Love, Hate & Other Filters, by Samira Ahmed, is about a young Muslim-Indian girl named Maya growing up in Illinois under strict expectations from her parents who, do want the best for her, are very against her pursuing her true dreams of going to film school and eventually basing her career on it. They want her to follow a more “sensible” occupation like being a doctor or a lawyer, but she has a true passion for film and decides to apply to NYU for film school with her partner-in-crime Hina, her mom’s younger sister, and gets in. All while trying to juggle her parent's nonsupport of her filming, and trying to find a way to tell them about her acceptance, she finds herself in an arduous love triangle. On one hand, there is there is Kareem, the sensible Muslim-Indian boy, in college at Princeton, majoring in engineering, that does actually hold Maya’s interest and is actually kind of fun for her to hang out with and talk to, that her parents would love for her to be with. But, on the other hand, there is Phil, Maya’s longtime crush since grade school, who dreams of going to college in Vermont and becoming an EMT, who is also undeniably white and different than her familial customs and who her parents most definitely would never want her being with. Through all of this love, hate, and hardship, Maya is faced with yet another obstacle. Islamophobia. After a terrorist attack is announced in Illinois, a classmate of hers named Brian becomes fixated on the fact that Maya and her family are Muslim. Hate crimes against Maya and her family ensue due to his prejudice and Maya must find a way to deal with it all. Will Maya be able to make it out of Illinois and finally pursue her dream? Read Love, Hate and Other Filters to find out! I chose this book because I recently did another English project on Islamophobia and the effects it’s having in our society, so I was already interested in part of that topic. This book features Maya, who struggles throughout the book with issues involving her pursuit of film school without her parent's knowledge, her Indian parents expectations, and her faith (Muslim) and how people view it/unfairly link it to terrorism. I personally do not struggle with any of these things. I am not a Muslim, my parents are not Indian, and I am not pursuing film school behind my parents back. This book met these guidelines based on these differences between Maya and me, but also because I think that because her experiences were so different from my day to day ones, I made me think more about her struggles and how I would deal with and handle them, so in a way it made me “break through the wall” so to say in order to fully understand and place myself in Maya’s shoes throughout the book. Quote: “It’s selfish and horrible, but in this terrible moment, all I want is to be a plain old American teenager. Who can simply mourn without fear. Who doesn’t share last names with a suicide bomber. Who goes to dances and can talk to her parents about anything and can walk around without always being anxious. And who isn’t a presumed terrorist first and an American second” - Samira Ahmed, Love, Hate & Other Filters
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Imagine being on death row as a teenager in high school. We’ll Fly Away by Bryan Bliss, is a captivating story about two teenage boys and how one of them ends up on death row. Not only is it about one of the boys experience on death row, but about how they survive their challenging lifestyles. Both boys have struggling, abusive families, and learned how to live on their own at a young age. Their names are Luke and Toby. Luke lives with his mother and his two younger brothers Petey and Jack. They live in a small apartment that they can barely afford the rent for. His mother has been off and on with work, as well as going on trips with men she meets. Luke is in charge of taking care of his brothers, cleaning, cooking, and practically anything else that needs to be done. Toby often comes over to Luke’s apartment and helps him do his chores. He does this to escape his abusive father, who is often drunk most nights. Luke and Toby stick together to make each other's lives easier, and this has created an inseparable bond between them, or at least until other factors got involved. Toby, Luke, and I are not very alike. We have only a few similarities, such as we are all teenagers in high school. Luke had a scholarship to wrestle at Iowa which made the book more interesting to read knowing there was some connection to where I live. Other than that our lives and experiences are drastically different. There are small differences, as well as significantly large differences. For one, I am a female, and both Toby and Jack are males. It was interesting to hear about high school from a male's perspective. Another difference between us is our lifestyles, I come from a well off family, with both parents around. I never have had to endure the same struggle that Toby and Luke have experienced with their abusive families.The larger difference between particularly Luke and I is that Luke is living his teenage years on death row. The book switched back and forth between the events leading up to him ending up in death row, and letters he wrote to Toby once he was in jail. I think because of these differences between the characters and I in this story, it meets the criteria of this