On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong stated, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for all mankind;" one little action can change the world. Stories, fairy tales, movies, TV shows, and throughout your lifetime, you will experience moments big and small that can change your world. What if the Prince never kissed Snow White, Cinderella never dropped her shoe, and humans never made it to the moon? These moments of truth can be seen in many more novels such as The Tequila Worm by Viola Canales and Waiting for Normal by Leslie Connor where characters experience these moments of truth that change their lives. To start, The Tequila Worm shows the idea of a moment of truth through the kindness of a coach and her student. This novel follows Sofia, a …show more content…
Casey said. “How long has your mother been away?” I knew Soula had ratted me out. She knew Mommers had been gone too much” (Connor 262). Consequently, this leads Addie’s mom to lose custody and the privilege of even seeing Addie. After living with her grandad for months, Addie’s stepdad gets adoption papers, meaning that Addie can live with him and her sisters, which overall leads Addie to be happier. On the other hand, if Soula had never called childcare, Addie would still be living with her mom. Subsequently, Addie would soon get a new dad and sibling and have to figure out her new life again; this can be a lot for a teen girl. So ultimately, Addie would still have to deal with the struggles of her mom and do more work to help her new sibling, family, and herself. The moral of the story is that you will always see and experience these moments of truth that twist the plot line and change the story, as seen in The Tequila Worm by Viola Canales and Waiting for Normal by Leslie Connor. Coach Clarke helped Sofia overcome her bullies and be proud of her heritage. Soula saved Addie from a horrible relationship, leading her into a happier new
“The Tequila Worm” by Viola Canales is a marvelous book that shows the story of a young girl named sofia;on her journey to explore life but to never forget where she came from her roots which means becoming a good comadre.
Dr. Nagami had multiple reasons for writing the Woman with a Worm in Her Head. I think that she intended to educate the reader about many things. She wanted to highlight the background of the deadly diseases that she has encountered. She also wants to explain the limits of modern medicine. I also think that she wanted to put a human face on the patients that she encounters on a daily basis. She also was trying to explain how combating diseases like this and her profession as a medical doctor affected her.
In the book, Mattie starts out as a lazy teenager who needs to be told what to do by her over controlling mother, but throughout the story, she becomes more responsible and adult-like. For example, at the start of their adventure, Mattie leaves P...
The 2006 Pura Belpré Award was presented to Viola Canales for her coming-of-age tale, The Tequila Worm. Set in a Mexican American community in MacAllen, Texas, this story is told from the point-of-view of Sofia, a young girl who has many adventures in her small community. Through the course of the text Sofia develops from a young child who plays dress-up games with her cousins, to a young woman who is willing to move three hundred miles away from school.
Working as a teacher serving at-risk four-year-old children, approximately six of her eighteen students lived in foster care. The environment introduced Kathy to the impact of domestic violence, drugs, and family instability on a developing child. Her family lineage had a history of social service and she found herself concerned with the wellbeing of one little girl. Angelica, a foster child in Kathy’s class soon to be displaced again was born the daughter of a drug addict. She had been labeled a troublemaker, yet the Harrisons took the thirty-hour training for foster and adoptive care and brought her home to adopt. Within six months, the family would also adopted Angie’s sister Neddy. This is when the Harrison family dynamic drastically changes and Kathy begins a journey with over a hundred foster children passing through her home seeking refuge.
First, after the mother tells Izzy she is going to Costa Rica, Izzy gets upset. She verbalized, ‘“Mom wouldn’t leave me. Right? ‘But that's only three days.’I stepped away from mom and the shards of tile. ‘I don’t have a choice.’ ‘But what am I supposed to do? That’s three whole month's”’(paragraph 11-14). Izzy gets upset with her mother due to the fact that her mother is leaving her in New Mexico for three month,s while she goes to Costa Rica. Her mother knows that it is going to benefit them, and she is doing it to help Izzy. Next, Izzy’s mother and Izzy argue over going to New Mexico. The mother announces, ‘“You’re going to New Mexico and that’s final.’ I swallowed and tried not to cry ‘Why do you always get to decide everything?”’(paragraphs 28 and 29) The mother wants the narrator to go to New Mexico and spend time with her Nana while she is in Costa Rica, but the narrator does not want to go to New Mexico and wants to stay home and she thinks that her mother is ruining her summer. Finally, the mother and narrator argue after they were talking about the narrator's plans. The mother says, “Honey, you can make friends at your new school in the fall. Besides, this is a wonderful opportunity for you.” “Opportunity?For me?Or for you?” (paragraphs 33 and 34)The narrator feels as though that she is not going to have a great
Baby narrates her story through her naïve, innocent child voice. She serves as a filter for all the events happening in her life, what the narrator does not know or does not comprehend cannot be explained to the readers. However, readers have reason not to trust what she is telling them because of her unreliability. Throughout the beginning of the novel we see Baby’s harsh exposure to drugs and hurt. Jules raised her in an unstable environment because of his constant drug abuse. However, the narrator uses flowery language to downplay the cruel reality of her Montreal street life. “… for a kid, I knew a lot of things about what it felt like to use heroin” (10). We immediately see as we continue reading that Baby thinks the way she has been living her life is completely normal, however, we as readers understand that her life is in fact worse then she narrates. Baby knows about the impermanent nature of her domestic security, however, she repeatedly attempts to create a sense of home each time her and Jules move to another apartm...
