Sunday, August 23, 2020

Summer Reading Reflection?

 

Hopefully over the summer, you read at least two novels of your choice.

1) Briefly tell me what you read, including the titles and authors.
2) I want to know what you liked about the books, what you learned and, more importantly, what matters to you about the books' content.

*Make sure to adhere to proper conventions and proofread your response. If, for some reason, you did not read two novels, tell me about two novels you have read and answer the above. This blog post must be completed by 3:40p.m. on Thur., Sep. 3rd- Group A/Fri., Sep. 4th- Group B.

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

1. I read Open Fire by Amber Lough, and The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead over the summer.

2. Open Fire is a young adult fiction, Russian set, warzone book. These aspects were what I liked before I even started reading. But after I finished reading this book I was filled with a sense of women’s empowerment, the truth behind a loss and purpose of fulfilling a dream. Open Fire also depicts warfare training and combat, topics that I had a pleasure of learning about. However what mattered to me most about the book was not its setting, or genre, but the message of power women have, their struggles in a very gender inequal fictional world. I have always wanted to learn more about slavery, and one of my former teachers recommended The Underground Railroad. What I liked about this book is the slower paced writing style, and the organization of the book which sets the tone for this historical fiction piece. Inside every page small details about a character’s mindset, conversations, and treatment expanded and deepened my knowledge about slavery. So what truly mattered to me is the startling truth, and cruel reality of slavery that makes up a large part of not only what this book is about but what it represents.

Anonymous said...

1. I read The Dark Tower: Wolves Of Calla and The Dark Tower: Song Of Susannah both by Stephan king

2. The dark tower series is a young adult fiction book about how Rolang and friends have to go save all the universes and worlds there are and they have to save the dark tower the one thing keeping time itself and reality from destroying its self realizing all dark and killing everything. It is a thrilling adventure from start to finish. I personally liked it for I love the way Stephan King writes and how all his books have an unescapable feeling of horror to them. I personally read them for it sounded like a fun premise and I wanted to know more. Now what I learned was that Stephan King is not very good and writing endings also that Stephan King really did not like the Dark Tower series when it started out. But what matters to me is that the book was fun to read and was a nice challenge. I loved the series.

Anonymous said...

1. I read Thunder Head by Neal Shusterman, and The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom.

2. Thunder Head is a dystopian science fiction novel. It is the second book in the Scythe series. This book is set in a world where an A.I known as the Thunder Head is the governing body. The Thunder Head controls everything; everything, but the Scythedom. In this world, death has been conquered. Scythes are the only thing that cause death, their job is to "glean" or simply put, kill people. The novel follows, Citra, Rowan, and Greyson. Specifically their affairs with the Scythedom, and Thunderhead. I liked this book for many reasons. One, being the specifically created world that gives the reader a descriptive image of what life would be like with the Thunderhead. I also liked, how the world is futuristic but also carries aspects of today's society. I could very well see our world transforming into the one Shusterman created, which is both terrifying and exciting. What matters to me about the content of this book, is the way it shows you that no matter what "perfect" world we create, there will always be flaws.

The Five People You Meet In Heaven, is a psychological fiction novel. It follows, in detail, the life and death of Eddie. This book without a doubt makes you ponder every part of life after you die. That's what is great about this book. I love the way it makes you think about every possible way you've impacted yourself and others. One specific event in this novel made me think about my life deeply. Eddie was playing baseball with his friends when the ball was hit into the street. Eddie, being a child and not knowing any better went in the middle of traffic to retrieve the ball. A car was rushing towards him with an elderly man behind the wheel, the man swerved around Eddie. The thing Eddie didn't realize was the old man had a heart attack from the rush of adrenaline, and later passed away. I relate to this because, this summer I was riding my bike and got hit by a car. I definitely thought about the impact the accident had on me; but, this scene from the book made me think about the effect the crash had on the woman driver. Overall, both were great reads.

Anonymous said...

1) I read Flush by Carl Hiaasen and The House of Hades by rick riordan . Flush is a book about a family who find out that another person who owns a casino boat is dumping the sewage tanks into the reservoir. This family decides to take action and frame them, in the act.the house of hades is the 4th book in the series The Heroes of Olympus. the book continues the story from the last book where Percy and Annabeth, two of the main characters got stuck in tartarus.. tartarus is one of the deepest parts of hell. They have to fight and run tol the doors of death to get back to the normal world.

2) What I liked about the book Flush was the family aspect of the story where they all worked together to take down the boss who is dumping the sewage into the water. they all have special roles in taking down Dusty, who is the one who is dumping the sewage tanks. there are four family members, a dad, mom, sister and a brother. They all have their own parts in the story but when they came together they beat Dusty.
I learned from this book is that family matters m ore than anything. you can never leave one of your family members behind no matter what. what mattered in this book is the teamwork and friendship. Without these aspects then they could never be able to beat DUsty.


