Bronx Masquerade by Nikki Grimes

***Last entry!***

At least for the summer reading.
This book was a mixture of poetry and narrative from 18 different high school kids living in the Bronx, New York. You have many black and Latino students, but with a few white kids too. At first, there is the typical clichey-ness of a normal high school. But an English teacher starts letting students read poetry they wrote for themselves in class. Soon everyone starts to understand each other better, and they start to become more like a big family: they don't always get along, but they respect and care about each other.

Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy

This book is a verse telling of the author's aunt's experiences at the Lodz ghetto in Poland during WWII. Only 12 children made out of Lodz at the end of the war and this woman was one of them.

I love books about the Holocaust, sick as that is. I always am shocked by some new horror. In this book, it was how the children survived the deportations: by hiding in open graves at the cemetary.

I Don't Want to be Crazy by Samantha Schultz

This is a memoir, told in poetry, of a young woman who battles anxiety disorder. It describes well the frequent panic attacks, what she was thinking before, during and after them.

I didn't know much about severe anxiety problems before. Sometimes the author describes periods when the attacks happen more often, paralyzing her, stopping her life, and even making her depressed. I could easily connect with the character, her life before this was so bad.

God went to Beauty School by Cynthia Rylant

Hey, sorry for the delay. Been away for the weekend, plus I decided to take a one day break to get started reading a book that came out in a series I love (the Hunger Games books. They're amazing!). But I'm back now.

This series of poems deal with the idea of God coming to earth (again) to experience His creations first hand. He does every ordinary thing people would like going to school, taking bath, getting a cold, and rollerblading. One poem even talks about this being the reason, maybe, for God coming to earth as Jesus, to experience the pain that afflicts the people He has created.

I thought this was a very interesting set of poems. They were interesting, with some very deep reflections on God, but they were also amusing.

The Pearl by John Steinbeck

This book, based on a Mexican folk tale, is about a poor man who finds an extraordinary pearl at sea. He wants to sell the pearl and use the money to have a nice formal wedding with his wife and to educate his son so that he can escape this life that they have been trapped in. But there are many greedy people who try to steal the pearl and even do harm to the man. Eventually, the man is beaten, and his dreams all come to nothing.

I found this story sad, but it has an interesting message: sometimes being stubborn causes you to lose more than what you started with.

Aleutian Sparrow by Karen Hesse

This book in verse tells the story of an Aleutian girl during WWII. The Aleutian Islands are a part of Alaska, right off of the coast. The Japanese attacked the islands, and the people there "relocated" to camps on the mainland. Because of the way they looked, they were discriminated against, and the government would neither help them nor give them enough freedom to take care of themselves. After the war, the Aleutians who were left after disease and poor conditions, returned to the islands, where their homes had been left in ruin.

I found this very interesting because I had never known anything about the Aleutian Islands and especially about what happened to the people there during WWII.

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

I've read this book several times for school before, but I wanted to read it again just on my own. It is a series of vignettes (really short, short stories) about a Latino girl growing up in Chicago. Some of the stories are sweet or funny, but many of them show how trapped people can get, especially women. One story even talks about a girl who gets married before she is in eighth grade. The last story talks about why she wrote this book and why the character (who is basically like Cisneros) left her neighborhood behind:

"They will not know I have gpne away to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot [get] out." (page 110, last sentences of book)

Split Image by Mel Glenn

This series of poems give voice to them opinions of several different people, and what they thought about one girl. Some people thought well of the girl, others thought terriblely, and some didn't even know who she was. Some of the poems also were told in her own voice, talking about her unhappiness with her regimented home life and her immense responsibilities.

"People see who or what they want anyway..." (p. 101)

Dead Girls Don't Write Letters by Gail Giles

This novel is a psychological thriller that keeps you guessing, even at the end, about what happened. It starts with a girl, Sunny, whose sister died in an apartment fire, supposedly. Suddenly, Sunny gets a letter from her sister saying that there had been several mistakes and that she was coming home. But when the girl shows up, something isn't quite right about her; she makes mistakes in how she acts, like using a different hand to do certain tasks with.

