Percy Bysshe Shelley

             Percy Bysshe Shelley was a radical with a conservative background.  He was against injustice and oppression, especially in schools.  He was expelled from Oxford, for writing a pamphlet called “The Necessity of Atheism” with Thomas Jefferson Hogg.    He married Harriet Westbrook even though he was against the institution of marriage.  He left his wife and felt to France with Mary Wollestonecraft Godwin and invited Harriet to come live with them as a sister.  Harriet drowned herself while she was pregnant by an unknown lover and Percy Shelley lost custody of his two children.  He wrote best when he was in great despair.    He was a radical literary hero. 

Bliss

Katherine Mansfield’s Bliss was written in 1918. The story is about a woman named Bertha who pretends to have the perfect life with her family and wealth, but she is really miserable. “Almost everything Mansfield wrote was autobiographical in some way. A reader should know about Mansfield's life because often she does not make clear where her stories are set” (Seoule). Mansfield wrote some aspects of her own life in her fictional characters like Bertha in “Bliss,” including her love life, marriage, sexuality, personality, and her love for nature.

It has been said about Mansfield that her “creative years were burdened with loneliness, illness, jealousy, alienation - all this reflected in her work with the bitter depiction of marital and family relationships of her middle-class characters” (Books and Writers). That is true, especially in her story “Bliss.” Bertha is a middle class character, who feels lonely being around tons of people at a dinner party and has a troubled marriage.

“Mansfield once described in a letter two of the things that make her write. One is ‘joy.’ She said she feels joy when in ‘some perfectly blissful way’ she is ‘at peace.’ At that time, ‘something delicate and lovely seems to open before my eyes, like a flower without thought of a frost.’ Her second motive is almost the opposite: ‘not hate or destruction . . . but an extremely deep sense of hopelessness, of everything doomed to disaster, almost willfully, stupidly.’ She summed up her second motive as ‘a cry against corruption. . . . in the widest sense of the word’" (Seoule). These were Mansfield’s reasons fro writing her “Bliss” story and how much in detail she describes the house and the pear tree in her writing, while her main character, Bertha’s life is falling apart before her very eyes.

“Although Mansfield's observations are sharp, and although she is relentless in her parodies of the modern, artistic people who populate the world of the Youngs, she seems to have more compassion for Bertha than for many of her women characters” (Tea Reads). It’s because she had a lot in common with Bertha and Bertha is a reflection of the author herself.

Like Bertha, the main character in “Bliss,” Katherine had a rocky love life. Katherine “met, married and left her first husband, George Bowden, all within just three weeks” (The British Empire). Like Bertha, she felt neglected by her second husband John Middleton Murray and she had an unfaithful husband. “When Murray had an affair with the Princess Bibesco (née Asquith), Mansfield objected not to the affair but to her letters to Murray: ‘I am afraid you must stop writing these love letters to my husband while he and I live together. It is one of the things which are not done in our world’" (Books and Writers).

“Katherine Mansfield was bisexual” (The British Empire) and there is some hints in “Bliss,” that Bertha Young might be as well. “Bertha touches Miss Fulton's arm and feels a ‘fire of bliss’; a look passes between them. Through the inane dinner conversation, Bertha blissfully wonders at her experience and waits for ‘a sign’ from Miss Fulton with little idea of what such a sign would mean. It becomes clearer to Bertha in a moment. Miss Fulton seems to give a sign, and they go to the garden and gaze at the pear tree, that had seemed to Bertha to be a symbol of her openness and vulnerability. What exactly does it suggest now? No matter what, to Bertha, the women achieve a perfect, wordless understanding. But Mansfield is ambiguous. What have they understood? Something feminine? Something about desire? Has Miss Fulton really participated in this experience, or is Bertha imagining their epiphany? Mansfield has more surprises. As the guests prepare to leave, Bertha takes a new course: ‘For the first time in her life Bertha Young desired her husband!’ Not many writers could suggest how a young woman's homoerotic feelings could so quickly shift to heterosexual ones,” (Seoule).

“The last lines of this story are also immensely important as well, Pearl's line ‘your lovely Pear tree’ echoes in the reader’s mind, whether she is referring to Harry and the affair she had with him, or Bertha and flirtation between them, or perhaps Mansfield herself is bisexual and referring to them both,” (“Bliss”). In conclusion, Mansfield wrote some aspects of her own life in her fictional characters and has many similarities to Bertha, the woman in “Bliss,” including her love life, marriage, sexuality, personality, and her love for nature.

