My book was about the life of a family in poverty narrated by the wife and mother of this family. She explains how hard it is to live in poverty in America and the day to day life and goings on. She talks about each facet of her life. She begins by talking about healthcare and medical for people who can not easily afford it. As she continues through the book she uses wit and sarcasm to talk about how hard it is just to scrape by. She explains how people view the poor and what the actual reason is for that. They don’t understand how hard it is for the impoverished to get by in America today. My book is Hand to Mouth by Linda Tirado.I picked challenge one a topic I don’t know much about. I picked this challenge because I knew that that way of life was going on in America but didn’t know how hard life for those people really was. This book met the guidelines because I have not known what it was like not to even be able to have healthcare or be able to know that I will have a good meal that night. This book has made me look to people in a didn’t light and think about how their lives might have something going on and they are probably do the best they can and being stronger than anyone knows. America is run vastly by people working jobs that really can’t be lived on by their salary. A majority of jobs that you may go by day to day and not even realize how important they are are being worked by people who have no idea how they may make rent or pay bills that are piling up.“Being poor isn’t a crime-It just feels like it”. People in poverty feel segregated and mistreated because they can not provide a good lifestyle. By Brendan
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Religion is personal. The book I chose to read for this challenge is called, “Religion” by Margreet de Heer. This book is a complete overview of the authors’ definition of religion and different types of religion. Right away in this book she makes it clear that she is aware of the risks of writing a book about religion. She states all of the possibilities of writing one with negative feedback such as death threats, hate mail, and angry mobs. She follows up with stating how this book is written through her personal experiences and beliefs. That way no one can argue with her if she isn’t stating that they are facts. A very strong quote I picked from the book is “Religion is personal! And that’s why it’s such a delicate subject.” Religion is a very controversial topic and writing a book on it is like walking on eggshells.I picked this book because this is something I know absolutely know nothing about and not to mention I really never had a drive to learn it. I have always read books about sports. That is pretty much the only category I can read and enjoy. I am very picky about books so this was difficult to read something I wasn’t necessarily interested in. It is also a format that I have never read. Usually I read the same old traditional books but this book is a comic book. Right off the bat that sounds like a kid book or a very easy read. If you ever read this book yourself you will quickly realize it isn’t either of those. It has a very high vocabulary and there are a lot of religious terms that are hard to understand. It felt like reading in a second language. Although it was short, if you read it once and you honestly and fully understand it, I will applaud you. I had to read some parts three separate times to “sort of” understand it. Reading something you have no interest in and know nothing about is tough. You have to be extremely open minded. Reading this book really did show me how there can be so much controversy in one topic. I never understood how so many people could have so many issues about one topic. It is not a small topic, religion is very broad and there are many aspects of detail you need to touch on when writing a book on it. After reading the book it ties a lot of strings when you hear people talk about religion like it is a different language. I am not saying I understand it completely but I could carry a decent conversation on it. Never could I debate with someone about it. By Luke The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace by Jeff Hobbs, is a biography of an intellectual, young African-American named Robert Peace who overcomes his troublesome past and goes to Yale. Rob grew up living in East Orange, New Jersey with his mother Jackie. She knew from the beginning that Rob was going to be different then most of the other kids in his neighborhood because he enjoyed to learn and was good at it too. She worked hard so that Rob was able to get a proper education and hopefully escape the life that was destined for most growing up in their neighborhood. At Yale, he effortlessly achieved good grades as well as running his own drug business from his dorm room to help Jackie financially. After Yale, Rob continued with his drug business despite the numerous warnings from close friends on the danger of operating a drug business surrounded by very serious and territorial drug dealers. Just by looking at the cover, I knew Robert Peace was very different from me. Based on gender,background, and skin color, we have very different stories. Experiencing life through the eyes of someone who is very different from me, allowed me to gain a different viewpoint from my own on how other people see and experience everyday