"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"- Reading Response

"I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" is a touching autobiography by Maya Angelou. In the blurb on the back cover, it describes a story of a young girl who was raped and has to deal with it for the rest of her life. There is a small part of the story that is about that, but the whole book is not based around that topic. Many people have challenged this book and want it to be banned, probably because of the two rape scenes, but otherwise the book addresses common and in my opinion, age-appropriate issues.  These issues include hard-to-ignore and realistic problems like abandonment and racism. This book should not be banned in middle school libraries.

I don't think this book should be banned because it is a classic and everyone can learn something from it. It has two rape scenes which may be extreme or triggering to some kids, but the blurb does say the book has rape in it, and it should be an expectation for middle-school age kids to know what they can handle in a book.

This book also includes realistic issues like racism and abandonment- issues many kids are exposed to or have to deal with. IKWCBS gives kids dealing with these problems in their life something to relate to.

In conclusion, IKWCBS should not be banned because it is a classic that can help kids deal with real-life issues.

"The Beatles"- A Monday Muse About Music

At the end of fourth grade I watched an animated movie at school about the Beatles called "Yellow Submarine". It was a quirky movie featuring the voices of John, Paul, George, Ringo, and a lot of their songs. I discovered that some songs that I knew well and liked were actually by The Beatles, like "Hard Day's Night" and "Here Comes the Sun". My eyes were glued to the screen throughout the entire movie, and when I got home from school I immediately looked up more songs by my new favorite band. Here began my two-year obsession with the Fab Four.

Being introduced to The Beatles was actually a big step in my life because before that, I was never really into music. There was kids in my class in fourth and fifth grade who had band t-shirts and listened to bands like Pink Floyd, but before The Beatles I had always just listened to whatever came on the radio and my one Kelly Clarkson album. I continued to listen to The Beatles throughout the rest of elementary school. They were my favorite band, and the only band I knew the name of. I became familiar with nearly all of their songs, and eventually discovered some new songs by different bands from the same time period. I found the song "Lola" by The Kinks and "I Get Around" by The Beach Boys because they had been hidden in 60's music playlists filled with mostly Beatles songs.

After the summer of 2011, I kind of laid off listening to The Beatles. They, and the Beach Boys had become the only bands I'd listened to for two years. Going into 6th grad
e my head was filled with old-timey pop ballads, and though I still liked them, by then I'd kind of had enough. In the middle of 7th grade I got into indie rock, and listened to more current bands, like Vampire Weekend, The Killers and Pheonix. By then, music was a way bigger aspect of my life, and made me who I am.

Recently I watched an episode of Glee with a Beatles theme. I found myself singing along to the songs in my head, and I knew all of the words to every one. Though I don't listen to The Beatles as much anymore, it's nice to know that the band that got me into music in the first place hasn't been erased from my mind completely. I never even took down the posters of them on my walls.

"Looking For Alaska" - Reading Response

SPOILER ALERT!

In John Green's "Looking For Alaska", Alaska Young was a reckless teenager with enough charisma and attitude to make a "good boy" like Miles Halter to not only fall in love with her, but mimic her rash behavior. But when Alaska suddenly dies, Miles, or "Pudge", and the rest of Alaska's friends realize how much they took her for granted. I think the theme or lesson of this book is to not take advantage of things and appreciate the people in your life, because you never know what might happen.

One way Pudge took Alaska for granted was the way he and his friends depended on her for cigarettes and booze. She and her friend the Colonel (who soon became Pudge's friend) had gotten Pudge hooked on cigarettes on his first day at their boarding school, and later on they got him to start drinking too. After Alaska died, Pudge and the Colonel had no supply of cigarettes and they had to get their own booze. In the story, Pudge says "...you can't just make me different and then die". He's talking about Alaska and how she changed him as a person and then just left him. This shows that Pudge always expected Alaska to be there to supply him with the things that made him a different person from who he was before he came to the school. 

The previous point also applies to how when Pudge fell in love with her he never thought that one day she wouldn't be there. For example, he always thought they had something special because she flirted with him all the time, even though she always said "too bad I love my boyfriend". Also, the day Alaska died, she dared Pudge to hook up with her, even though they both were in relationships. Pudge complied immediately, but he never thought that a few hours later she would be dead. He never took the time to tell her how much he loved her because he took advantage of her flirting with him and never sorted out their relationship.