challenge. “I didn't want to hear another word he was saying, but then he was like, "You get to choose if you care. They can't take that away from you. And you get to choose if you're going to walk through the rest of your life like a dead man. I've made my choice." The main focus of the story was what happened leading up to Luke's time on death row. But, after finishing the story I realized I gained the most insight from the small portions of the book when Luke was in jail. Luke became super good friends with a guy named Eddie when he was on death row. Eddie was one of the most impactful people in Luke's life. He made Luke think about his actions and words and how they can harm or help him. Along with impacting Luke’s life, Eddies words impacted mine as well. The quote I stated earlier stuck with me long after I read it. Yes, our lives are completely different, but we both had the choice of which road to go down. The book I decided to pick from the library shelf was American Street by Ibi Zoboi. It told of a teenage girl, Fabiola, who moved to Detroit from Haiti. She experiences her mother’s detainment in the US, while trying to adjust to the new ways of life in Detroit with her aunt and cousins. Through her time, she finds love and family, forcing her to make tough decisions as opportunities arise. With these new experiences in her new home, Fabiola changes from an innocent, naive Haitian girl. I picked this book because it challenged my perspective of what other teenagers’ lives are like. Fabiola and her cousins lived in Detroit, a city much more dangerous and violent than my own. This, as a result, changed the way the teenagers lived their lives, such as keeping a gun in the house. In addition, the family in the book was a different race than I, so I noticed the racism that they faced. For example, how unfairly the police treated the people in Fabiola’s neighborhood. Also, this book broadened my cultural views. The Haitian religion Fabiola believed in, was much different than any religion I participate in or have learned about. In addition, this book challenged the family setting that I know. In the story, Fabiola’s mother was being detained because she wasn’t a U.S. citizen. I never have to worry about my family being split up or being taken away. The book meets this reading without walls guidelines because, although it is about a teenager, her life and culture is completely different than mine. The bad situations that come upon her are much worse than I can even imagine. From reading this book, I have begun to understand what it’s like living in a dangerous place. Since the story was told from Fabiola’s first-person account, I began to understand what she was feeling as she encountered danger and hardships in her life. I also took, from the book, how difficult it is for an outsider to live in a different world, as seen when Fabiola moved to Detroit from Haiti. Right from the beginning, Fabiola felt alien to her new world. “Is she[Fabiola’s mom] being detained? I stare and blink and shake my head. I search my brain for this word, trying to find the Creole word for it.” Though her life is unlike mine, after reading the book, I could still find ways to relate to Fabiola and her family. Through all of her loss, she still had the love from her cousins and aunt. Fabiola having to experience all of the danger of Detroit made me feel very sympathetic for the people who are stuck in those areas. Also, it made me realize how easy it would be to take up bad habits in order to protect family. Fabiola beginning her new life in Detroit as an innocent Haitian girl and growing to be one of the Four Bees showed me that people can change through experiences, time, and people. Finally, the “real” language that the author used really helped me see that, although their lives are different from my own, those lives still exist and need to be recognized. By Morgan I read the book, How Dare the Sun Rise, by Sandra Uwiringiyimana. This book explains Sandra’s childhood experiences with war, being a refugee, living in poverty, being an immigrant, and working to make a better world. She grew up in Democratic Republic of the Congo in Africa, and when she was ten years old her family was forced to go to a refugee camp in Burundi. Soon after they arrived in the refugee camp there was a massacre where her younger sister died, along with many friends and family. Sandra’s family then went to Rwanda where they lived in extreme poverty for the whole time they were there. The United Nations eventually gives them an opportunity to move to the United States, where they think they will have a much better life. They move to Rochester, New York, and although they live in a safer place than before, they have to work very hard to make money, communicate with people, and become citizens. Sandra eventually graduates high school, goes to college, and works to make a better community for people like her. However, in the end she is still haunted by memories of the massacre, refugee camp, and all of the war she lived through as a child. This book was about a person whose life was very different from mine. Sandra’s childhood was full of war and conflict. She hardly had a single year of school that wasn’t interrupted by a war, she lived in poverty for many years, and once she got to the United States she and her family were continually misunderstood. In the book she says, “People sometimes say to me, ‘Oh, you’re so lucky.’ When people say that, I kind of want to punch them in the face. Just because you resettle people doesn’t mean that their lives are suddenly perfect. I lost my little sister in a massacre, fell into the depths of poverty, and fled my homeland. All that, to get to America.” This helped me understand that you can’t just assume what someone thinks or feels about a situation. It also made me realize that immigrants don’t always have a perfect life just because they moved somewhere new. I have never experienced anything she did, or anything even close, but this book helped me to be more empathetic to people who have. Before reading this book, I didn’t have a negative opinion towards immigrants or refugees, but I also didn’t know any specific stories of real people who had those experiences. In this book, Sandra talked about not wanting to be seen as a statistic, or just part of a group of people who are only seen as refugees. Reading this book impacted how I think of refugees, because it made me see them more as people with real lives and personalities. I realized that not everyone who moves to the United States wants to, and may not even have a positive experience here. They also have an entire life that they are leaving behind in their home country, and even if it was a life of poverty or war, they still have connections to that place. I chose to read this book because I knew that I would be reading about someone whose experiences in childhood were extremely different from mine. Reading this book helped me see some of those things from a different perspective, and not just assume that everyone who is living in a poor country has a better life when they come to the United States. I think that this book helped me see the issue of immigration and refugees from a more broad point of view, and it helped me realize that it is important to think about others and realize that everyone has different opinions, and sees things differently through what they have experienced. Meredith T. Imagine being a black lawyer in the late 1980’s for people on death row. Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, is a captivating story about how he handles different cases for people on death row. Bryan Stevenson, a black lawyer who represents people on death row, opened a non profit law organization, Equal Justice Initiative, to help poor people in jail who couldn’t afford an attorney. As I read this story I was captivated by Bryan’s story and his clients stories. A lawyer's perspective of the judicial system is totally different than mine. I never realize how biased the jury could be until I read this book. It showed what is truly behind the walls of the justice system and jails and how racism convinces many people to think wrongly about the defendant. This book fit this challenge because I typically go for fiction books because I love how the story is made up and can be sad without bringing you down too much, unlike a nonfiction book about people on death row. I realized how unfair our justice system can be at times, especially when blacks didn’t have as much equality as they do now. Bryan Stevenson was from a poor family who lived in Delaware. He mentions that his grandparents had been slaves in Virginia. He talked about how his grandmother would pull him close to her to see if he felt her presence and if he said no, she would squeeze him harder. His grandfather had been murdered when Bryan was a teenagers. He family did manage to send Bryan to school and he eventually attended Eastern College than Harvard Law School. After finishing college he started representing people on death row then eventually co-owned his own law firm, Equal Justice Initiative. Unfairness in the judicial system is the biggest theme in this book. Just Mercy focuses on a client that Bryan Stevenson represented, Walter McMillian. He is a black man who was accused of rapping a white woman. He was never in trouble with the law and was respected by both white and black communities. McMillian had been having an affair with Karen Kelly, a white woman. This book follows Stevenson’s journey with his case. However, this shows how black men were more susceptible to being arrested and condemned to death row.“We can’t help people on death row without help from people like you.” Just Mercy made me feel so many emotions. From being happy to sad to angry with our country. I never imagined myself sitting down and reading a book based off of documents and real case files about people and their lives. Their stories were so heartbreaking, but it seemed as if Stevenson was trying to show us that we need to step up and take action in this problem just like Steve had told Bryan when he first started. Bryan Stevenson started out as a small nonprofit law organization with not much of anything, but even the littlest things make a big difference. I read “Friday Night Lights” by H. G. Bissinger. Friday Night Lights takes place in Odessa, Texas. In Odessa everything revolves around football. The year is 1988 and the football season is just starting. The book follows players like Brian Chavez, Ivory Christian, Boobie Miles, and Mike Winchell. It also follows head coach Gary Gaines. Every boy who attends Permian High School dreams of playing in the coveted state championship. The players and coaches are