I found this to be a very compelling book. The suspense was well done, with me to know what happened next (always the sign of a good book).

Stop Pretending by Sonya Sones

This collection of poems began as a journal about the author's experience with her sister's first episode of manic depression. As she visits her sister in the ward, she sometimes sees a piece of her sister, but many times she sees a stranger.

I could relate to these experiences a lot because she felt about seeing her sister the way I do about seeing my mother. My mom isn't crazt, but she has days where she's a zombie, days where she's curious and engaging (like her old self), and days where she's just someone else: she's lively but not herself as I know her.

Heartbeat by Sharon Creech

Here we have the story (in verse) of a girl who loves to run just for pleasure. She thinks deeply and knows herself well. And she has to deal with people telling her what she should do, and them saying that she doesn't know yet what she wants.

Why do people not listen when you say no?
Why do they think you are too stupid
or too young
to understand?
Why do they think you are too shy
to reply?
Why do they keep badgering you
until you will say yes? (page 69)

I loved this passage because I have thought (and still think) this a lot. I could really relate to how the main character, Annie, felt when all she wanted to do was run by herself. But people kept bugging her join a team, and focus on winning instead of just having fun.

Goody Hall by Natalie Babbitt

A mystery! In this story, a young man, Hercules, arrives at Goody Hall to tutor the boy who lives there. But Hercules and his charge, Willet, learn that there are many things going on at Goody Hall that don't seem quite right. And it all centers around the death of Willet's father, Midas. Later, we learn that, when younger, Midas and his wife had lived on a farm, but they longed for a better, easier life. They wanted servants and luxury, and they got it at a great cost.

That's all I'll really say since I don't want to give away the ending. This book was okay, but mysteries are not my favorite reads. Often times, everything comes to too neat of a close when you get to the end.

Reaching for Sun by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer

This novel in verse deals with a girl who has cerebral palsy. At the start, she doesn't have many friends from school because she is mocked for having a disability, but soon a boy moves in nearby who turns out to be a great friend. The girl, Josie, has always accepted the way she is, even if she didn't like it, but her mother always pushed different therapies on her. It takes awhile, but Josie gets her mom to see that she is unhappy with the way things are.

I liked that this book made clear how any little difference people see in someone causes them to lable the person retarded. Cerebral palsy causes physical damage rather than neurological damage. Reading this story made me look up what cerebral palsy was.

The Eyes of the Amaryllis by Natalie Babbitt

This is the story of a woman who lost her husband at sea, and her granddaughter. The girl comes to stay with her grandmother to help her out while her ankle heals from a sprain. But the girl realizes that her grandmother hasn't let go of the hope of some kind of sign from her husband (or his spirit). Eventually, the head of the figurehead of the ship washes ashore, and the grandmother sees this as her sign. But when she refuses to give it up, the sea lets loose a storm that nearly kills them both and destroys the house.

This was a very sad story about believing in things unknown, and handling grief. The poor widow lost so much time with her son, neglecting him because he didn't believe there was anything to search for, because he tried to let it go.

Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

I've actually read this book before, but it's one of my favorites, and since I have some other books by this author on my list, I decided to include it. The story is about a young girl, Winnie, who meets a family that drank froma spring and have now stayed the same age for eighty years. They don't hate their lives, but they make sure that Winnie knows the consequences of living forever: seeing everyone you know and love die, having to keep on the move to avoid discovery.

I love this story because Winnie gets the chance to learn this before she makes the mistake to following their example. The Tucks are great people, and if you had to live for eternity with one group of people, they would be almost ideal. But Winnie is smart enough to understand the downside of all this.

Locomotion and Peace, Locomotion by Jacqueline Woodson

Sorry this post is a day late. It's been a busy weekend.

Locomotion is about a boy whose nickname is Locomotion ("Come on, come on, dooooo the locomotion with me..."). He lost his parents a fire, and he's been separated from his sister, though they still see each other sometimes. This book focuses on who he is, which is a curious poet. He wants to observe and understand and remember the things he's living through. The book is told through his poems.

