Battle of the Books

1/22/15
Book "The Thief Lord"
Pages read:8-37
Prompt: Summarize




           I'm reading a book called "The Thief Lord" for battle of the books. I've liked the book so far. It's about two orphans that run away from their grandpa's house to Venice Italy.  There names are Bo and Prospector. Their mom died and they were forced to live with their aunt. They found a group of other run away kids and started living with them in an abandoned movie theatre.  They get their money and food from the Thief Lord. They all have different roles for the the Thief Lord, like staking out the building he's going to rob or distract someone. Prospector and Bo are usually used for shopping, but Prospector doesn't mind because he feels his aunt is looking for him.
        The Thief Lord is a kid around 14 who can get into anything. Any security, people, traps, anything. Nothing has ever stopped him. He never got caught. He robbed one of the biggest jewelry stores in Venice and the police have no evidence or leads to who did it. He wears a bird make, the ones that have a beak. When he sneaks in the abandoned building at night he startles the other kids.
       I have a prediction of what Bo is going to be when he's older. Bo is fascinated by the Thief Lord. He always wants to do runs with him, ask how he does everything he does, and ttys to steal like him. Therefore if the Thief Lord ever got caught Bo would take his place. He would be the next Thief Lord. He's sneaky, quite when he has to, and gets to places easier than the others. If the Thief Lord got caught, I wouldn't be surprised if Bo stood up and took care of everybody.
       This book is amazing so far, but I'm pretty sure theirs more to come. It's mostly like a mystery so far. Their is one part in the beginning were Bo and Prospectors aunt went to a detective to try and find  them. He always found everything he looked for, but he never has looked for a child. After that though, I haven't heard of the detective since.

Jeremiah T
December 12th
Tangerine
1-21


Prompt: Summarize


                           The book Tangerine is about a boy named Paul who lives with his mother, father, and brother. They moved to Florida from Texas. Paul has very poor eye sight, even with thick glasses on he still can't see. He says that he can see what his parents cannot see, but he hasn't explained it yet. His older brother plays football, and plays the kicking position.  He can kick a field goal from 50 yards away. He sneaks out at night sometimes and then Paul can't sleep. There house is basically on top of a Muck fire. It's coal under ground, and when lighting strikes, theres smoke everywhere. All around the house by the second floor windows. All they can do about is wait for it to rain, or close all the windows in the house. Paul went to a nearby lake and checked it out, he heard a splash but no one or nothing was in it. The home owner says there are Koi in the lake down the street from the house. Koi is basically a giant goldfish. So if you go early in the morning you will be able to see them.

                          Attention always shift away from Paul to his older brother. The attention is always about football. The home owner has a son who plays football as well. He will be holding the kicks for  Paul's brother. I wonder if they will become best friends or enemies.  Erick (Paul's brother) says the coach wants him to be a star at the new high school. I think Paul may be a little jeaouls  of Erick, because he always blames him for everything.


                            I recommend this book to anyone 10 and up. It's a little boring, but I'm able to keep reading it. There's nothing really to graphic in the book yet. The narrator is Paul writing down in a journal on his computer. You wouldn't even think he has bad eye sight with how descriptive he is. Paul doesn't attention seek or doesn't pout when he doesn't get something. He's pretty Melo and keeps to himself.
         

"Never Fall Down"

12/4/14
Never Fall Down
Pages Read: Finished book
Prompt: Summary of the book



        The year the book started in was 1975, but finishes in 1984. That's 9 years of surviving,starving, sickness with no medicine, and fighting for your life. Arn must be the toughest character ever. He's gone through so much, more than you can imagine. It's just unexplainable. The way the author uses word choice is powerful. I felt I was in the story that I was sitting right next to Arn and I was his shadow. I mean it's probably one of the best books I've ever read.
       His personality changed a lot from the beginning till the end. He starts off nice and has feelings like the rest of us. Liked his next door neighbor nada favorite candy, had fights with his sister normal stuff. Then the war started happening, so everyone is traveling on feet, carrying their houses on their back from the youngest child to the oldest man. So you see men, women, and children just dyeing, in their sleep and sometimes they just drop dead to the floor. If they don't die like that the Khmer Rouge shoot them.
       This story reminds me a little bit of the Haulucaust. You got the Khmer Rouge (Nazis) and their leader Angka (Hitler). It's so similar the army treats everyone unfair, even the rich people. If you don't do whats told or break the tiniest rule they will kill you. Then Angka is the leader of them that tells everyone what to do, just like Hitler did.
       I recommend this story to anyone in 6th grade or up. This has some pretty brutal scenes in it. Very descriptive words that made every bone in my body shiver. Plus appropriate age does a big part. They do some things and say some things that kids shouldn't read about, so I strictly say 6th or up.

Never Fall Down

Jeremiah T
Pages Read 57-119
Book: Never Fall Down

                I have a lot of predictions about this book. After almost  every page I had a new prediction. The book leaves you guessing left and right. You don't ever want to stop reading it. I want to safe one of my predictions with you, I predict Arn is going to be the last one alive out of his group. They are traveling on foot in the hot sun all day, carrying heavy guns, ammo, and bags of rice. So someone will start complaining and blow their cover, then the Vietnamese will come and take them hostage.
                The main character had two emotions for most of the book. Well mostly one, he is cold hearted. It's like the Khmer Rouge took away his innocence and his friendly heart. He doesn't even feel anything when someone gets killed, because people get killed everyday. If you show sympathy, you die, if you see a prisoner you die, and if you try to talk back or take a break, you die.
                I recommend this book to anyone 12 and up. It is very interesting, it may not be a little easy to understand, but there is some intense language and moments in this book. I didn't expect this at all when I started to read this. I feel like I'm in a war against the Vietnamese everyday and fighting for my life. The author uses very explicit detail, so it may make you want to throw up.