What I liked about The House of Hades is the teamwork in the story. When Percy ANd Annabeth got stuck in tartarus they needed teamwork to make it out alive. They found someone down there who helped them get past all of the demons and monsters of tartarus. I learned that you have to fight for what you want because if you don't try you will never succeed. what mattered in this book was also the teamwork because without it Percy and Annabeth would have never made it out of tartarus alive.

Anonymous said...

1. I read a book called The Light We Lost By:Jill Santopolo and Dear Martin By:Nic Stone

1. The book The Light We Lost is about two college students that meet on 911. They were in classes when the bombing happened then they went back to the guys place ( his name was Gabe) the girl Lucy stayed at his apartment and then eventually left after a little. They fell in love, they were off and on for years they book up and moved on with their lives. Lucy got married and made a family and Gabe was traveling the wold and working on his art, then the reconnected and fell back in love. The book Dear Martin was about a boy named Justyce McAllister, he was a vacuum of racial profiling. Throughout the book we was writing letter so Dr. martin Luther king as his way to cope and understand things.

2. What I liked about The Light We lost is how Lucy and Gabe never fall out of love after everything that they went through. Even thought they went through a lot of rough patched they still found a way back to each other. Im not really sure what I learned form this book but if I learned something i would say that true love is real and you just need to fight for it. What I liked about the content of this book would probably be how Lucy and Gabe never gave up on each other. What I liked about dear Martin is how it was a glimpse into real issues, I liked how real the writing was, and how I was mad and sad while reading this book. I learned that these are real issues going on and that they need to stop. what I liked about etc content of this book is how real the problems were and how we was writing letters to Dr.martin Luther king throught the book

Anonymous said...

I read Touching the Void by Joe Simpson and Miracle in the Andes by Nando Parrado. Both of these books are true stories told from the perspective of the writer.

1. Touching the Void by Joe Simpson is a true story of Joe Simpson's miraculous survival on the 21,000-foot peaks in the Andes. Joe Simpson and his climbing partner, Simon Yates, had just reached the peak of the Andes when suddenly disaster struck. After Simpson breaks his leg, Yates is left to descend the mountain with Simpson attached to him with a rope. As Yates is lowering Simpson down, a blizzard suddenly appears. The lack of ability to hear one another or see one another makes this a very hard task for Yates. Suddenly Simpson starts to fall down rapidly. Yates feels the rope running fast through his hands and decides to cut the rope to save himself. This leaves Simpson falling 100 feet into a small crevasse. As Yates trudges back to base camp with the guilt that he had killed his friend, Joe has the fight of his life as he has to descend the whole mountain with a broken leg, no food, and no water for days. I liked how the book follows both of the people and how Simpson really makes you feel his pain and torment of getting off the Andes with a leg snapped in half . I learned that there are always two sides to a story. Although it may seem selfish that Yates cut the rope, his side of the story explains his thought process and why he chose that decision. What mattered to me the most about the book's content is the lesson that is portrayed. To me one of the lessons was, no matter the circumstances if you get up and keep trying you will make it. Simpson could have given up in the crevasse and died, but he got up and went through the pain, suffering, starvation, and hallucinations and kept trying. He fell down and was in horrible conditions but he pushed himself and achieved his goal against all odds.

2. Miracle in the Andes by Nando Parrado is a true story of Nando Parrado and his rugby team surviving the plane crash in the Andes on October 13, 1972. Nando Parrado and his Rugby team were traveling to Chile for a game when suddenly their plane crashed. Many members of the team and their family members died in the initial crash, including Parrado's sister and mother. Parrado's details of the brutality of the crash and the way he saw his friends and family die were horrifying. Although most of the people on the plane survived, many would not make it to the time they were rescued 72 days later. Parrado and the other survivors were okay for the first few days but ran out of food shortly. This led them to begin to starve. After a while many of them knew they needed some food source. Everyone would eventually resort to cannibalism. Later they heard that the government was searching for them, but they were so deep in the Andes that aerial vehicles couldn’t even get near them. The government calls off the search and the team is left to escape by themselves. I really liked how this book makes you feel like you are there and are actually getting to know these people before and after the crash. It makes you feel like you actually care about that person and want to see all of them succeed. I learned that any seemingly normal day can turn into a disaster at any moment, and that we should appreciate every "normal" thing/day that we have. In the book everyone was happy and were ready to play and have fun, but suddenly the plane engine failed and they were stuck on one of the most deadly mountain ranges for 72 days. We have to appreciate every moment that we have. The thing that mattered to me the most about the books content was the brotherhood between all the survivors. This mattered the most to me because it showed how all of these people needed one another, and how none of them would have made it as far as they did without each other. Everyone had their own unique skills that helped one another. Through this brotherhood, as a reader, I felt connected with the people. I ended up feeling like I knew each person and actually cared about them.