Heart of Darkness

The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is about a riverboat captain named Charlie Marlow who sails through the Congo in Africa. Along his journey, he witness brutal acts to the people of Congo, such as genocide, cannibalism, and brutality from the white men. The people he encounters keep referring to an Englishman named Mr. Kurtz, who Marlow is supposed to go meet. Marlow is intrigued about this man, because of the wonderful things he has heard, and wonders if he is an idealistic man like him. There’s mystery when he overhears people secretly talking badly about stuff and mention Mr. Kurtz’s name.

When Marlow and his boat arrive, there’s been a massacre at the camp and Kurtz is dying. While Kurtz is on his death bed, Marlow realizes through talking to him, that Kurtz has gone crazy due to his environment and surroundings. Marlow also realizes that Kurtz has been romantically involved with one of the African women. Marlow is in the mess hall, when he hears news of Kurtz’s death. After Kurtz dies, Marlow receives Kurtz letters, in which one mentions Marlow’s forthcoming arrival. Marlow finds Kurtz’s fiancé back home, and tells her Kurtz’s last word was him saying her name, when really it was, “the horror, the horror.” He doesn’t want to tell her the truth, and add more pain to the grief she is feeling. The heart of darkness means to me, that good people have a gray area, if they are around bad surroundings. The theme of this story is ignorance is bliss.

Wordsworth and Scott

     William Wordsworth was a traveling French tutor.  He was supporter of the French Revolution and was encouraged by William Taylor to write his poetry.  He was left a friend’s inheritance with enabled his writing life.  His sister Dorothy was his inspiration and confidante.  He collaborated with Samuel Taylor Coleridge and were believed to be “political plotters.”  He was poet Laureate of Great Britain in 1943.  Executors of his estate published more of his works after his death.  Samuel Taylor Coleridge said Wordsworth was “the best poet of the age.”  He wrote about nature and memories of youth.

            Sir Walter Scott was an avid romance reader.  He was a poet and translator of German ballads.  He gave up poetry for prose fiction.  He inserted poems into his novels.  He published all of his novel anonymously.  He was “in debt when he died due to a failure of a publishing firm.”  Scott sold 30,000 copies of one of his novels in 1830.  He was internationally famous.  He wrote about Scotland, medieval times, and romance.      

Burns and Wollstonecraft

 Robert Burns was “a democrat and religious radical.”  He was a careful craftsman and debater.  He wrote works of satire, epistles, and mock-heroic very far from Alexander Pope’s.  He was described as a “songwriter for all English-speaking people.” 

            Mary Wollstonecraft had a rough childhood, where her father was an abusive drunk. Her friend died, and her school failed.  These events haunted her life. She “rallied her energies to write her first book.”  She was suicidal when she was convinced her lover was going to leave her and died giving birth to her daughter, Mary Shelley who was the author of Frankenstein.  After her death, her husband published a memoir revealing her past and published the letters she wrote.  She connected to women and people with similar backgrounds. 

William Blake

 William Blake was great believer in the lessons of the Bible and believed that it was a “great code of art.”  He believed songs are “two contrary states of the human soul.”  He was an engraver who drew the monuments of the London Church.   He taught his wife, Catherine to read and to help him work.  His pictures to go with his writings were “something important.”  His greatest love was his pictures.  He was more successful in death than he was in life.  He connects to artists, who were also writers.  He wrote about turmoil home life and his spiritual life.  His works were full of irony that mystified his liberal friends and he took a defiant pleasure in shocking readers by being deliberately outrageous.

Satire

 Satire is “attacking someone in speech/ writing by making them seem ridiculous and/or a humorously piece of writing.”  Satire’s three types are Horatian, Juvenile, and Menippean.  Horatian satire is gentle and sympathetic, which the subject is mildly made fun of with engaging wit.  The subject is not directly attacked.  This form of satire tends to ask the audience to laugh at themselves as much as the players.  Juvenalian satire is harsh and bitter.  They condemn and hold the subject in contempt.  It is more judgmental and asks the audience to respond with indignation.  Menippean satires the structure of the world as well as its subject matter.  It tends to mix genres, collapse categories, and intentionally ridicule everything. 

Goldsmith and Crabbe

             Oliver Goldsmith grew up homely and idle and he studied medicine.  He was successful and in the intimate society of Samuel Johnson.  His audiences were probably educated people in his circle and people in poverty. 

            George Crabbe was studying to be a surgeon and was a minister in the Anglican church.  He answered the claims in Oliver Goldsmith’s idealization of villagers.  Crabbe had the admiration of William Wordsworth, Sir Walter Scott, and Lord Byron.  His audiences were people of poverty.  He grew up poor and wrote about poverty. 

