely religious person, so attending church and praying won’t earn me any points. I believe there is a God. I attend a Catholic school. Achieving immortal soul is an identity. It is the reason we all think and feel differently. It is the ways we choose to find happiness. We have the free will that allows us to do this, unless its just all programmed into our soul. This is a question I may never be able to answer until I die. I believe that as we physically die, or as our heart stops and we become a vampire (highly mythical), that our souls do live on. I don’t know where they’ll go; maybe to a happy place. Sometimes, I believe we become someone’s guardian angel. Whatever happens, its going to be something close to magic.

I’m not going to recommend this book. Not because it wasn’t good, but everyone who has wanted to read it already has. There are also those who are so tired of hearing about the “Twilight Saga,” that they’ll disagree with me anyways. I enjoyed reading the book, but it’s entirely the reader’s choice.

As we reach the end of high school, hundreds of questions get thrown in front of us like what are we going to do after we graduate? Are we going to college or university? If we know what we want for a career? All these require us to know what our likes and dislikes include which also requires us to know who we really are.

In The Last Song, Ronnie’s parents are divorced. She has gotten into shop lifting, going to clubs under age and hanging around guys her mom didn’t approve of. Obviously, going through the phase of teenage rebellion. Usually when teenagers rebel, it’s in an effort to be taken seriously by their parents or their peers. We want to prove ourselves and seem mature whether we really are or not.

It’s human nature for us to want to prove ourselves and to make our own way in the world. If we’re given a label, we want to prove that we’re much more than what the label makes us out to be. Granted, actually breaking the label is easier said than done most of the time but reguardless of that, we want to be our own person whether we know who that is or not. The point is we don’t want anyone else figuring out who we are before we do.

What special challenges do doubts and fears bring to an individual?

Dan Brown explores doubt and fear in all of his books that contain Robert Langdon. This is because Robert has one major fear: claustrophobia. Throughout the books, Brown mentions this fear many, many times. When Langdon was a little boy, he fell into a well and had to tread water overnight before someone found him. This initiated his fear.

Not so much in the DaVinci Code and Angels & Demons does Robert have to face his main fear. In this book, however, he comes face-to-face with his fear more than once.

In this book, Robert Langdon, Katherine Solomon, and the CIA are all in a mad race to stop Peter’s (Katherine’s brother) captor from killing him. Peter’s captor has kidnapped the thirty-third degree Mason to expose one of the world’s oldest secrets: a sacred Masonic treasure hidden somewhere in D.C.

He must be strong when traveling on a conveyor belt to save his friend. The challenge in this is either come face-to-face with your fear, or risk your best friend’s life, get arrested, and unleash one of the world’s most sacred secrets. Obviously enough, Langdon chose the first one.

A little while on, Langdon is kidnapped by the same person that kidnapped Peter. To torture him, the captor places Langdon in a coffin (confined space) and begins to fill it with water in the hopes to get another part of the secret out of him. Sadly, it works. Langdon spills EVERYTHING because the kidnapper knows exactly what his fears are.

But fear is not the only thing explored in this book. Langdon also has many doubts throughout the book. Doubt that the treasure exists and doubt that this has anything to do with the CIA. This poses a few problems. This makes it hard for Robert to believe what people are trying to tell him about the treasure, in turn making it difficult to save Peter and later on, Katherine and himself as well. Doubting that this has anything to do with the CIA makes wanting to tell the director anything.

This book was not disappointing by any means. It ended pretty much how I expected it to. With a few twists I never would’ve expected. But that’s the power of a good suspense novel: unexpected results. I would recommend this book to anyone in about Grade 9 and up looking for a good read. Anyone younger probably wouldn’t be able to understand the vocabulary and power of some of the meanings.

Hannah Baker just can’t seem to get the thought of suicide of her mind. Ever since this gigantic chain of reactions started, everything has snowballed into one big fiasco. Coping with the rumours, ignorance, and her own self destruction, Hannah is on the road that know one wants to be travelling. Reality and the surreal are clashing together and soon this distraught teenager can’t deal with it any longer. Ending her life, Hannah leaves 13 tapes to be mailed anonymously. In these tapes are 13 reasons why Hannah committed suicide: all of these reasons being 13 people who played a serious part in her death.