Peace, Locomotion is the sequel to Locomotion. It is more about Locomotion's observations of different people and the war that he is experiencing (Vietnam). Told through letters to his sister, the story deals a lot with the sons of his foster mother, both of whom are is the armed forces. When one of them gets seriously injured in the fighting, Locomotion starts thinking more about the war. I liked that this wasn't very preachy about the war part. I don't like war myself, but it always bugs me when a book tries hard to make me think something (anything). I also liked the style of this one. The first book was okay, but letters are a great way to intimately learn about the characters.

Feathers by Jacqueline Woodson

In this book, we meet Frannie, who is an average teenager. She's curious but kind of lazy, not wanting to have to bother figuring something out. And she has trouble connecting to anything that doesn't seem to have anything to do with herself. However, she is caring and a good person. When a white boy enters her all black school in the 1970s, she sees that he's just a person who wants to fit in; that he doesn't have any problem with them (his parents are black so he's used to it), so why should any of the other kids have a problem with him?

I liked this book though I had trouble relating to the Frannie some. There was one scene where she doesn't know what a word someone used meant, but she never felt like looking it up. She did eventually ask her mom, but I just thought, what if her mom hadn't known? or what if she thought she did, but she was actually wrong? I've always wanted to learn stuff like that for myself, check several places and decide for myself. It would have driven me nuts not knowing that; I would have thought about it all the way home. But then again, I'm kind of weird like that.

Hope is the thing with feathers
that perches in the soul,
And sings the tune--without the words,
And never stops at all.

--Emily Dickinson

This poem introduces the book. The book is about how hope always is in us, even we don't notice. Frannie has hope that the new kid will manage to be accepted. Her friend has hope that this same kid is really Jesus come back. Frannie's mother has hope that this baby she's having will survive, though many of the others have not.

Skellig by David Almond

This is the story of a boy who discovers a creature, named Skellig, in the garage of his new house. It is hard to know if the creature is some sort of human, animal, angel, or what. Whatever it is, discovering it, helping to take care of it, leads him to think of Skellig more as an angel.

This book is kind of hard to describe. There's so much packed into it. But I greatly enjoyed it. It made me think. There is one thing discussed often that I especially liked: evolution. People are thought to be descended from apes, and there is some evidence to back it up. But we have shoulder blades that might suggest wings. Perhaps people have some angel in them? This is a big part of the book.

That's all I have to say for this book besides "go out and read it!" Good night. If possible, go out tonight and see the meteor shower. It's at it's peak.

Can't Get There From Here by Todd Strasser

This is a book about kids who have run away from home and are living on the street. At first, they seem to think they chose this life, that they are more free and enjoy it. But it's winter time, and one by one they start to die, get seriously sick, or leave. The main character, Maybe, realizes that this life is just a last resort, and that they actually still have other options.

About the middle of the book, Maybe is talking about the people she passes by who have homes and jobs and food to eat. She talks about how she and her friends think these people are "robots" for going to work and having routines. She asks, "Why didn't it bother them? Or maybe the question was, why did it bother us?" (page 103). I thought this was a very good question. Perhaps it bothered them because the people they were trying to get away from led lives like this.

I thought the descriptions of Maybe's life were excellent. They sometimes grossed me out, but it's good to remember that there are people who have to live like that and to remember that they are people.

Counting Stars by David Almond

This is a series of short stories that are autobiographical. Almond shows us a childhood filled with religious questioning (he's Irish Catholic so you can imagine how well that went over) and being haunted by the death of a sister at a young age.

This book reminded me of Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt, except it is for children instead of adults. I enjoyed the subtle humor that came from some of the situations in the stories. I feel very lucky to have grown up with a much less angry and unquestioning kind of Catholicism. I never had teachers or nuns or brothers telling me that I would be doomed to Hell or Purgatory if I didn't say my rosary or something. I had ones that invited questioning as a way to strengthen faith.

I could definitely relate to the way, no matter what you believed then or what you believe now, Catholicism soaks into your mind. Like other philosophies, it guides the way you think about just about everything. I often learn something new, especially theological, and compare it to the way a Catholic would see it. No matter how hard you try, you can't forget the religion you were brought up in. You might not believe it anymore, but you'll remember it.