The Burlington Northern, Southbound

In “The Burlington Northern, Southbound” by Bruce Holland Rogers, the narrator writes a poem to the object of his affection, a girl named Christine, comparing her to the train. He assumes that Christine rejected him, because she never told him how she felt about it. So if she had liked it, wouldn’t she have said something? He kicks himself, saying, “What woman wants to hear she is like the Burlington Northern southbound?"

The narrator seems like a stalker, because he knows stuff without asking her herself. He knows “her name was Christine,” so he obviously took the time to get to know stuff about her, even if he couldn’t ask her himself. It shows how much interest he has in her, which Christine could have taken as a good or bad sign.

When the narrator tells Christine in his poem, “about the way he used to stand in the dazzle of the headlight,” he obviously likes her looks and thinks Christine’s beauty blows him away and he wonders how someone like her was invented. His poem to her could be all about her physical appearance and how much he wants to have sex with her, with lines like, “I want to ride you home Christine and beyond,” but it was his intention to tell her how the train excites him as a rider, and she excited him as a woman.

When the narrator writes “I want to ride you into mornings sharp and cold and blue and never run the same track twice,” it indicates how he saw her as a new adventure and how much he is inspired to take risks into getting to know her. He is wondering what’s under the hood of the train, when he compares her to the engine: “Between the quaking of the cinders, and his jog, the engine would almost bring him to his knees.” Even though he has seen her beauty on the outside, he is wondering if her personality is also wonderful.

“When he could stop at last he’d hear the blood rushing in his ears for a long time while he felt the train rush on recede, and he’d watch the stars wheel awhile and when he walked home there’d be a ringing in his ears but gently”: the narrator promises she makes him happy every time he sees her and misses her until the next time he sees her.

When the narrator admits he “liked to step aside and stand on the edge to feel the thunder in his bones,” and “he’d feel the night air in his hair,” he wishes he could let go of his inhibitions, and let Christine’s spirit take control of him. He is a shy person, because he would rather write her letter than actually talk to her. It would have been better for him to actually talk to her, getting to know her for herself and not just be in love of the idea of her.

The narrator finds the idea of being with Christine exciting, when he writes, “the diesel throb in his gut would ebb until it was only sound, and then cars- some shrieking on their spring- would clataclat clatalat on by.” When the narrator writes, “He would dream for a moment of hanging on, of riding the coupling platform through the night,” Christine could have taken that as he wants to hold her in his arms and not let her go.

The theme of this story is to take risks, even thought it doesn’t always pay off the way people want it to. Was writing a poem comparing her to a train stupid or brave thing for him to do, even though he didn’t get the outcome he wanted? Out of some of the narrator’s thoughts he shared in the story, it seems like Christine would be able to see it as actually a good thing, if she can get past the dirty ones.

Gray and Collins

             Thomas Gray was deeply affected by the death of Richard West in 1972, which “desolated Gray and memories of West haunt much of his verse.”  He constantly was revising his poems and published very little.  He believed, “The language of age is never the language of poetry.”  Most of his poems ware a contemporary reaction against Alexander Pope’s elegance.  Gray was referred to by Samuel Johnson as “The Common Reader.”  He had a love for nature and the sublime.    

William Collins’s goal was to “create more poetry, more lyrical and fanciful than that of Alexander Pope’s generation.”  Collins was ahead of his time and was admired by the Romantics and people who love fantasy.  Samuel Johnson described Collins, as someone who loved fairy tales and magic.  

The Mouse Dinners

In Russell Edson’s “The Mouse Dinners,” he proves the point, “You are what you eat.” Although it is never revealed in the story, what species the main characters are, I kept seeing them as more cats or birds than humans, because they eat mice, and I can’t really see humans eating mice, but now I believe the word “mice” and “mouse” could be substituted for anything.

In every kitchen in the world, someone could be eating something they didn’t really like, but wanted to appear grateful for their spouse’s efforts. I could relate to this couple and what they were going through. When I cook something, I expect people say thank you and to give an honest opinion about it, so I know if they would like me to cook it again or never again.

When the husband says, “I never liked mouse. I thought you liked mouse, so I liked mouse so you’d like me,” mad me laugh, because who hasn’t done something to make someone like them more, and then realize the person doesn’t really like to do that one thing. I would think the couple would know each other well after 20 years, and know what each other likes and doesn’t like.