occurrences. By being an African-American,Rob was treated very differently and although he was very bright it was harder for him to gain respect. If Rob was of a lighter skin color going to Yale would be a great accomplishment and would not be looked at as such a rare opportunity. People wouldn't judge him before they got to know him or question his intelligence. Throughout the majority of the story, Rob’s father was in jail and due to his skin color and his background Rob’s father was treated with very little equality and was accused of a crime he didn't do. Being aware of more people's perspectives and experiences in the world helped me be more conscious towards everyone’s differences. Although the writer of the story was white, he showed Rob’s story through the eyes of Rob and his friends and how they were treated due to the racial divide. How they were looked at and the inequality and stereotypes placed on them due to their skin color, as well as the rare opportunity for Rob to go to Yale coming from the neighborhood he grew up in. This book shows that where you come from and the color of your skin should not define your future or hold you back from reaching your goals. Additionally, this book gave me a new, personal perspective on the racial inequality happening in our country. Hobbs explained the racial divide at Yale, “But a deeper transition affected people of color in this dazed context. Before course selections and extra-curricular sign-up sheets, before bags could even be unpacked in rooms, black students had to situate themselves within their own race. The process was complicated, conflicting, usually silent, highly fraught, and wholly invisible to their white classmates. Most of whom had never actively had to consider the role of race in their lives.” By Helen W. I read the book “She’s Not There” by Jennifer Finney Boylan. This story shows how James over time realized who he was and became Jennifer. Throughout the book James has trouble coping with who he is and has trouble. He thinks of his “condition” as being a transexual. He tries to be cured by trying to find people to love him and who he can love. After meeting many different women he meets Grace and is seemingly cured for a long time until he ends up understanding who he is. Over the years he had dressed as a woman and finally decided to risk his loving relationship by coming out to Grace. After a while James becomes Jennifer and visits many doctors and support groups. She continues on her journey until she finally is able to come out to the world and her friends. Most people receive her well, and those who don’t mostly ignored her. In the end she gets the operation done to complete her transition. Jennifer’s friend Richard Russo is also along for the ride even though he did not understand the process. He wrote an afterword about Jennifer's change as he saw it. I chose this book due to how different this person's life is than mine. They live in a different place and went through a lot of different things that I never will in my life. James/Jennifer is so different than me because I have not experience changing genders. She also has some very hard things like having to risk losing her wife, Grace. Over time the changes in her relationships with her friends and relatives changes dramatically and really affects her view on life and genders. She has to experience the un-thinkable as she goes through and understands things about her new gender and start to not understand things about when she was a male. What she experienced was mentally and physically taxing and changes most what she knew. He life used to be one way and was changed quite a bit. This book gave me new insights into what people who are transgendered have to go through. It helped me understand how it happened to them and what was going through their heads as they changed. This book impacted me because of how James’ relationships with his friends, family, and associates changed quite a bit compared to when she was Jennifer. Every friendship was tested. The most impacting part was how his wife was now his sister in a way and their love for each other changed very much. Her life was also crazy and confusing which adds to the aww that you feel when reading it. Richard Russo, James and Jennifers best friend, said, “A plot, I used to remind my students, is not merely a sequence of events: "A" followed by "B" followed by "C" followed by "D." Rather, it's a series of events linked by cause and effect: "A" causes "B," which causes "C," and so on. True, a person's (or a fictional character's) destiny may be more than the sum of his choices--fate and luck play a role as well--but only scientists (and not all of them) believe that free will is a sham. People in life--and therefore in fiction--must choose, and their choices must have meaningful consequences. Otherwise, there's no story.” Written by Adam I chose to read Juvenile in Justice by Richard Ross. This is a non-fiction picture book that was created in order to expose the flaws within our modern juvenile system.This book actually fits all three of the challenges guidelines. It is a picture book of sorts,which is a format I rarely read for fun, but I have grown to enjoy the striking pictures this book exposes. The fact that it is about the juvenile system, a topic I know little about is another reason I was drawn to read this