The Lilies of the Field by William E. Barrett

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin." --Matthew 6:28

This modern classic is about a black Baptist man (Homer) who comes across a group of German nuns trying to build a church. Eventually, he ends up helping them build for no pay and refusing almost all help.

I liked this story. It kept me interested, although I didn't always like the main character. I know I'm stubborn, but even I don't refuse help when I really need it. I liked that the nuns immediately liked Homer, as if they could read what he was like as soon as they met him. I've never been good at telling what people are like right away. I have to get know them some.

The Brimstone Journals by Ron Koertge

This book was a another one written in free-verse poetry with several characters narrating the story. At first, it seems like most of the students are fairly normal, each with problems that come up often in life. But one particular student is thinking of violently taking out his frustrations on the people he hates (mostly other students who don't go with what he thinks is correct). Some of the others start to get desperate and almost join him, but one student has the courage to go to the cops and put a stop to what would have happened.

I thought that this was very well written. The tension grows very gradually. In fact, you hardly notice it until you get to the end, and you breathe a sigh of relief. I also like the use of several perspectives to show what is happening. It helps the reader see what is in a character's head and what is actually going on.

42 Miles by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer

This book is about a girl, JoEllen, whose parents have been divorced since she was a baby. She spends the week with her mom and the weekend with her dad. Her parents are very different people (her dad: a country boy; her mom: a city girl), and for a long time JoEllen is a different person with each of them. She never shared details of her life at one parent's with the other. Finally, though, she decides she would be happier if she combined herself into one person with one life. She doesn't really force her parents to get along or anything, but she does want each to know who she has been with the other, and to show her friends the other side of who she is.

I loved this book. It was written in a series of free-verse poems with drawing throughout that made it seem like a journal or scrapbook. These combined, made the story feel very intimate.

Song of the Trees by Mildred Taylor

This book was about a black family trying to hold on to their land from a greedy white developer. The family ends up winning, getting to keep their land and trees.

I didn't really like this book much because (for me) it was too short. I think a story like this would have been better being a little bit longer. I didn't feel like I had time to connect with the characters.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

This 1940s classic by a French writer/aviator has been popular for decades both as a great book to read to children but also as an easy book to translate for French students. The story is about a boy who lives alone on a planet that is about the size of a house. He has a simple life, with a rose and some easy to maintain volcanoes for company. Eventually, he decides to leave his planet to explore other ones near him. Many of these planets are just as small as his, each with a grownup living on it who seems just silly (to the prince and the reader). Finally, the prince ends up on Earth (so large!!), and he makes friends with several creatures and the narrator of the story who is an aviator. The narrator has the grownup tendencies in him squashed by the simple child-like thinking of the prince. The book focuses on get people to think more like children usually do, and the narrator does a good job of showing how much simpler and easier it is to think like a kid.

"They [grownups] always need explanations."
"Grownups never understand anything by themselves, and it is exhausting for children to have to provide explanations over and over again." (both from page 2)

I especially like that second one because it seems like it would be true. We always ask kids to explain themselves, especially when they say something that we don't understand or that we think is rediculous. They just except that there are weird things. They ask qustions, but only when they have nothing to tie the idea down, to visulaize and understand something. Adults, however, want explanations for everything; we're never fully satisfied with what someone says about something.

"What's most important is invisible." (page 68)
This is said several times in the book, but I quoted it from the scene I like it from the most. Here, the pilot is carrying the sleeping prince, and looking down at him, thinking about how he'll miss the kid when he leaves for home. The pilot realizes that the body he is looking at is just a shell for the prince, his personality, his mind, his animation, everything about the prince that he loves. Whether or not you believe in a seperate soul or not doesn't matter. There is life that is housed in the body and that is what makes a person who they are. When we die, we leave the body here. What happens to that animation? No one really knows, but it goes somewhere.

The last thing about this amazing book I would like to talk about is the dedication:
"To Leon Werth when he was a little boy."
I like this because it is yet another way to remind us to try and remember that child that we once were and that we will always carry with. I believe that we can never get rid of that; we can just bury deep within us.