“Perhaps it was the twenty years of mouse, eaten to please a wife, who he thought liked mice, has worked the metamorphosis,” reveals to me that if someone pretends to be something they are not, they lose their own identity and become something they don’t want to be. I think the theme of this story is be who you are and voice your opinion.

A & P

While reading M. Gilbert Porter’s critique of John Updike’s “A& P,” I was enlightened with a few lines from the story I missed while reading through the story the first time, like “women with six children and varicose veins mapping their legs” and “once you begin a gesture it’s fatal not to go through with it.”

Porter believes Sammy looks down on the customers and thinks he is better than them, because he is a teenager, “such are the verdicts that Sammy hands down on the patrons of the A & P, rather harshly investing each with his most characteristic animal feature.” I have worked in places where I have been a cashier. I know how strange the people can be some days, and how stressful customers can be on the cashiers. I had one customer who spent like 15 minutes just screaming at me because he didn’t want to follow the company’s policy.

I agree with Porter when he writes about how Sammy was right in letting the girls continue to shop with only swimsuits and asks, “Does the attire of the girls satisfy the requirement of ‘decency’ which the policy of A & P demands?” Since we don’t know exactly what the store’s policy is on paper, we can assume there’s nothing about swimsuits on there.

When I was at work one time, some kid came in with a t-shirt that had the “F” word on it and security made him cover it up with duct tape. Some people’s definition of decency is different than others.

I do agree with Porter when he writes, “That no to follow the voice of conscience is to be false to one’s own integrity and therefore to live a lie, and Sammy has chosen to live honestly and meaningfully.” The manager’s behavior was in the wrong. He targeted those girls based on his own personal opinion, and Sammy had every right to make his own opinion matter.

John Keats

             John Keats had a passion for reading and medicine.  He didn’t write poetry until he was 18 years old.  He felt he was going to die early and “applied himself to his art with desperate urgency.”  His works were brutalized by political and snobbish critics.    His great promise was cut short and he could have been even more extraordinary as he stopped writing at age 24.  His writing and phrases reminded his friends of William Shakespeare.   He wrestled with evil and suffering in the world.   He died at the age of 25 of tuberculosis. 

Montagu, Hogarth, and Johnson

 Lady Mary Wortley Montagu taught herself Latin and grew up wealthy.  She feuded a lot with Alexander Pope, politically.  She didn’t like Jonathan Swift because he was friends with Pope.  She also “pioneered in introducing the small pox inoculation to England.”  She was one of greatest writers of letter pieces and poems.  Women and people from her own social circle read her work.  She reveals the mind of a woman who is not willing accept stereotypes imposed on her by men.

 William Hogarth‘s father was teacher and unsuccessful writer.    Hogarth himself was an engraver and a painter.  He inspired a copyright law called “Hogarth’s Act.”  He was successful in art and writing.  Charles Lamb compared him to William Shakespeare.  He love to write satires and about art.  His writing was “a feast of interpretation that draws the reader in.”  He was considered “a writer of comedy with a pencil.”

Samuel Johnson was famous as a talker and a “great generalizer.”  He wrote poetry to earn money, until he received a pension.  He didn’t feel the need to write anymore.  He grew up in poverty and wrote about the facts of being poor, so people with a similar background would have read his work.  He wrote about the power of wishful thinking and desires that let to false expectations.  His wit is “timeless,” because it deals with human experiences anyone can relate to.

The Necklace

In the story, The Necklace, Mrs. Matilda Loisel is an unhappy woman who always desires better things. She borrows what she assumes is a very expensive necklace from her friend, Madam Foestier, for the party and then realizes she has lost it. Matilda and her husband spend a lot of money to find a perfect match to replace it with. Ten years later, her friend tells Matilda her original necklace was a fake.

I, like many others, sometimes have insecurities like Mrs. Loisel, not feeling like we are good enough and wondering what it would be like to have more. I feel like the theme of this story, is don’t always look to the things you want in the future, but appreciate what you have now. I don’t think I would ever borrow expensive jewelry, for fear of losing it. I thought the story was a good example of irony, with Mrs. Loisel wanting expensive things like the necklace, when she could have afforded it in the first place, because it was a fake.

Killing the Bear

As I read the short story Killing the Bear by Judith Minty, I was reminded by the camping trips I have taken.  I feel like the protagonist wanted to protect her dog.  I would protect my cat with the same defensiveness.  I feel the protagonist idolized bears when she was a child and had teddy bears, but now real bears are a lot wilder.  She is marking down the days of calendar to bear season or marking off the days she hasn’t found any bears.  I feel she was very prepared for a bear attack, but was scared when it actually happened.  I felts like she was using the bear’s death to make money and I was surprised that she turned out to be a hunter, with how scared she was acting.