book. Before reading about the the many harmful effects and the little voice these juvies have, I was naive. I thought that our Juvenile systems was needed in order to create great assistance to the juvenile inmates. I now realize that our system is not even close to perfect, in fact it is rare for developed countries such as ours to use such systems.The stories of the many people living in a completely different world than me was another one of the challenges. This book fit this guideline perfectly. After reading a few of these stories the inmates had told, I realized that many of these kids were from families and communities without resources thrown into tough situations. I now understood that they are not all psychopaths that had committed serious crimes in fact most of them weren’t. After reading this book I felt depressed knowing that many of these kids didn’t necessarily commit any serious crimes and were just apart of poor families trying to make a life.The fact of the matter is that once many of these kids leave the system they go back to their same old ways, either ending up killed or back in the juvenile system. The book also explained how many of these kids are given little voice, unlike adult inmates in prison, which are given the right to a speedy trial. This means that they may have to wait around 5-10 years without even being convicted. I now realize that many of these kids are not necessarily psychopath murders.Knowing this now gives me a different perspective on or juvenile system and gives me insight in order to better advocate for change. As Richard Ross states, “Those confined are youth without voices, from families without resources, in communities without out money.” This quote exposes one of the sad truths about many of our youth confined in the juvenile system. By August The book I read for the Reading Without Walls Challenge was The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. It is the school year of 1991-1992 and the main character, Charlie, is starting his first year of high school. His best friend recently committed suicide, so he has no friends starting the school year. However, Charlie befriends a group of outcast seniors and feels as if he belongs. Throughout the book, the reader learns more about Charlie’s personality and his past. I faced two of the three challenges with this book. Firstly, I don’t normally read books about regular people and their mostly, ordinary lives. I am drawn to sci-fi/fantasy books. This book was about a somewhat regular boy going into high school. There were no magical powers in this book. There were no vampires, werewolves or zombies. The genre was different than most books I read for fun. Second, this book was in letter format. When I find books written in poems or letters, I shy away from them. I assume those books don’t have a lot of depth on the subject. However, this book revealed to me that a book written in a different format than normal is still worth a read. Interestingly, some of the lessons Charlie learned in the book I took into account in my life. Charlie’s Advanced English teacher told Charlie, “It’s just that sometimes people use thought to not participate in life” (Chbosky 24). As an introvert, I don’t normally spend my time with people or talking to people. I find myself thinking quite a lot about life or other things. I will think about things I wish to accomplish, but never start working towards completing those goals. I pass off daydreaming for living. When I read this quote, I knew it to be true about me. Later in the book, Sam is telling Charlie how he puts everyone else’s wants, or what he thinks they want, before what he wants. I sometimes feel at fault for that. Sometimes I feel as if my feelings aren’t as important because I’m not popular or outgoing. It connected with what I have been thinking about with my beliefs recently. A person’s feelings are validated by them being alive. Every breath they breathe and once breathed validates their feelings. There feelings aren’t any less important than the star-football player or the student with the best GPA. Everyone’s feelings matter. This book is the reason why I won’t only read sci-fi or fantasy books anymore. I believe everyone could find something in this book that will make them think. Hopefully, they would then act on what they have learned and participate in their life. I know I will definitely find ways to participate in my life. Written by Sydney The book I choose to read for the reading without walls challenge was How They Met And Other Stories by David Levithan. This cute little book had a different story for every chapter. Many of them were about how people met, not all romantic. This book, in a way, met two out of the three challenges. Some of the people in the stories were gay or a different race. You can kinda fit this book into a different format with multiple stories, something I don’t normally read. I picked this book because I’m a sucker for cute love stories and also any other cute stories. I also found it interesting to have the stories in first person so you could really see how they were experiencing life at that moment. Most of the stories were a story of how someone met their significant other or just a crush. I found them very cute. The first few were of gays and I found every story to be very different and I really liked how I got to