This was an awsome book. It is supposed to be for children, but many adults read this book too, and they should if they haven't.

*Note: I will be keeping up with my reading this weekend, but I will be busy the next few days, so my posts might be late.

Word After Word After Word by Patricia MacLachlan

This book was about a writer who visits a class of students, doing a writing workshop with them. As they write, the kids deal with their lives and the good and bad things that happen to them.

I liked the group of kids. They were intelligent, caring, and discerning. They often hangout, having deep conversations and thinking about their lives. They reminded me of my friends when we were their age. We often spent recess talking and trying to work things out instead of playing.

The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes

The Hundred Dresses is about a young poor Polish girl, Wanda, living in the 1940s. Her family is treated badly because they are foreign, and she is mocked because she always wears the same dress everyday, since that's all she owns. The teasing gets so bad that her family moves away. Two girls in the class, Maddie and Peggy, feel especially bad about how they acted, so they try to contact her to say sorry and to tell her that her drawings (100 of them, each of a dress) won a prize. Unfortunately, Wanda has already left. Maddie is especially haunted by this; she wants to be able to make amends. Wanda forgives them in a letter that she sends to her teacher, but Maddie is changed by this experience and not likely to forget it anytime soon.

I really enjoyed this book. It shows how cruel people could be to people who are different without even realizing it. This book also showed how sometimes you don't get a chance to really make things alright. It was a very sweet but realistic story. There was also a lot of beautiful artwork in the book. Nearly every page had some bit of illustration in pencil, with simple colours. This is a great book for young girls to read.

Edward's Eyes by Patricia MacLachlan

"What he does doesn't define him."
"Well, what does?"
"The trying of it." [about Edward] (page 45)

This book focuses on Jake remembering his younger brother Edward, who he was very close to. The boys loved summer, baseball, books, and french. Edward proves to wise beyond his years, as well as fearless. He tries anything, even if he "fails." Unfortunately, Edward dies in a bicycle accident, but his death helps others when his organs are donated. His eyes, his best feature (steady and blue), go to a professioal baseball player.

I liked this book because it was more about what Edward was like in life. You really get to know him. His death only comes toward the end of the book. It is quickly dealt with, and then the book moves onto the recipient of his eyes.

That's all I have time for today. Homework beckons.

Green Angel and Green Witch by Alice Hoffman

So far I have 2 books to talk about because I got one day ahead since I might get busy enough to get behind. I love Alice Hoffman's books. She writes about many different types of people, and her books are very character driven. These 2 deal with the same character, Green, a girl who loses her family in a fire that destroys an entire city. She doesn't deal well with the loss. She makes clothes with thorns and nails on them to show her refusal to let anyone in. Green survives and does what she has to to get by, but she is too afraid of the pain to live. Eventually, though, people start to get through her defenses, and she learns how to deal with everything she has gone through. The second book, Green Witch, is even better than the first because she is trying to capture people's stories; she wants to remember everything, and she wants others to remember as well.

I could identitfy with Green and how she first dealt with her grief. When my mom got sick and my dad had to handle things (which he didn't for a long time), I just did what I could, got by, and focused on getting along with my life and making things work. But I didn't do much else. I never hung out with friends, I cut myself off almost, even from my best friend/sister. The last couple of years I have been repairing the damage I did with that. I have a great relationship with my sister now again, and I try and do the things that I love, try new things (sometimes), and have some fun.

When Green says, "I ask to always remember." (page 33), I felt like I was talking. My mom can't remember a lot of things anymore, and there are times when I have wanted to ask her questions about certain things, but I know she cannot tell me the answer. I now hate whenever I forget something. I keep a journal and planner with all the time to keep track of everything, record it all if possible.

That's it for now. Tomorrow: a new day and a new book.

Hey

Hey. I'm Mariah. Right now, this blog will deal with my summer reading list. I'd like to discuss the books I'm reading (one a day for all of August). I'll probably talk about other things as well. I'll start by telling you a little about myself. I'm a student right, studying English and Literature. I LOVE to read, and I'm getting into art some now too. I keep busy, but I try to keep my life as simple as possible. That's all I can think of right now about me.