Corwin highlights the corrupted foster care system through detailed progression of the central character, Olivia. She is one of the most brilliant students in the novel and views school as a positive distraction from the daily physical abuse she encounters at home. In a sense, intelligence saves her. She manages to disconnect her emotions and use her intellect to excel in and out of school. With a molested mother and lack of father figure, Olivia becomes a ward of the county. Children who enter foster care often have been exposed to condition...
Janie who continually finds her being defined by other people rather than by herself never feels loved, either by her parents or by anybody else. Her mother abandoned her shortly after giving birth to her. All she had was her grandmother, Nanny, who protected and looked after her when she was a child. But that was it. She was even unaware that she is black until, at age six, she saw a photograph of herself. Her Nanny who was enslaved most of her lifetime only told her that a woman can only be happy when she marries someone who can provide wealth, property, and security to his wife. Nanny knew nothing about love since she never experienced it. She regarded that matter as unnecessary for her as well as for Janie. And for that reason, when Janie was about to enter her womanhood in searching for that love, Nanny forced her to marry Mr. Logan Killicks, a much older man that can offer Janie the protection and security, plus a sixty-acre potato farm. Although Janie in her heart never approves what her Nanny forced her to do, she did it anyway. She convinced herself that by the time she became Mrs. Killick, she would get that love, which turned out to be wrong.
For the next few years, Ella struggles to raise her children in Memphis, Tennessee. Her long hours of work leave her little time to supervise Richard and his brother. Not surprisingly, Richard gets into all sorts of trouble, spying on people in outhouses and becoming a regular at the local saloonand an alcoholicby the age of six. Ella's worsening health prevents her from raising two children by herself and often leaves her unable to work. During these times, Richard does whatever odd jobs a child can do to bring in some money for the family. School is hardly an option for him. At one point, the family's troubles are so severe that Ella must place her children in an orphanage for a few weeks.
The Cheese and the Worms is a book based upon the documentation of an Inquisitional case and execution. It attempts to display the life of an unique miller during the counter reformation. The author, Carlo Ginzburg, is an italian history writer who was written many dissertations and books based upon ancient religion and history. This book’s entire substance is based upon records of an investigation case upon a man named Domenico Scandella, his confessions, and the books he mentioned. The point of this book is to show that you didn’t have to be of noble birth, or in the church to be educated, and to show a glimpse of the lower class during the counter-reformation period.
Her eyes were heavy, her body weak. As she crawled into the bathroom two feet away, Abby felt her body slowly succumbing to the numbness. All of her pain would be gone in less than 10 minutes, so why would she want to turn back? What about the senior trip Abby had planned with her best friend? What about the chair at the dinner table that would now be vacant? A couple of hours later Abby’s family came home from her little sister’s soccer game. Little did they know what they would find as they approached the top of the stairs. Her little sister, Ali, stood still as she looked down at her feet. There on the cold floor lay her big sister, her role model, and her super hero. Ali was crushed when she saw the pill bottle in her hand and the pale color of her skin. Her mom fell to her knees screaming and crying, wondering where she
Amanda wants Laura to be happy and successful, but does not understand that Laura is too shy and unmotivated to be either. When Amanda discovers that Laura has stopped going to typing class, she is beyond disappointed. When discovered Amanda yells at her daughter saying, “Fifty dollars’ tuition, all our plans- my hopes and ambitions for you- just gone up the spout, just gone up the spout like that.” Laura quit something as simple as learning how to type; this realization struck Amanda because if she cannot do that there is no way Laura could provide for herself without a husband. Mrs. Wingfield’s worst nightmare is for her children to become dependent on relatives and not being able to take care of themselves.
Janice receives multiple phone calls from staff at Alex’s school to come pick him up and take him home. He isn’t purposely being disruptive, he’s excited and eager to learn and sometimes the teachers don’t understand that, says Janice to herself. For Janice to always be “on-call” to collect her son definitely makes it difficult for her to hold down a steady job.