Books: a group of blank white pages where authors record memories, reveal what they imagined, and take us along on a ride through their minds. These past few weeks, I had been reading two popular novels that did in fact take me on that journey: The Outsiders written by S.E. Hinton, and Miracle’s Boys by Jacqueline Woodson. In no uncertain terms, I did notice that these two books could be compared to one another. Although these are two separate books, written by two different authors with separate journeys, they actually have great similarities and differences in the characters and plot. The first character I read about was Lafayette Bailey from Miracle’s Boys. Appearance wise, the only detail in the book that described him was that he had dark and curly hair like his father. Age wise, Lafayette is a twelve year old seventh grader, and the youngest of the three Bailey brothers: Ty’ree, Charlie, and himself. Personality wise, Lafayette is a sensitive soul. He always seems to take things to heart. For example, in the …show more content…
The story of Miracle’s Boys basically describes the struggle to keep three brothers together without the help or supervision of a parent/adult. The eldest brother, Ty’ree is taking care of his younger brothers, Lafayette, who blames himself for the passing of their mother, and Charlie, who was just released from a detention center after being of armed robbery. These brothers basically struggle to keep the family together, and help each other through the grieving after the death of their parents. The rising action of this story is when Charlie gets back from the detention center. He is now the reason there is tension in the family. The climax is when Lafayette realizes that Charlie has changed. Next, the falling action would have to be when Lafayette sits on the stoop with Charlie, and Charlie starts to open up a little bit. This lessens the tension. The ending basically shows how the brothers begin their road to
Throughout “A&P” and “Gryphon” the two characters found themselves facing a challenge that they had never had to face before. Reading both of the stories has shown that although different adversities were represented in the books they both had challenges and reactions that were similar to each other as well as very different. Sammy’s was about a store called “A&P” where the manager confronted three girls in bathing suits and Sammy had to stand up for them. Tommy’s was about a unique substitute teacher who he quite enjoyed and his journey with her, and his defending her to the other kids when one of the children gets her fired. Together and separately these two dynamic characters make up these unique stories that ensnared their reader with their thoughts, adversity and heroic actions throughout the story.
Many times in our lives we are compared to our siblings. On many occasions, I am compared to my brother. People say that we have the same physique facial features, and height. Although these traits run in the family, I truly only want to be my own person. Just the other day someone called me “Michael.” The burn from my anger showed on my face. “I am NOT Michael,” I screamed; I am my own person. Just as we see similarities in family members, people also see similarities in stories written by the same author. In “The Devil and Tom Walker” and “Rip Van Winkle” we see similarities in setting, male protagonist, a female antagonist, and a mystic character.
In the wilderness, all by himself, with no food or supplies; the only thing he had was one hatchet. A boy named Brian Robeson had to survive all of these hardships by himself. On the other side of the world, the engine of a plane rumbles as I sit with my two books: The Hatchet and The Giver. All I had with me was time, so I decided to start my summer reading. I thought the books would mean nothing to me, just like how Brian thought the hatchet was going to be useless. However, the books turned out to be remarkable and let me reflect on my way to Hill.
The short story, "Suzy and Leah," by Jane Yolen, is about two girls who have different views about each other. Each girl documents their feelings towards the other in their diaries. At first the girls didn’t get along, but after reading each other’s diaries, they got to know each other better and their relationship changed. Throughout the diary writing, both girls learn to see things from another perspective.
The book “This Boy’s Life” by Tobias Wolff is a memoir written about the author’s childhood memories and experiences. The author shows many different characters within the book. Many of them are just minor character that does not affect the author much in his life choices and thoughts throughout his growth. But there are some that acts as the protagonist and some the antagonist. One of them is Dwight, the protagonist’s or Jack’s stepfather. This character seems to be one of the characters that inhibit Jack’s choices and decisions. This character plays a huge role in Jack’s life as it leaves a huge scar in his memory. The author here spends the majority of time in this character in the memoir to show the readers the relationship between Jack and Dwight.
“Suzy and Leah” by Jane Yolen is about two girls who learn an important lesson about relationships. The girls judged each other based off of one meeting. Suzy, an American girl, disliked Leah, a German refugee, because she saw Leah as a “prickly porcupine”. Even though Suzy didn’t really know who Leah was in private, she still thought and wrote rude things about her. The abhor Suzy felt for Leah was neutral. Where Suzy found Leah to be uptight and standoffish, Leah thought of Suzy as a fake, snotty American girl “... the girl with the yellow hair who smiles so falsely at me.” Although neither of the girls took the time or effort to actually find out what kind of person each was, they still made judgements of one another.