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was called “the only important writer of his generation who was solely a man of letters.”  He was painter as well as a writer.  Pope said Anne Finch is “better than all the other female wits and hence a lonely exception.”  He thought women were limited to “pleasure and power.”  Anne Finch responded to his comment, saying “Men make bad mistakes when they underestimate women’s power.”  Pope was master of style, metrics, language, and satire.  He was controversial and made enemies who wrote criticism of his works in “pamphlets, satires, and squibs in the journals his entire literary career.”  His audience was mostly men, because he was controversial to women.  He was the first write to build a career upon his works.  He wrote satires of women and responded to female authors.  He wrote letters, a mock epic, with a visual imagery of nature.  He moved on to subjects that were “philosophical, ethical, and political.”

Lord Byron

Lord Byron studied lyrical verse in college.  He incorporated the bisexuality of Grecians into many of his poems and into his novel, Don Juan.  He was famous in London.  He gave the royalties away to maintain his status as an aristocratic amateur.  Byron was born into two aristocratic families and supported the Whig party.  He was handsome, had an eating disorder and had affairs with women and men, including his half-sister.  He was ostracized and left England in 1816.    John Pilidori made Byron as the inspiration for the title character in “The Vampyre.”

Addison and Steele

 Joseph Addison and Richard Steele are the first pairs of collaborators I have read from their century.  These friends since childhood, seemed like an odd couple, seemingly polar opposites.  Addison was charming, reserved, calculated, prudent, political, wealthy, and was good at Latin verse.  Steele was impulsive, rakish, imprudent, greedy, in debt, and wrote under the pseudonym Isaac Bickerstaff.  Their goal together, was to establish “a new social literary ethos transcending the narrowness of Puritan morality and the exorbitance of the fashionable court culture of the last century.”  They were innovative in the essays and the fact that Addison was wealthy and a former politician, probably brough them a large audience.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

             Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey “planned to establish and ideal democrat community in America.”  Coleridge went from being a radical to a conservative.  Coleridge collaborated with William Wordsworth and finished some of his poems, after Wordsworth’s death.  He was “repeatedly charged with gross plagiarism” and struggled with an opium addiction.  His friends thought he lacked “applications and staying power,” but had “great promise.”  Mary Shelley was a fan of his work and used one of his stanzas in her book, Frankenstein.  He wrote about political and gothic subjects.    

Finch, Prior, and Swift

    Anne Finch was a Countess of Winchilsea, so she grew up around rich writers.  It didn’t help because at the time women weren’t accepted as writers.  Her audience were probably people with religious education background, other aristocrats, and women.  She wrote poems based on stories of the Bible. 

            Matthew Prior was a diplomat, but a man for the public.  He didn’t belong to aristocracy and that made him more available as a writer.  He was friends with Jonathan Swift.  He found himself in trouble by the law with his job as Secretary to the Embassy.  He was a successful writer and made a lot of money, because he appealed to the general public.  His writing was simple to read, while being brilliant.  His poems are self-explanatory, and he wrote as a lyricist while writing satire and epigraphs. 

            Jonathan Swift was clergyman for the Anglican Church and was against anything that threatened his faith.  He had Meniere’s disease in his adult life.  He was the master of Prose.  He believed in “Proper words in proper places.”  He reminds me of Wilmot in his satire.  Although he was a man of faith, he was controversial.  He even wrote a piece called “Argument against the Abolishing of Christianity in England.”  His audience were probably people who were anti-Catholic and believed in separation of church and state. 

The Mother

I had to read Lynn's criticism of the short story, The Mother. I like when Lynn explains to us what he thinks new criticism is, and that we should only use and examine the words the author has written, instead of the author’s background, time period, or reasons for writing what he or she did.

I like the way he goes through line by line, and takes notes, calculating what it means and how some lines contradict others. I liked how he set up the guidelines for shaping our essays, brainstorming ideas to write about, and drafting your critique of someone’s writing.

When he writes, “It [abortions] can’t make “you” remember or keep “you” from forgetting” in note A, the critic seems to believe that the mother is haunted by her decisions. I also agree with the critic, when he wonders “if your child is not living, is that person still considered a mother?” I like how he wants us to look at the intent of the characters and what is important about what they are telling us.

