Many times in life, a person has said the phrase, “never judge a book by its cover” or to never underestimate a person. In “Where the Crawdads Sing” by Delia Owens, Kya Clark was judged by all of her peers and ultimately underestimated as well. This was one of the main themes that Owens portrayed throughout the novel and she was able to do this through the character development of Kya. When Kya had to prove to everyone that she was innocent of a murder the whole town thought she committed, she worked hard to gain the respect of her peers and was able to do so. The underlying reason for the novel isn’t the fact that she proved her innocence, but rather that she used her conniving mind to convince and allow the whole town to underestimate her when the point is to never do that in the …show more content…
She grew up living poor in the marsh. Her father was abusive and because of that her mother, and siblings, once old enough, ended up leaving their family. After a while, her father’s drinking problem got the better of him when he finally disappeared, too. Kya had to teach herself how to survive, how to make food, what is dangerous and what isn’t, and she had to do all of this by herself. One day when she was on her boat in the marsh, she met a boy named Tate Walker. He was one of her older brother’s friends and he helped her learn about the wonders of the wildlife and ways of life in the marsh. Because of the fact that Kya has always lived there and the fact that she was never in contact with anyone, the townspeople gave her the name, “marsh girl”. When she got older, she met another boy by the name of Chase Andrews, but because of his family’s status in the community, they kept their meetings secret. Chase and her met many times over a year and eventually, to Kya’s knowledge, fell in love. The plot of the story begins to dramatically change when Chase is found dead, but this isn’t even the most surprising part. Kya is the lead suspect in the
Kristina settles in with a new crowd, ditching her childhood best friends Trent and Sarah. She meets Brendan, her first drug dealer, on a family trip to the water park. She quickly realizes that he is bad news, but doesn’t turn him away in fear of losing her connections. Soon after, she meets Robyn, a bubbly cheerleader who uses crank to stay skinny and give her extra pep. In the end Robyn is one of the few characters that leaves Kristian better than they found her. Then Kristina meets Chase, the schools refuted “bad boy”, and falls in love with him. At the novels close she is still in a relationship with Chase.
Don’t you wish you could go back in time to change those bad memories? That’s what Lionel Sherbousekis going through in a short story called “Goin’ Fishin’”. Chris Crutcher wrote Athletic Shorts and the story “Goin’ Fishin’” is about a boy whose father loved fishing and while their family was fishing one day a boat full of drunk kids smashing into them but Lionel luckily save the boat before it hit and jumped off. This is what the main character in “Goin Fishin” was feeling when his family died in a boating accident.
Melba Pattillo Beals book, Warriors Don’t Cry, is a memoir about her experience as one of the Little Rock Nine. From a very young age Melba sees the many problems with segregation. Throughout the book she recalls several memories involving the unfairness and struggles that her, her family, and other African Americans had to go through in the South during the time of segregation and the Civil Rights Movement.
Jaycee is just your average girl at the beginning of the story. She never imagined that she would reveal one of the darkest secrets in Lake Ridge by simply trying to figure out who killed her ex-best friend. The police make it clear that they are not on her or her partner Eduardo’s side. When you are trying to solve a murder mystery for someone who has darker skin and may have connections to a gang, you aren’t as equal as the white christian community. So, without the help of the police Jaycee has to try and figure out all of these little pieces of evidence that lead to the unsuspected conclusion that solves the mystery. Her and Eduardo eventually piece the clues together to figure out who really killed Rachel. With all of the bits of evidence that Jaycee finds throughout the story, she is eventually able to figure it out by questioning Evan Cross, who the reader soon finds out knows all the answers. “And when she kept looking, you killed her?’ He nods. ‘It wasn’t supposed to go that far, she wasn’t supposed to get hurt--’ He stops, realizing he’s said too much. ‘Except that she did,’ I finish for him (Wolf 309). Jaycee was the one who initially got all of the answers out in the public, not the police, nor the investigators, which directly makes this book a cozy. Along with this idea, this mystery book is also a Noir. Jaycee thinks that she can trust certain people, but her word is completely turned upside-down when she learns the real truth. This book really teaches you that no matter what you think, you really can’t trust anyone, except for the ones that stick with you even after they said you’re on your own. Jaycee begins to trust Skyler, which was a horrible idea and almost gets her killed. “‘We have to go!’ I yell. The roaring of the fire gets louder. I reach for his hand and try to stand, but he grabs me, wraps his arms around me, and then rolls over so I’m
All Over but the Shoutin' by Rick Bragg is an autobiography that starts from Mr. Bragg's impoverished childhood in a family that included an abusive, alcoholic father, an incredibly powerful angel of a mother and his two brothers, and follows him through his Pulitzer Prize-winning journalistic career at the New York Times. The author states at the beginning of the book that readers will laugh and cry reading it. He was right on the money with both of these points.