Never Fall Down

Jeremiah T

11/13/14

Prompt:Analyze the impact word choice has on the meaning or tone of a text.Analyze how dialogue or specific incidents reveal information about characters. Make sure to include textual evidence.

     The book I'm currently reading is "Never Fall Down" and word choice plays a big part in the text. The main character (Arn) is the narrator of the story. He is about my age maybe 11 or 12, even though 
you understand what he's reading and can visualize what's going on he sometimes writes complete sentences. Although you still understand him and can easily visualize what's going on.  It feels like your actually watching a movie about a kid in Cambodia, that doesn't speak English that well. 

     In the book, I feel like I'm actually in Cambodia taking orders from the Khmer Rouge and trying to survive without getting killed. They took away all of Arn's innocent soul. Here's an example on page 53 "Then the guy with the ax, he look at me. Deep in the eye. To see what I feel. I make my eye blank. You show care, you die. You show fear, you die. You show nothing, maybe you live." To me, it's really sad, but I guess he must have to learn to keep his life. I would do the same, learn to survive and change my feeling from time to time. Another example is "They see me looking at a prisoner, they think maybe I'm bad too. One day I see this guy from hometown, the taxi driver, the one with the big belly, the one I gamble and beat. Same guy but skinny now, no belly, skin sagging off his bone. I see him kneeling in the square, his hands tie behind, and I think: this guy can get me kill only by looking at me." I put this because he can't even see anyone from his old town without getting himself hurt or killed. Also you can't show any knowledge or the Khmer Rouge kills you. 


  Arn is very intelligent and kind. But his personality changes a lot in this book. He used to like this girl but he can't anymore because if you do you die. When he's the cook he steals a little rice at a time. See Arn is smart, he realized rice is like money. If you get your hands on it you can do almost anything. He bribes people with rice, he even bribed a soldier, and they are supposed to kill you if they find something like this out. Since he is the leader of the band, the Khmer Rouge give him breaks, but those breaks may not last forever.    
           

1st Quater Reflections

          The first quarter was fun but challenging. I am interested in the 40 book challenge. I'm on my 11th or 12th book in the 40 book challenge. It's pretty fun being challenged to read a lot of books. I'm going to try read more than 40, which I believe is possible. My blogging skills from August until now have improved a lot. My blogs are way better now than they were in August. The best blog I did was the Poe Reflections.
           I learned a lot about the world and new people. I learned about Ebola, I never even heard about. I learned about the CDC virus, and that was happening in the Mid-west. I learned some new things about Malala, and Poe. Poe is now one of my favorite authors. He is very descriptive, and talented. I never even heard about him though, until I did research. My research improved a lot as well. I knew how to do research but not as good as I do now.
          This has been a great first quarter, i've learned so many things. Like writing a paragraph and not sounding repetitive. I got decent grades, all b's and one a, I hope they improve this quarter. I have a few things to work on though, like studying for the vocal quiz. I usually do a good job until now. But that's going to change and improve. I'm positively getting all A's this quarter. So we will see if this quarter is as same as the 1st one.

Poe Reflections

Jeremiah T
11/7/14

                 Poe's life could've effected his writing a lot, since he writes about dark and evil things and moments. Since he lost his father and mother at such a young age, and his brother and sister were separated from him. He had been through a lot of dark times himself. Going to college but being to poor to keep warm and has to burn his furniture to make heat. He was in gambling depths and couldn't pay them off and was struggling, so going through dark times and moments, could have led him to writing all those dark stories and poems.
                 What I found intriguing was that he been through so many dark times and things, but still became an excellent writer. Some people go through those times and make excuses about why they couldn't be someone or something. They say they couldn't do it because of this or that. Excuses left and right, but Poe did something with his life. Poe went back to his house to find out his fiancee had been engaged to another with his absence. He achieved his goal of going to the army and publishing his first book "Tamerlane" at the age of 18. Another thing I found intriguing was Poe and Abraham Lincoln were born on the same day. 
                  Before my research I didn't know anything about Poe. I actually never even heard of him. Although  I'm glad I found out about him because he was very interesting to learn about. He had some really good things happen in his life and some really bad things. he's is a very good author and is very descriptive. I want to try to read more books by him and find out more about him. 
                  I'm curious though, no one knows exactly how he died. People don't know they just give suggestions, but when I read other people suggestions no one thought the same thing I did. I think he died from diabetes. I think he died from that because he was unconscious in the hospital but never could recover enough to tell what is wrong. My brother had diabetes and went unconscious for a long time but the gave him medicine and he was a little better. Back then though, they didn't have the same medicine or technology we have today.
            Even though I just started learning about Poe, I want to keep learning and discovering new things about him. I'm going to tell people about him and recommend his stories. So if you haven't heard about Poe look him up, and read y favorite book by him "Tell Tale Heart

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