Like the critic, I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who was little confused by the line “you got that you did not get.” He writes “Either you got them or you didn’t, it would seem.” It got me thinking of what that sentence means and I think it means that speaker has hope for the children who she aborted, and hopes they got a second chance at a new life somewhere else.

The critic asks us to examine why the poem is called a certain title, like this one is called “The Mother,” even if it is about her abortions. My initial response was that the author wants us to believe she is the Mother of guilt or regrets, but now reading through this critique, one reason for the title being “The Mother” is to refer to her being the mother and letting the readers to know it was a female telling the story, and not the father.

I like when he wrote, “It’s fine if your ideas aren’t similar to those above. In fact, it’s great because I would certainly be bored if everyone thought the same things.” Anybody who critiques a poem isn’t going to have the same set of notes. People think of different things when they read something, and none of the thoughts we have are good or bad, they are just unique.

I thought it was interesting when he asks us to think, “What holds it together?” referring to the poem. He basically says to examine the work and it is okay to ask questions. I like how he sets up a basic formula when drafting your essay from your notes, and the notes in the margin.

Like the critic, I also thought the mother was dividing herself in half, “as a murderer and a murder.” I agree when reading poems we need to develop a theory and a thesis of what we think the poems means, and give several reasons why we think what we think about it.

Usually when I write a paper on someone’s writing, I try to be objective in my response and look at both sides of the equation. I think with this certain poem, if you’re Pro-Life, you should look at it like someone who is Pro-Choice, and vice versa. I think when critiquing, you need to develop a different feels for the writing from all of the issues. I feel like the author of this critique did the same. I feel like the critic also didn’t put a personal stance of the mother’s decisions. I think you have to remain neutral and look at both sides of the issue like he did.

In conclusion, I think this critique of “The Mother” will be very helpful to me when I do the other assignments on other poems, because he set up a formula to follow. There wasn’t much I didn’t like about his critique, besides some of his notes that I commented on above. He did give reasons for why he wrote what he did that I didn’t agree with, and made me think more about the concepts with a different perspective.

Critical Approaches to Literature

Gidget by Frederick Koehner
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

Summer Semester Begins

I just started summer semester at Weber State, and I will be a junior at the end of this semester. I'm taking three English classes (British Lit: Neoclassical/Romantic, Critical Approaches to Literature, Structure of English) and it will last 8 weeks. I have to say that I like how short it was compared to other semesters (15 weeks).

Young Adult Literature

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
Beauty by Robin McKinley
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
The Clique by Lisi Harrison
Dreamland by Sarah Dessen
Feed by M.T. Anderson
The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman
Hawksong by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
Into the Wild by Sarah Beth Durst
Jake Reinvented by Gordon Korman
Kit's Wilderness by David Almond
A Little Piece of Ground by Elizabeth Laird
Prom by Laurie Halse Andrson
Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle
Shooter by Walter Dean Myers
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi
Uglies by Scott Westerfield
Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher

California

On Friday, we drove to Las Vegas where we stayed at the La Quinta next to Nellis Air Force Base. For dinner, we went to the pizzeria at Circus Circus and shopping at the Forum Shops at Caesar's Palace, which are two traditions of ours.

On Saturday  we woke up and had breakfast at our hotel. We then drove to Costa Mesa, California. We stayed at the Hilton Hotel by the John Wayne Airport.  We ate at El Torito, which the best Mexican restaurant in California.

On Sunday, we went to the O.C. Swap Meet. After the swap meet, we went to church, which meets right next to the Newport Temple. For dinner, we ate at the Crab Cooker and then walked down the pier.

On Monday, we went to Disneyland. We went on Indiana Jones adventure, Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean, Astro Blasters, Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh, Mark Twain Riverboat, Storybook Land Canal Boats, and the Jungle Cruise. We ate lunch at the French Market in New Orleans square which has really good clam chowder in bread bowls. After we left the park, we walked through Downtown Disney. For dinner, we went to Taco Bell, before driving back up to Anaheim to our new hotel.

On Tuesday, we drove back to Las Vegas, with a stop at the Prymm Outlet Mall. We stayed at Circus Circus and went shopping at the new Town Square Mall and the Disney Outlet Store.

Norah Jones

A Little Piece of Ground

A Little Piece of Ground is the first book I've read by Elizabeth Laird. I have never lived outside of Utah, but I have traveled out of the country to the Caribbean and Mexico. This book gave me the sense that living in the Middle East is scary, because of the constant terrorism. The protagonist of the book is a 12 year old boy named Karim who lives in Palestine, during the Arab-Israeli conflict. This book reminded me of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, because of the child surrounded by war. Like Liesel in The Book Thief escapes by reading books, Karim escapes by playing soccer. He and his friends just want to play soccer, but they have a curfew based on the invading soldiers.