Anonymous said...

1. I read The Compound by S.A Bodeen and The Fault In Our Stars by John Green

2. The book The Compound is about a rich family during an apocalypse. The characters decide to go camping before this and it is the main character and all of his friends hanging out together. There is a warning that an apocalypse happening They all hear the announcement and The family goes to the shelter. The book is from a child's perspective and It is told to lead into deep thoughts about this book. I really liked it because it uses a sort of alone setting even though there are others there. They spend a long time in there due to the long-lasting state of the Apocolypse. The ending is a good cliffhanger and makes you want to read more of the series. The other story that I read was The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. This book was really interesting because it was about a 16-year-old girl with cancer and a 17-year-old boy who had a tumor in his leg. She meets this boy at a recovery group session and they go to watch a movie together. They become best friends and hang out as much as possible. They end up falling in love and Traveling to Amsterdam to try and find their favorite author of a book series. This book is one that I Could not put down because there was too much of a connection and it kept me alive. I was not bored one bit when I read this.

Devon Dumpert said...

1) This summer I read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden.

2) The book To Kill a Mockingbird follows the life of a small African American family living in Maycomb, Alabama in the 1960's. Closer to the beginning of the book the author focuses of the family's tough life in Maycomb. One of the main topics in the begginig is about Boo Radley who stays inside most all day due to events that happened in his past. The kids fear Boo Radley but towards the end of the book he saves the kids from an attack. The main part of the book is about Atticus Finch who defends Tom Robinson who is framed for molesting a young white lady. This story is a very important piece of literature because of the message one can pull away from this book. I felt like this was important for me to read because it let me realize a deeper message of racism, friendship and personal values. "If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If the're all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other?". This quote from Jem touched me because it made me ask myself why is that so true? Why do people go out of their way to be rancid to one another when everyone can simply be nice. I feel like To Kill a Mockingbird answers those questions.

The second book I read was Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden. This book I really enjoyed because I felt like I could connect to it because of events like this my family have had to go through with my dad. Black Hawk Down is about the battle of Mogadishu which was launched in 1993 in order for American troops to capture important allies of Gen Mohamed Farah Aideed. Many things went wrong throughout the operation such as two black hawks getting shot down. This book shows the importance of friendship and always having one another back even at the worst situation when you would want to just worry about yourself. I was very happy to read this book and was unable to put it down.

Anonymous said...

1. This summer I read If I Stay by Gayle Foreman and The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot.

2. If I Stay is about 17-year-old Mia Hall as she deals with the aftermath of a catastrophic car accident involving her family. While Mia is in a coma, she has a crucial decision to make of whether she wants to fight to live or let go. Unfortunately in the crash, Mia had lost her Mom, Dad and her little brother, making Mia the only one in her family to survive. What I liked about the book was the originality of it. The story made me wonder and experience how coma patients feel. While reading the book, I learned that tough decisions always comes with sacrifice. The book's details and content really made me ponder about what it’s like to have an out of body experience and look back at your life and decide whether it's worth finishing your story. In Mia’s case, it's seeing her Mom, Dad and her little brother again or staying on Earth with her boyfriend Adam and best friend Kim.

The second book I read is The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot. The Princess Diaries is written in the form of diary entries by fifteen-year-old Mia Thermopolis, a freshman at Albert Einstein High School. Mia attends a private school in New York City and is raised by her liberal artist mother Helen in Greenwich Village, Manhattan. But Mia's world is turned upside down when her father comes to visit, revealing that he is not actually a European politician, but the prince of the small country Genovia. I liked the details the author added. It made me feel like I shared the same experience as Mia and was with her as she navigated through the astonishing announcement. I took away from the book to always take chances despite circumstances. Lastly, the book's content inspired me to try new opportunities.

Anonymous said...