all under immense stress to do well by everyone in the town. Coach Gaines gets stress from the financial supporters of the football team. Boobie Miles, the star running back gets hurt during practice and his hopes of a scholarship are crushed. Mike Winchell then has to lead the team. They do well throughout the season and are set to face off against Carter High School. They end up losing 14-9. They return home and have to deal with defeat. I picked this book because I like football, but also knew there would be character's that I don’t have things in common with. The book takes place in Texas where I’ve never been. Also, there are Mexican-American and African-American. I’m caucasian and live in Iowa. I have no idea what it’s like to be someone of color living in Texas. I learned a lot. In the book once Boobie got hurt he was treated like he was useless which shows how race affects decisions made. I also learned about the pressure of being a teenage football player in Texas. Everyone expects you to win the state championship and if you don’t your disgraced. “He responded without the slightest hesitation. 'A big ol’ dumb nigger.'” I chose this quote because one of the coaches says this about Boobie if he didn’t have football. This quote captures the racism involved in the town, school, and football program. I have no idea what it feels like to be criticized just for the color of my skin. I learned a lot from this book about the pressures of being a high school football player in Texas. By Nick Einck “All These Wonders” is a book published by The Moth which is pretty much a bunch of people telling real stories from their life to a live audience. The book is full of stories that the people from The Moth hand picked. In the book instead of having chapters, there are many different categories that are filled with multiple stories. Throughout the book there are 7 categories. These categories and stories can range from being very funny and lighthearted to being very dark, or being about really heavy subjects that the speaker had to experience. The entire point of The Moth is for people to be able to get stuff off of their chest to an audience that won’t ridicule or judge them. This book fit the challenge in so many different ways because of how diverse the book gets in its storytelling. Out of all the stories I read I don’t think I’ve ever felt so awed by what people have experienced and their ability to speak about it in front of an audience. The very first story I read in the book, I just opened up to a random page that had a title and read, it was titled “The Shower”. It was about a Holocaust survivor talking about the rapid change from his happy life at home to being locked in Bergen-Belsen. The chapter the story is in is called Grace Rushes In, which seems really odd considering the fact that the first story is about being a Holocaust survivor. It ended up being in that category because they went to the showers and instead of it really being a gas chamber, hot water really poured down on them, and they got to shower. I couldn’t imagine the fear leading up to that point though, they had all known what happens when you go to the shower normally, but they seemed to be lucky, and they knew it. It would be insanely hard to describe all of the things I experienced and thought while reading this book. As an example from “The Shower”, I learned that even though a situation seems dire, there is always at least a sliver of a chance that it could be completely opposite. I also learned to enjoy what time I have with the people I’m close to from a story called “It Matters A Great Deal”. The story is about a woman’s son going to visit and live with her for a while because she was nearing the end of her life and knew it. The mood between the two of them was dark for a while until the old woman, Patti, said that she doesn’t want to have a death where people are sulking, she wants people to celebrate her life, not mourn her death. Together Patti and her son put together a huge party for her so that she would not be remembered in mourning, but in happiness. This book has taught me so much, which I hate to admit because as a teen I have that mindset of always knowing what’s happening, but this book definitely helped put the world into perspective. The most hard hitting part of the whole book for me though, was a quote from “It Matters A Great Deal” because it reads, “We all fall, and it matters. But when the fall is all you have left, it matters a great deal”. Nolan J. Everyone at one point feels it necessarily to make some type of change in their life, whether it’s moving cities, deep cleaning your room, or dying your hair a vibrant color, change is a necessity and also can make someone feel an array of emotions. Sometimes the change that occurs wasn’t planned, or is someone's worst fear, brought into reality. This is especially true for Julia, after her sister dies in a terrible accident, she’s unable to sleep in her own room. So she often finds herself sneaking into her sisters room long after her parents have fallen asleep. Hoping that maybe this would make her feel closer to her sister, Olga. When looking through her sisters stuff Julia finds something, so unlike her sister. She wonders if she ever really knew her, or if her sister was a complete stranger. This new discovery leads her to wanting to find out more about her