feel how they feel and see what they see. I support the LGBTQ comuntiy but I don’t really know much about how they experience romantic relationships; and no surprise, it’s no different then how anyone else does. Other stories were little adventures that I always found myself very engaged in. I hated putting the book down when I had to. The stories always jumped right into the action and kept the energy going. The fun part was that every chapter was a new love starting or a new adventure and I was always excited to see what was coming next. A quote from one of the stories that stood out to me was “You are a second away from saying it.” The next line went right into what, apparently I, was going to say but, being me I overthought this little quote. I thought about how many of us can be one second away from saying something that could impact you and/or someone else but we don’t. I know that’s not what the quote was really about but I kinda interpreted it to my own way. I loved reading this book that opened my eyes to how other people live their day to day lives or how they live a specific moment in their life. I really think this is the perfect travel book but it also shows you differences in lives that every has, and also the similarities. Written by Kayanne When Michael offered Dylan and Elijah new shoes, Elijah was initially worried that they were connected to something he didn't want to get involved with, but his friends pressured him to accept the shoes."If Elijah's all suspicious, I'll give 'em back."..."Wait! Elijah, come on. He says it's all good."..."You know you want to try 'em on and play."This was how simple and easy it was for Elijah to get mixed up with the Blood Street Nation. In This Way Home, by Wes Moore, Elijah was the high school's star basketball player.He had helped his team win the state championship game and was on the radar of several college recruiters. The summer following his junior year, he and two of his closest friends joined a three-on-three outdoor tournament. His friend Michael apparently found them a sponsor who paid for their shoes and matching jerseys. The shoes were the best ones out there and the jerseys were perfect except for the fact that they had the Blood Street Nation patch, the symbol of the most intimidating gang in the city. Elijah and Dylan, his other friend, were initially suspicious but let it go after Michael said it wasn't a big deal. Elijah's mother eventually caught on to what the patch meant and forced them to stop wearing their jerseys. The three boys won the tournament in their t-shirts and beat up tennis shoes and when Dylan and Michael went home, Elijah went to talk to a college representative. Later his phone refused to stop ringing and people had left him some confusing voicemails. He found out things that he wished he never knew, and realized that nothing is ever predictable.I chose to read this book because I thought it would be interesting to read about something I have no experience with. This book is written from a teen perspective so I could definitely relate to the peer pressure Elijah goes through and how once you give in you can find yourself in a situation you never thought you'd be confronted with. His life is very different from mine, because he lives in a big city with street gangs and he has to be careful who he associates with. In Decorah, while we do have some issues, I don't feel like my safety is being jeopardized when I walk through certain neighborhoods. To me, the way Elijah thought was relatable but the situations he was in were very different from my own experiences and reading this book was a way for me to partially understand what going through this would be like as a teenager.Most people understand that gangs exist and that they aren't good news, but I think the common misconception is that gangs are made of people who explicitly choose to join. Reading this book helped me to understand that it is really easy to get mixed up with a gang, especially if someone is pressuring you into thinking it's not a big deal. I'd like to think that if one of my friends offered me something related to a gang I would refuse their offer right away, but Elijah's experience showed me that it's not as easy as saying no. You never really know how you will react to a situation until you are faced with it. It's far more difficult to realize what you are getting yourself into when your friend is trying to convince you that you aren't doing anything wrong. Written by Cassidy Iranian Escape The book I chose to read for the reading without walls challenge was The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. I chose this book because it is about a character who doesn’t look or live like me, it is about a topic I knew very little about, and it is in a format I don’t normally read. Persepolis is a fairly long graphic memoir about the author, Marji, and her lifelong challenges stemming from her Iranian family. Marji was born in a dangerous time in Iran and went through her childhood facing war and frequent bombings. As she grew up, she began facing more and more legal challenges as a woman in Iran. She was forced to wear a long head-scarf, baggy pants, and clothes that left everything to the imagination. People in this time were not allowed any freedom for expression, and even simple things from music to alcohol to makeup and nailpolish