1. This summer I read Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden and The Maze Runner by James Dashner.

2. Black Hawk Down is about the battle of Mogadishu in Somalia. This is a book about a part of Operation Restore Hope. This mission was a U.S. initiative supporting a United Nations resolution aiming to stop widespread starvation. On October 23, 1993, around 100 elite US solders, called Rangers, were flown, by helicopter into the middle of Mogadishu, Somalia. The objective that night was to abduct two top lieutenants of a Somalian warlord by the name of Gen Mohamed Farah Aideed. This operation was planned to take an hour. It did not go as planned. The Rangers soon found out that they highly underestimated their enemy. They would spend the night fighting for their lives as they wait for a lost convoy of armored vehicles to find their way to the sites of two black hawk attack helicopters that were shot down with RPGs. What I liked about this book is that this book is the most accurate novel about the battle of Mogadishu. I give a lot of respect to Mark Bowden for all the work he went through to get to write this battle in the detail that he did. The thing that stood out to me is the Americans' perseverance, determination, and never give up attitude that greatly helped most of them survive this battle.

The second book I read was The Maze Runner by James Dashner. This book is about a teenager named Thomas who wakes up in a metal box and the only thing he remembers is his name and how to speak English. The box that he was in was actually an elevator. When he reached the top of the elevator, he was in a place surrounded by giant stone walls called the glade. The glade had four sides, each had a section in the middle of the wall that lead out into the maze. What I like about this book is that it's a lot like adjusting to a new school, it's a new place with new people. Some people are nice to you and some aren't, and you need some help figuring out where and what everything is. What matters to me is the motivation of all the people in the glade, some of them had been there for two years but they still have hope to one day solve the maze and they never gave up.

Anonymous said...

Hi I am Ethan W. I was the comment who read the dark tower series. I am sorry I can not find a way to edit that comment so I can only make this one.

Anonymous said...

This summer I read Little Women by: Louisa May Alcott and Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by: Douglas Adams.

1.) Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was a book I really enjoyed and I didn't think I would. It is about a man named Author who travels the galaxy and his friends decides to write a a new Hitchhikers Guide to the galaxy, there was another one but this book was outdated. The whole reason Author starts this new journey is because he spend 18 years of his life on Earth. He only wanted to go for a week or so, but he decided to stay for longer. 18 years longer. I really like how the books had comedy, I usually read dark scary murder books, but I my dad told me it was a funny book, and I actually enjoyed that about it. I learned a lot about to take fun in the journey and life can be very short, and over in less than a second. I think that that is a very important because there are a lot of things we take for granted.

2.)Little Women was another book I read. I had watched the movies when I was a lot younger so I hardly remembered what to expect. I really enjoyed this book because it reminded me a lot of my childhood, I also loved reading all the new detail and all the new story lines. What made it important to me is it makes me very happy that I didn't live in the 1800's because they had it a lot harder back then.

Anonymous said...


1. The first book I read was No Summit out of Sight by Jordan Romero and Linda LeBlanc and it is a book about a young teenager that climbs the 8 tallest summits in the world. What I liked about this book is that it had lots of detail and something I learned from this book was the adventure of mountain climbing. Something in this book's content that matters to me is I got to learn that most of time you can accomplish your dream.

2. Another book that I read over this summer was the first book the the Twilight Saga called "Twilight" by Stephenie Meyer. This particular book in the saga was about a teenager falling in love with a vampire and they go through dangerous events together. What I liked about this book was it had a good plot and an interesting story line. Something I learned from this book is that trust is a really important part in a good relationship and what really matter to me about this books' content is that I am team Edward because Bella has more of a relationship with him other than Jacob.

Unknown said...

Raney Savage

1. I read shattering glass by Gail Giles and low red moon by Ivy Devlin.

2. What I liked about the novel "Shattering Glass" was that there was a big plot twist that made you think about the characters previous self/actions and how that comes through in the end. After reading this novel, I learned to never fully put your trust into a person who has proven not to be fully trustworthy. The thing that mattered to me the most in this story is the care taken to change this person into someone who will have a better life in school and around other people. What i liked about the novel "Low Red Moon" was the romance between the two characters and how things from the past and hidden among themselves comes out and causes major conflicts. I learned from this book that there is always a need to dig below the surface of someone to find out if they are a good person or not. What mattered the most to me in this story was that these two people had fallen in love, but there was a conflict between them which caused them to have a fight.

Anonymous said...

I read the book deadline, by Chris Cruter. It was about a boy in senior year in highschool,he has a rare blood disease that will kill him. He does not want to do anything about it because he justwants to live life to the fullest of what he has left rather than get treatment. He triyes all diffrent things such as playing football. He was a very skiny kid but he eventuly became the best player on the football team. The rest of the book talks about what happened and what his decision was. Read the rest to find out what happend.

I was gonna read the Mockingjay I read all the other books but I did not quite get to this book yet. The other books were amazing, I did not want to stop reading the more you read the more you couldn't stop reading. That book has aa lot of problems that we could relate to. I think the two books that I read so far the best books I have every read. Jaxton.K