On page 61, Karim is silently screaming about the suicide bomber, calling him a "hero." When he is rooting for a suicide bomber, his sense of value for the human life is tarnished. Abu Fiesal tells Karim war "is not simple." Karim's actions show he doesn't understand the threat of war around him and gains a better understanding by the end of the book. He seems very unbalanced, but brave. I think the war would drive anyone crazy. I thought it was sweet of Karim to take care of the kittens in the field, and it was sad to read Ginger getting run over by a tank.

The book gave good insight into how the Iraqis feel about soldiers being in their country. I can understand the frustration Karim and his friends are feeling. The book's writing is slow paced, because the author was overly descriptive. The ending seemed flat, although it is reassuring that Karim's final words are "We'll survive," showing hope for the future.

Bunyan, Butler, Wilmot, and Dryden

             I have been reading John Dryden’s poems for my English class and he is so doom and gloom, constantly talking about judgement day, how justice will be passed who don’t follow the rulers or God.  His poems seem full of vengeance and they are depressing, because is he of the Puritan faith.

            John Bunyan is similar to John Dryden’s writing, but a little lighter.  He focuses on God’s wrath, but he also writes about God’s love.  Bunyan grew up poor and saw both sides of God equally, while Dryden grew up rich.

            Samuel Butler is a very visual writer.  He takes you through the scene is trying to set. 

John Wilmot is an anarchist, antireligious, and the most  risqué out of the four authors.    His writing is full of satire and not full of doom.  He was brave for questioning authority and making fun of people in charge. 

The Giver

The Giver is the second book I have read by Lois Lowry. I read her book, Number the Stars, when I was in Elementary school and it is one of my favorite books. When I started reading The Giver, I hoped it would be as good as Number the Stars and it met my expectations. 

The Giver is about a 12 year old boy named Jonas who lives in a society where there is no sex, no war, no pain, no aging, and no crime. Jonas is given the task of becoming the receiver of memories from the past, where there is currently no snow, sunlight, colors, or love. Jonas was a very believable twelve year old and I don't think he could have survived in this dystopia and be sane. I found the plot reminded me of The Tripod series by John Christopher and Uglies by Scott Westerfeld, with all their teenage protagonists leaving a dystopian world for freedom. The writing is fast paced and I liked the open ending, which shows hope for happiness.

Jake, Reinvented

Jake, Reinvented is the first book I have read by Gordon Korman and I thought it was an okay story. The narrator is Rick, a senior in high school and football player. He tells us the story of Jake Garrett, a newcomer to his school who instantly becomes popular. Jake throws a party every week for his teammates on the football team. After two weeks, Jake is Rick's new BFF. Rick learns Jake used to be a nerdy math tutor for a girl named Didi, when he was a sophomore. Jake moved to a different school and reinvented persona, so Didi would go out with him. Didi does notice him but she already has a boyfriend. Her boyfriend Todd is jealous and tries to bring Jake down a notch. Through Jake, Rick realizes his true feelings for his friend Jennifer and realizes Todd is a jerk. The writing is fast paced, but the ending is flat. I wanted more development from these characters. This book teaches you can't expect happiness coming from other people.

Prom

Prom by Laurie Halse Anderson is about a senior in high school named Ashley, who could care less about Prom.  She is ready to move in with her drug dealing boyfriend and ready to leave high school behind.  When the math teacher steals all the money for prom, Ashley helps her best friend Natalia plan a new prom.  She is not allowed to attend because of too many disciplinary problems and library fines.  So, Ashley has to decided whether to stay home or sneak into a prom she worked hard to plan. 

Beauty

Beauty by Robin McKinley is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast.  It focuses on how Beauty grows up with two sisters, Hope and Grace, and how they ended up involved with the beast.  The beast demands one of the daughters in return for their father picking a rose, and he sends Beauty to him, because the other two sisters are married.

Dreamland

Dreamland by Sarah Dessen is about a sixteen year old girl named Caitlin O’Koren.  Her sister runs off to New York City and leaves Caitlin devastated, with no contact.  Caitlin would rather live in her dreams than live for real during the day.  She starts dating an abusive drug dealer and is ignored by her parents.  She gets addicted to the drugs as well.

The Golden Compass

The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman is a controversial book.  They say everyone has daemon attached to them, in the form of animal.  The villains are called Gobblers, who are people taking children to the North to separate them from their daemons. 