to certain types of clothing and shoes were banned or frowned upon. Parties and fun gatherings were strictly prohibited and women were largely repressed. At about the age of fourteen, Marji’s parents decide it is best to send her to Vienna, Austria to keep her safely away from any bombings and allow her to be more free and expressive. Both during and after finishing her high school education, Marji faces many struggles against drugs and ends up homeless until she finally returns to Iran. Once home, she believes things will become much easier for her, but it ultimately just becomes more and more difficult for her. Reading about Marji’s life in a setting thirty years in the past and seven thousand miles away gave me an entirely new perspective. I used to know next-to-nothing about Iran, but after seeing the detailed description and images that Marjane provides in her story, my understanding has grown quite significantly. According the Persepolis, Iran is often a place that faces war and has nearly since its creation as a country. This story surprised me quite often with the unfair and claustrophobic laws that were getting updated and changed almost every day, and how living in a compressed society where everyone is expected to live almost exactly the same. Since I didn’t know very much about this topic, it very much changed my outlook on many things. The women in Iran were almost always fighting a war of their own, in which men of higher power were suppressing their creativity and hiding their true appearances with sexist laws that even said that women weren’t allowed to testify in a court of law. As many people would expect this to be happening very far in the past, laws like these were still in place and even still getting added to in 1990. This story brought me a whole new perspective about the ways that people should be able to express themselves, and the importance that feminism has even in our modern society. “Why is it that I, as a woman, am expected to feel nothing when watching these men with their clothes sculpted on but they, as men, can get excited by two inches less of my head-scarf?” - Marjane Satrapi By Maddie The book I read was called Every Day by David Levithan. This book is written about a person named A. A wakes up in a new body every day and spends one day living that person’s life for only 24 hours. There is never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A’s race, hair color, body type, eye color, gender, etc. all changed constantly depending on who’s body A is living. The only thing that remains constant is A’s age, which is about 16 years old at the time. A goes each day, body to body, never living it’s own life and never forming any connections. I chose to read this book because I am nothing like A for the obvious reason, A is always changing. I usually don’t read books that are written in this type of setting because I tend to get confused if it’s not just about one character. I ended up really enjoying the way this book was written.This story was not true, so it didn’t inform me on any real world topics. However, it did teach me a lesson.With each chapter there was almost a new message or lesson. The one thing I took away from this book was that actions always have consequences, that when you change things you have to assume the responsibility for doing so; you get glimpses into the head of so many types of people and at the end of the day not only you can learn a thing or two from it, but you can really become a better person. In the book it sounded like A was constantly reminding us that he/she had to be careful with what he/she did in that person’s body. He/she had to be careful about the choices he/she made because if A made the wrong decision, it could changed that person’s life forever. In other words, it was sending a message that what we do with our life or to other people’s lives, could change us forever. A was constantly in a situation where he/she wanted to step in and do what she/he thought was right, but was always drawn back by looking at the consequences. You change things you have to assume the responsibility for doing so, you get glimpses into the head of so many types of people and at the end of the day not only you can learn a thing or two from it, but you can really become a better person.“This is what love does: It makes you want to rewrite the world. It makes you want to choose the characters, build the scenery, guide the plot. The person you love sits across from you, and you want to do everything in your power to make it possible, endlessly possible. And when it’s just the two of you, alone in a room, you can pretend that this is how it is, this is how it will be.” The format of this book was different than something I would usually read, but I ended up enjoying it. The story was changing characters constantly and that was something different for me. I usually read a story about a character who would be my age and typically the same gender. The book I would read about would be about something I am interested in. However, I picked out this book not knowing if I would like it or not. I would recommend this type of book to anyone. Elise Miller |
AuthorSTenth grade students at Decorah High School share how they're reading outside of their own experiences and how it has changed them. Categories
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