Rick Moody's "Boys" and Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl" are both written I a stream-of-consciousness style of writing. They both offer an inside glimpse into the feelings of a parent as they watch their children grow into adulthood. While they are similar in style the point of view of the narrators differs greatly. In “Boys” the narrator is simple writing an account of what is happening in the life of the boys. There is no judgment or personal opinions expressed just a running tally of events in the boys’ lives. In “Girl” the narrator inputs her feelings about how her daughter is growing. It is an account of all the things the girl is doing wrong, and how she should go about fixing those mistakes. In some ways the poems collectively represent a strong
With every generation comes a story that captures people’s imaginations; alters their outlook on the tangible and intangible. A story that, that generation can proudly call their own. The impact of this story on millions of readers is ineluctable. This story receives universal accolade, prompting thousands and thousands of zealots. What makes said novels such a phenomenon? What causes this fervid obsession with something essentially chimerical? The answer is that these novels, unlike many in the common day, briefly fulfill our deepest conscience or sub-conscience desires. Readers become addicted to living vicariously through the characters in the novel, who complete some sort of longing they have for themselves. More often than not, this longing is the one our Creator placed in each of our hearts. The longing to discover our origins, to know what sets humans apart from all other living creatures. The longing to know our God.
The poems “The Little Blue Engine, “The Little Boy and the Old Man”, and “Ladies First” were all written by shel silverstein. Shel Silverstein attempted to break social norms to promote fun and imagination in the children who read his poems. Shel Silverstein used his poetry to challenge adults view on children’s literature His poetry deals with difficult subject matter with powerful imagery to convey a message to youth and adults. Silverstein’s poetry was written for the enjoyment of children. In addition he didn’t want them to conform to society.
When children are faced with emotional events that challenge their ideas, they take another step on the road to being “grown up” as they discover their identity. The short story “Boys and Girls” written by Alice Munro illustrates this coming of age by allowing us to follow the development of a young girl. We follow the main character, who narrates the story, as she changes from beginning to end. As the story opens, the narrator acts like a care free child, not paying heed to her gender. She then begins to react strongly to the way she is treated by her family and their expectations of her young womanhood. Once she realizes that some changes are inevitable she begins to adopt a new understanding of who she is which is evidence of a more mature way of thinking. This story demonstrates that difficult childhood experiences regarding gender contribute to a developing maturity and are frequently met with varying degrees of resistance.
“Boys and Girls” is a short story, by Alice Munro, which illustrates a tremendous growing period into womanhood, for a young girl living on a fox farm in Canada, post World War II. The young girl slowly comes to discover her ability to control her destiny and her influences on the world. The events that took place over the course of the story helped in many ways to shape her future. From these events one can map the Protagonist’s future. The events that were drawn within the story provided the Protagonist with a foundation to become an admirable woman.
In her story, Boys and Girls, Alice Munro depicts the hardships and successes of the rite of passage into adulthood through her portrayal of a young narrator and her brother. Through the narrator, the subject of the profound unfairness of sex-role stereotyping, and the effect this has on the rites of passage into adulthood is presented. The protagonist in Munro's story, unidentified by a name, goes through an extreme and radical initiation into adulthood, similar to that of her younger brother. Munro proposes that gender stereotyping, relationships, and a loss of innocence play an extreme, and often-controversial role in the growing and passing into adulthood for many young children. Initiation, or the rite of passage into adulthood, is, according to the theme of Munro’s story, both a mandatory and necessary experience.
In Alice Munro’s “Boys and Girls” she tells a story about a young girl’s resistance to womanhood in a society infested with gender roles and stereotypes. The story takes place in the 1940s on a fox farm outside of Jubilee, Ontario, Canada. During this time, women were viewed as second class citizens, but the narrator was not going to accept this position without a fight.
In the book Miracle’s Boys written by Jacqueline Woodson, Lafayette (the main character) narrates the story. Lafayette, the youngest of three boys, becomes raised by the oldest brother, Ty’ree, after both parents passed away. Their father died a few years before their mother, due to developing hypothermia after trying to save a lady and her dog from freezing lake waters in Central Park. Their mother had diabetes complications. She went to sleep and didn’t wake up the next morning. Before she passed, Charlie (the middle son) gotten sent off to Rahway camp to help him lose his bad habits he started developing, and came back not long after his mother passed. Charlie came back really mean and cold-hearted, which explains why
In My Life with the Walter Boys, Jackie Howard’s life was one of luxury; she had the prestige of attending an elite all girls boarding school, was in line to become the head of her father's company upon graduation, and lived in an upscale penthouse in the middle of New York City. Jackie knew that everything in her life would fall into place as she spent her time writing lists so nothing would turn out less than perfect. However, her parents and her sister die in a car accident, leaving Jackie to pack up her belongings and move to Colorado, where she has no choice but to live with the Walters and their twelve boys. “As she struggles to make friends and acclimate to her new environment, she begins to embrace her newfound siblings, and all of