Clay Evans recieves a mysterious shoebox and is shocked at the message lying within Hannah’s tapes. He begins to realize what caused her death, and how much pain she endured when she moved here just 4 years earlier. Rumours and snickering began to haunt Hannah the day she moved to her new hometown. Rumours turned into “supposed truths” in which Hannah couldn’t defend herself against. As the lies built up, Hannah found herself in a devastating situation. Finally, she made the choice to end her life.

We see ourselves in a different light than others see us. Sometimes, it is positive and sometimes, it is negative. So why is it that we see oruselves differently than others? Mostly I believe it depends on how much self confidence we have. No matter how bad it gets and how hard people try to bring us down, if we have a high sense of self confidence, we can get through anything. No one can tell us that we won’t accomplish our dreams and they certainly cannot tell us who we are or what we should be like.

Author Jay Asher captures the personality of a teenage girl going through high school drama precicly as I see it. We try and try to be who we want to be, but with todays society it is impossible to know our true self identity. Media, social situations, and the internet greatly contribute to the self image issues girls face. Hannah’s decision to commit suicide was based on the fact that she couldn’t even love herself any longer.

If no one else saw worth in her, why should Hannah believe that she had any? Tired of fighting for the correct answer of this question, Hannah finally decided it was time to make a huge impact – one that would change a significant amount of peoples lives; and end hers. But while I read this book, I realised that there never is a correct answer to this question. Any decision we make involves knowledge, possibly some research, and non biased thinking. But it all comes back to self worth and self confidence. If we can’t believe in ourselves how are we supposed to stand up for what we think is right? Making it through that hardships in life is all about holding your head up high and sticking to our values.

Emotion effects of death are common in everyone we has to go through the experience. Hannah’s “thirteen reasons” were forced to suffer even after her death. But the tapes taught them valuable life lessons that now are making them see why someone might feel worthless and alone. They are now recognising the snowball effect even before it begins. If we could all simply know when a decision that we make would affect someone for their entire lives maybe we would think twice before acting.

I was so excited to read The Catcher in the Rye. It is a classic novel written by J.D. Salinger and is the most censored book of all time. While this may be seen as a negative, there are lessons to be learned in this book and a whole new take on life. Written in 1951, this novel takes its readers into a time period and way-of-life completely different than our own. Even though it takes place in such a different era, the lessons learned are still very applicable today. One of the lessons being taught is that our own self-image may differ from the way our peers see us.

Our self-image is a huge part of us and has a large affect on how we act around peers. But in The Catcher in the Rye, we learn how others see us as well. One part of the book where this was apparent to me, was when the main character, Holden Caulfield, attends a play in New York called “The Lunts”. Holden knows that the actors are good at what they do. However, he goes on to say, “If you do something too good, then, after a while, if you don’t watch it, you start showing off. And then your not as good anymore.” Holden’s point was that because the actors themselves thought they were good, others no longer viewed them that way. While I see myself one way, just like the actors in the play, I may come off completely different to my friends and family.

The way I am viewed by others may also have outside influences that have nothing to do with my personality. At one point in the book Holden says, “The thing is, it’s really hard to be roommates with people if your suitcases are much better than theirs – if yours are really good ones and theirs aren’t. You think if they’re intelligent and all, the other person, and have a good sense of humor, that they don’t give a damn whose suitcases are better, but they do. They really do.” While in this quote the term suitcases is used, Holden was really referring to material wealth. Even though I want to be judged by who I am, my wealth will always have an affect on how I am seen by my peers. It does not matter if I am loaded or not, my wealth will always surround my image.

There is also a lesson to be learned from the controversy surrounding the novel itself. There was conflict over this book concerning the use of profanity, sexual references, and the undermining of family values. Almost all adults viewed Holden as a terrible role model because of his views on life and his morals. And while Holden is indeed a bad role model for children, teenagers, including me, who read this book had the opposite reaction. Holden is a symbol of rebellion and angst. Teenagers saw him as a hero and looked up to him. He gave them reason to rebel against their parents. From this controversy alone, I have found out that the way we are viewed by others can change from generation to generation, group to group, or person to person.