sisters double life. “I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter,” was written by Erika L. Sånchez. Its Julias junior year of high school, she’s figuring out what she wants for her career, while constantly arguing with her mother. She mostly just wants a major change in her life, she wants to be independent and able to make her own decisions. Her mother wants the opposite, she’s lead a hard life after crossing the Mexico border into America and she wants Julia to have a better life. Julia leads a pretty normal and calm life, until the day her sister gets hit by a truck while crossing the road. Everyone in her family is devastated, and Julia has lost her closest family member. While trying to find out more about her sister's life, she goes through major changes, maybe ones she didn’t want. I picked this book because even though Julia and I look drastically different and are probably polar opposites when it comes to personalty we still are quite a lot a like. We both have a love for reading and english, but Julia is very outspoken, while I often come off as timid. I think that it also meets the requirements when it comes to how we live, Julia lives in a large city, Chicago to be exact. She regularly ventures to old bookstores and coffee shops. Sometime that can be done in Decorah, but is usually unlikely for me. I learned through reading this book that bad things will always happen to you, it’s unstoppable, but what truly makes a person strong is what they do to overcome adversity and their challenges in life. “Everything changes, for better or for worse, whether we like it or not. Sometimes it’s beautiful, and sometimes it fills us with terror,” (Sånchez 336). By Chloe J. All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr is a historical fiction novel set in World War II-era France and Germany. The book follows the stories of two young teenagers: Marie-Laure LeBlanc from Paris and Werner Pfennig from the Zollverein mining complex in Germany. Werner is an orphaned boy living with his sister, Jutta, and several other children in a home for orphans. Marie-Laure lives in Paris with her father, who works at the Museum of Natural History. She is blind and navigates the city with a 3-dimensional model that her father created for her. During the war, Germans invade Paris and Marie and her father escape to safety in Saint-Malo, where her great-uncle lives (though Saint-Malo is also soon invaded). Werner is fascinated by technology and mechanics, especially radios. He fixes radios for his town, and is eventually noticed by and sent to a school that trains the Hitler Youth. Werner travels to Saint-Malo in the military, and meets Marie-Laure there after the city is bombed. When one of Werner’s military commanders tries to capture Marie-Laure, Werner helps save her by shooting the commander. I chose to read All the Light We Cannot See because it was a book that I had already planned on reading, to be completely honest. I owned a copy and was looking forward to getting into it, and when this project arose, I thought the book would work perfectly! I knew that the main characters were living in WWII and that one of them was blind, and the other an orphan. The era and the struggles the two main characters had are both things that I have never experienced, and likely will never experience in my lifetime. However, upon getting into the first few chapters of the book, I became concerned- I related too much to the characters! I thought that I was going to have to backtrack and choose a different book before I realized something. This challenge is supposed to challenge our perception of life and see the world from another person’s eyes. But, while we all go through different experiences and have different identities, we are all human. The stories from this book represent pains, losses, fears, and joys that I have felt, though through different circumstances. “We are mice, he thinks, and the sky swirls with hawks” (Doerr 89). From the very beginning, this book showcases feelings of fear and feeling alone in the world. This quote from early in the book comes from a moment where Marie-Laure’s father was concerned for both of their lives. His metaphor shows the Germans acting as hawks, surrounding and never ceasing their search, and he and Marie-Laure acting as mice, afraid and constantly running away. This moment was one of the most impactful parts of the book to me, because I’ve never felt a fear that great or all-encompassing. Throughout the book, Marie-Laure and Werner are presented with life-or-death situations that I would never encounter in my day-to-day life. Both children feel very alone at times, with Marie-Laure being blind and losing her family and Werner being orphaned and an “odd-ball” at his school. I have felt alone before, but not to such extremes. The wartime setting opened my eyes to the hardships that families, children especially, had to go through. Though, from reading All the Light We Cannot See, I gained more than just knowledge about what it’s like to live during war, as a blind girl, or as an orphaned boy. I was reminded of how truly connected we all are -how very real the human experience is- and that despite our differences, we can all feel deep empathy for one another. Sarah P. |
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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