The theme of "Looking for Alaska" is to not take people for granted. Pudge and his friends were very reliant on Alaska for cigarettes and alcohol, and Pudge never bothered to sort out his relationship with her because he thought she would always be there. The book taught me to not take advantage of people and always make sure not to leave things open-ended.

"An Abundance of Katherines"- Reading Response

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!

Colin Singleton of "An Abundance of Katherines", a book by John Green, is a child prodigy who has only ever dated girls named Katherine. Nineteen of them, in fact, and every single one has dumped him. When his most recent Katherine girlfriend breaks his heart, Colin's best friend Hassan decides to take him on a road trip. The two end up staying in Gunshot, Tennessee with a girl Colin's age named Lindsey and her mother, Hollis. At the beginning of the story, they are just friends. Colin is still in love with Katherine #19, and Lindsey has a boyfriend, whose name also happens to be Colin. Later in the book, Lindsey and Colin learn more about each other and become a lot closer, then at they very end they actually end up dating. Lindsey and Colin's relationship develops a lot throughout the story.

At the beginning of the story, Colin and Lindsey are just friends, and have a lot keeping them apart. For example, Colin, being a child prodigy and a boy who has only dated Katherines, spends all of his time reading and moping about K19 (his most recent heartbreaker).  "The house smelled... like K19's basement... [it] brought him back to a time when she loved him... and his gut ached anew." This is shows that when he first meets Lindsey, he is obviously still in love with K19. Also, since at first in was an accident that he only dated Kathrines, he had unintentionally developed a preference for them and pretty much thought about them all the time. He even was working on a theorem to predict his relationships so he wouldn't get dumped by a Katherine yet again. In his mind he could never love a Lindsey. Another example of what keeps Lindsey and Colin apart is Lindsey's boyfriend, also named Colin (or, as Hassan and Colin Singleton called him "TOC"- The Other Colin). In the beginning of the story, Lindsey is very in love with him. She is always ditching Colin and Hassan to go hang out with him.

Towards the end of the story, Colin and Lindsey's relationship develops a lot more. They begin to trust each other. For instance, Lindsey says she has a "private habit" of biting the inside of her thumb, but she still does it in front of Colin. Another big clue that they are getting closer is Lindsey shows Colin a secret hiding place of hers, and she lets him sit there and talk with her. She hadn't even shown this place to her boyfriend. Also, Colin begins to care about Lindsey more and less about Katherines. Very near to the end of the story, Colin and Hassan catch TOC cheating on Lindsey with her best friend. When he finds them, "For reasons he didn't understand, Colin felt a pulsing rage..." This, I think, is when Colin begins to realize he has a crush on Lindsey. 

At the end of the story, Colin finds Lindsey in her hiding place, and they both realize they like each other. When Colin and Lindsey first met, they kept their distance from each other because they were in love with other people. They slowly become closer and closer until finally they end up dating. This shows that their relationship developed a lot from the start of the book to the end.

"Free?"- Summer Reading Response

The book "Free?" is a collection of short stories, each written by a different author, all based around one major theme. This theme is human rights; more specifically human rights laws, seeing that every story is based off of one of these laws. The most interesting thing about this book is how in some of the stories, the theme is not clear until the very end. I think the purpose of the book was to have the reader reflect back on each of the stories and really think about how it relates to the theme and maybe even our lives. 

The theme of "Free?" is clearly human rights, but in some of the short stories this theme is unclear until the end. For example, one of the stories, "Prince Francis", seems to be about a boy called Francis who is seeing his friends being interviewed about their lives and families for a school project, then he himself is interviewed and he mentions an imaginary country that he and his father made up, but the interviewer is skeptical about it. But, at the end of the chapter/story, just like at the end of every chapter, the true meaning of the story is revealed, and the book tells us which human rights article the story relates to. At the end of "Prince Francis", it is revealed that the article it relates to is "Article 15: We all have the right to belong to a country". This explanation of the story gives me, the reader, a chance to look back on it and realize that the interviewer being skeptical about Francis' made-up country may be a metaphor for this basic human right.

Every story in "Free?" has a specific human rights law that it relates to. The law is mentioned at the end of each story, giving the reader a chance to reflect on how it relates to that story. I think this was the purpose of the whole collection, to relate and reflect on each story and how it relates back to the theme.