Our image varies from the way we see ourselves, to our parents, friends, and all of our peers. Our image can also be improved or tarnished by outside influences. This is only one lesson I have learned so far in this novel and these are only a few of the examples present to support it. There are more lessons to be learned in The Catcher in the Rye and I am sure I am looking forward to finishing this book. I highly reccomend it for anybody looking for a good read.

I never thought I would be reading a book about vampires, but from all the attention this book as gotten, I thought I would give it a try. That is when I absolutely fell in love with Stephanie Meyers ’s books. New Moon is the second book of the series and is narrated in first person by Bella and has an obvious parallel with Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Bella recognizes that she is in danger of playing out the history’s greatest romantic tragedy. Keeping Romeo and Juliet in the forefront of the readers mind actually helps the author build the tension for the climax of the story, because we can all see the tragedy that is waiting to happen.

Bella (Kristen Stewart) has been going out with her vampire boyfriend Edward (Robert Pattinson) for six months. The only thing that worries her is his steadfast refusal to even consider making her into a vampire like him. As the day of her eighteenth birthday rolls around she feels less than happy, because she is now older than Edward, who will never age past seventeen. To celebrate her birthday Edward takes Bella to a birthday party at his family’s home. But when a stupid accident that leaves Bella covered in blood and nearly triggers a feeding frenzy in Jasper, Edward’s brother, the party takes an interesting twist. That is when I started to really get into the book and it just got way more intense. Edward suddenly becomes more distant towards to Bella and finally he tells her that he and his family are leaving Forks, to never return, and he no longer wants to see her. The pain that Bella feels when Edward abandons her is extremely well written and is really what this story is about. Most of the things that happen to Bella in New Moon are as a result of the overwhelming loss that she is trying to bear. Her friendship with Jacob has a doomed quality to it not only because he obviously loves her while she is in love with Edward, but because he is a werewolf and he naturally hates all vampires.

Edward is Bella’s whole world and his abandonment was really harsh on her. Her whole world falls apart and as she becomes withdrawn from the world she soon loses most of her friends becoming even more isolated and lonely. Even though Edward was not in this book very much, the emotions left behind by his departure felt real and familiar to me. Knowing the feeling of a heartbroken teenager and having felt that many times in the past, my heart broke again for Bella as she struggled to live her life without Edward and hold on to him at the same time. And as time goes on, the war inside rages on as she struggles on whether or not she should move on and give what is left of her shattered heart to another or live with the whole that was left gapping in her chest. When she does something dangerous she starts hallucinating and thinks she can hear Edward telling her not to do anything stupid and to be more careful. This leads to a whole new range of interests for Bella including learning to ride a motorbike and cliff diving, because she feels that he is still with her at those times. Her old friend Jacob Black becomes her partner in crime, fixing up her motorbike for her and teaching her to ride it. Although the pain of Edward’s departure never leaves Bella, Jacob soon becomes her best friend and he helps to fill some of the voids in her life.

Jacob himself is no ordinary boy and soon Bella discovers that part of his Quileute heritage is to be cursed to be a werewolf. Certain members of the tribe turn into werewolves in their teenage years in response to the presence of vampires. Werewolves and vampires are natural enemies and the enmity runs deep on both sides. Alice, Edward’s sister, returns to Forks and although she brings no news of Edward with her, her extraordinary gift of being able to see the future soon tells her that Edward is heading on a path of self destruction that only Bella can advert. But will Bella be in time to stop the tragedy? That was the question that prevented me from putting that book down. There was always some kinds of twists and intense moments in the book that made me wonder what is going to happen next.

How does being the member of a particular group affect our identity and sense of self? There where two main groups in this book, the vampires and the werewolves. Edward belonged to the vampires and Jacob (Taylor Lautner) belonged to the werewolves. Belonging to such groups that hated each other, shaped both of the characters identities. It made Edward grow a sense of fear and anger. Belonging to that group made him scared of what might happen to Bella, because of what he was. A vampire. But on the other hand, Jacob had a total different affect. It shaped his identity and sense of self by making him happier and hopeful that he might be able to be the one that ends up with Bella, instead of his enemy, Edward. Those certain aspects of life that each character conveyed made them more unique and distinctive. Those identity and sense of self affects are not only found in fiction books, but also in our day-to-day lives.