Historical Fiction

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• Blue Bloods by Melissa De La Cruz
• The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak
• The Crucible by Arthur Miller
• The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen
• 11/22/63 by Stephen King
• Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson
• A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray
• Kit's Wilderness by David Almond
• Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
• Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
• Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
• Pearl Harbor 1941 by Nancy Holder
• Sarah's Key by Tatianna De Rosnay
• Their Eyes were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
• The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi
• The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy
• Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
• Witch Child by Celia Rees
• The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

Fantasy Reading List

Alice in Wonderland by Louis Carroll
Airborn by Kenneth Oppel
Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and The Beast by Robin McKinley
The Candy Shop War by Brandon Mull
City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen
Divergent by Veronica Roth
Fablehaven by Brandon Mull
Golden Compass
Goose Girl by Shannon Hale
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
Hawksong by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
Into the Wild by Sarah Beth Durst
The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor
Matched by Ally Condie
Miss Peregrines: Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
The Night Circus by Erin Morgestern
Princess Academy by Shannon Hale
Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L.F. Baum
Watership Down by Richard Adams
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Wicked by Gregory Maguire

The Kiesha'ra Series

The Kiesha’ra Series by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes is about two shape shifters, named Danica and Zane, who come from two enemy families.  They have to get married to bring peace to their kingdoms. 

True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle

 True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi is an adventure story.  Charlotte reminds me of Elizabeth Swan in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.  Charlotte is young girl who has to sell on her father’s pirate ship from Europe to America.  She is heroine when the crew declares mutiny on the captain. 

Kit's Wilderness

 Kit’s Wilderness by David Almond is a fantasy adventure story.  Kit and his friends play a game called Death, where they take turns, pretending they are dead and have left their bodies.  After playing the game, Kit feels something supernatural and he starts seeing the ghosts of his ancestors who died in the mines.  

Into the Wild

Into the Wild by Sarah Beth Durst is a fantasy adventure book with a clever concept.  I love fairy tales.  The protagonist is 12 year old Julie who lives in a world where fairy tale creatures exist.  Her mother is Rapunzel, her grandmother is a witch, and her cat is Puss in Boots.  Her father is a prince who was killed helping Rapunzel escape the forest.  They have the seven dwarfs over to her house for dinner a lot.  The fairy tale creatures who have escaped the Wild, have to repeat their stories over and over because of a supernatural object.  Julie has to go rescue her family out of the Wild.

The Clique Series

 The Clique by Lisi Harrison is similar to its young adult predecessors such as Gossip Girl and The A-List.  All three series deal with mean girls.  This one doesn’t have the graphic language and sex the other two do.  This one is for middle school girls and how hard junior high is.  I was picked on a lot in junior high because this is the development stage between the maturity of a kid and the maturity of an adult. 

The Chocolate War

 The Chocolate War by Robert Comier definitely measures up to his other books, After the First Death and Tenderness.  Cormier has an interesting writing style and writes about problems other authors don’t dare to write about.  What starts out as a hazing ritual after refusing to sell fundraiser chocolates ends in a brutal beating.  I had to sell chocolates while I was in junior high and they weren’t very good so I doubt people would buy them if it wasn’t to support the school.  I liked how Jerry was able to stand his ground surrounded by peer pressure.  It made it seem like all the teachers at the school were menacing. 

Shooter

 Shooter by Walter Dean Myers is a very sad book about because of similar events that have happened at Columbine, Virginia Tech and even as close to us at Trolley Square in Salt Lake.  The book is very relatable and the characters are believable.  The ending shows us we need to help people overcome obstacles. 

Whale Talk

Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher is about a high school senior named T.J. Jones, who struggles with racism, bullying, society, anger, and fear. He is adopted and lives with his foster parents. His mother is a lawyer and his dad is stuck on a day when he accidentally ran over his girlfriend's son with his truck.

Because of his mixed heritage, he is discriminated against a lot by his peers. There are two men in the book named Mike and Rich, who make T.J.'s life harder in and out of school. T.J. has to control his anger a lot through out the book, because of the actions of these two men. T.J.'s dad always advises him to take "Not one minute for revenge."

T.J. joins the swim team and finds solace with the other outcast members. Being on the team, bonds the boys, and makes them feel like they belong somewhere. The boys look up to T.J.

Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle

Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle by Stephen Dunning is book of poetry and photographs. The poems are short and easy to read. The poems have a broad range of subjects and interesting styles. Books like this one are helpful to get young adults to like poetry.