Marietta was raised in a small town in Kentucky. When she became an adult, she decided she needed a change. She wanted a different name and a different place to call home. She got in her Volkswagon, started driving, and on this journey she changed her name to Taylor. A stranger gave her a three year old Indian child to take care of, who she names Turtle. The two finally settle down in Tucson, where they live with a single mom who is also from a small town in Kentucky. Taylor works for a woman who hides political refugees in her home, and Taylor becomes good friends with two of them. These two refugees act as Turtle's parents and sign over custody to Taylor, so that Turtle could become her daughter legally. Taylor was very unsure about whether or not she would be a good mom, but in the end she realizes that Turtle belongs with her, and that Tucson is home.
In the essay “Sis! Boom! Bah! Humbug!” by Rick Reilly he analyzes the sport of cheerleading and tells us why he does not care for the sport. His essay starts off stating “ Every Friday night on America’s high school football fields it’s the same old story. Broken bones. Senseless Violence. Clashing egos. “ I think that Reilly has a good opening sentence because right away it grasps the readers attention because it is so strongly worded. It was also good that he starts his first paragraph off with a statistic and a fact, but after that the rest of the essay seems to flow with just his own stories and personal opinions of what he thinks about the sport.
Miguel Castaneda is the narrator and main character of the story “We Were Here”. Miguel is a young teenager from Stockton, California. He is dark complected because of his Mexican background but he does not have the personality to do the work like that of his Mexican relatives. I know this because in the story it says, “Told us we might be dark on the outside, but inside we were like a couple blonde boys from Hollywood.” He is very different from the rest of his family in terms of being able to handle situations that are put in front of him and completing the task at hand.
Justin Torres Novel We the Animals is a story about three brothers who lived a harassed childhood life. There parents are both young and have no permanent jobs to support their family. The narrator and his brothers are delinquents who are mostly outside, causing trouble, causing and getting involved in a lot of problems and barely attending school, which their parents allowed them to do. The narrator and his brothers were physically abused by their father, leading them to become more violent to one another and others, drinking alcohol and dropping out of school. Physical abuse is an abuse involving one person’s intention to cause feelings of pain, injury and other physical suffering and bodily harm to the victim. Children are more sensitive to physical abuse, they show symptoms of physical abuse in short run and more effects in the long run. Children who sustain physical abuse grow up with severely damaged of sense of self and inability. The narrator and his brothers were physically abused by their father and showed long run symptoms of Antisocial behaviors, drinking problems and most importantly they becoming more violent themselves. Many psychological and sociological studies such as “Childhood history of abuse and child abuse potential: role of parent’s gender and timing of childhood abuse” and “school factors as moderators of the relationship between physical child abuse and pathways of antisocial behavior can be used to prove the argument that children who sustain physical abuse grow up with criminal and antisocial behaviors.
"Oranges" By Gary Soto Gary Soto was born April 12, 1952, in Fresno, California to Mexican-American parents. His grandparents emigrated from Mexico during the Great Depression and found jobs as farm laborers. Soto grew up poor in the San Joaquin Valley and learned that hard work pays off through chores, such as moving lawns, picking grapes, painting houses, and washing cars. When Gary was five his father died as the result of a factory accident, and his mother was left to raise her three children with the help of her parents. Soto describes his family as an "illiterate" family.
Straying away from life as a whole only to be alone, some may say is the strong way to heal themselves when dealing with extreme grief or a major crisis . In the book Wild, twenty-two year old Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost it all. Dealing with the loss of her mother, her family torn to pieces, and her very own marriage was being destroyed right before her very eyes. Living life with nothing more to lose, lifeless, she made the most life changing decision of her life. Strayed never seems remorseful on her decisions to up and leave everything behind while deciding to flee from it all. This being her way of dealing with life, it shows her as being strong; a woman of great strength and character. She shows personal strength, which is more than just a physical word. It is a word of very high value and can only be defined by searching deep within your very own soul.
The comparisons--North vs. South, city vs. country, technology vs. nature--are numerous and have been well documented in 20th century literature. Progress contrasts sharply with rooted cultural beliefs and practices. Personalities and mentalities about life, power and change differ considerably between worlds... worlds that supposed-intellectuals from the West would classify as "modern" and "backwards," respectively. When these two worlds collide, the differences--and the danger--rise significantly. This discrepancy between the old and the new is one of the principal themes of Gloria Naylor's Mama Day. The interplay between George, Ophelia and Mama Day shows the discrepancies between a "modern" style of thinking and one born of spirituality and religious beliefs. Dr. Buzzard serves as a weak bridge between these two modes of thought. In Mama Day, the Westernized characters fail to grasp the power of the Willow Springs world until it is too late.
In the Crucible, the accused were unfairly tried and convicted on limited evidence or even word of mouth from the girls.
The story starts with teenage experiences between her and her peers. It is revealed that Connie has a difficult relationship with her family. As the story progresses, Connie is met with a deceiving stalker named Arnold
His daughter is named Mary Cochran. She is a young girl of eighteen years of age. She has a lot going on in her life, and with no mother to help her along her way, and a father who is distant, she is having trouble getting by in life. Mary likes to go on walks around their town of Huntersberg to do a lot of thinking and to try and clear her mind (English).