“If you just amass the courage that is necessary, you can completely reinvent yourself. You can be your own hero.” (Brandon 2019, 122). In the book Ziggy, Stardust & Me by James Brandon, the main character, Jonathan Collins, discovers how to accept himself. With the setting of 1973 Missouri, Jonathan is a gay kid going through conversion therapy and turns to music, specifically Ziggy Stardust, to help him cope. When he meets Web, a Lakota boy, he befriends him and falls in love with him. As they get closer, he learns that he is not a mistake and that there is nothing wrong with him for being gay. Despite the difficult topic of conversion therapy and the dangerous time of being gay in the Midwest, Jonathan has a hopeful future because of his love of the Web, Ziggy Stardust and …show more content…
Throughout the book, Brandon uses Jonathan’s imagination and daydreams to show how he grows into himself and becomes comfortable with who he is. In the first chapter he says, “’I’m scared.I can’t do this alone”. [Ziggy says] “You’re going to be okay. You just gotta see beyond all this here, believe in who you really are out there in the stars.”’ (Brandon 2019, 8). Jonathan lacks confidence and certainty in himself and relies on his imaginary interactions with the people he knows and loves to help get him through. His fantasies represent his fear of being gay and his desire to be cured. In another daydream, he imagines him and his dad bonding, where his dad says “’You’re a good kid. Just the way you are.I love you, too, bud.”’ (Brandon 2019, 216). Jonathan knows that being gay is not what his dad wants for him, but has come to realize that his dad will never change. This shows that he is beginning to accept himself, but wants the support from those around him, which is unlikely to
In Under a Cruel Star, Heda Margolious Kovaly details the attractiveness and terror of Communism brought to Czechoslovakia following WWII. Kovaly’s accounts of how communism impacted Czechoslovakia are fascinating because they are accounts of a woman who was skeptical, but also seemed hopeful for communism’s success. Kovaly was not entirely pro-communism, nor was she entirely anti-communism during the Party’s takeover. By telling her accounts of being trapped in the Lodz Ghetto and the torture she faced in Auschwitz, Kovaly displays her terror experienced with a fascist regime and her need for change. Kovaly said that the people of Czechoslovakia welcomed communism because it provided them with the chance to make up for the passivity they had let occur during the German occupation. Communism’s appeal to
After getting humiliated at a party, Brent drives away drunk and decides to kill himself. Letting go of the wheel on the highway, he ends up killing someone else. He killed a girl named Lea. Her mom asks Brent to put up 4 whirligigs, one in each corner of the US. Since they were Lea’s favorite toys, they’re meant to be monuments representing Lea’s ability to make people happy. With wood, sum tools, a book on whirligigs, and a bus pass, Brent leaves on his trip to build the whirligigs.
In the novel Whirligig, by Paul Fleischman, Brent Bishop goes on the journey of his life. After becoming drunk and being humiliated at a party, Brent starts to drive home, but on the way, he decides to attempt suicide, resulting in the accidental murder of Lea Zamora, an 18 year old girl. Lea’s family is devastated, but Mrs. Zamora asks only one favor of Brent, to travel the country and build whirligigs in her daughter’s honor to spread the joy that Lea would have if she was still alive. Through Brent’s journey, the consequences that he encounters do wonders on changing his outlook on life as well as himself. Brent goes from a suicidal conformist to an artistic traveler all because of the negative consequences and the positive consequences that he experiences, and consequences that completely transform his life.
Do you think it’s possible to have a positive outcome after accidentally killing someone? It can happen, and this book shows you how. The message that the author sends is important, and the story is laid out in a unique way that makes it interesting to read.
Sam Woods is a very important character in the novel In the Heat of the Night. He is a racist, and throughout the novel you will notice many changes in his attitude towards Negros.
Country music singer, Reba McIntire, recorded a song called "The Greatest Man I Never Knew." In the song, she speaks of how she never really knew her father. It exemplifies the way I feel about my own father. Everyone has a person who has made a deep impact on his or her life. For me, it was my father Donald Alexander. He was a great man with a wonderful sense of humor. He was the reason I wanted to become an attorney. He said I never lost an argument. I feel tormented that I was unable to know what a great person he really was.
The main character of this book is Susan Caraway, but everyone knows her as Stargirl. Stargirl is about 16 years old. She is in 10th grade. Her hair is the color of sand and falls to her shoulders. A “sprinkle” of freckles crosses her nose. Mostly, she looked like a hundred other girls in school, except for two things. She didn’t wear makeup and her eyes were bigger than anyone else’s in the school. Also, she wore outrageous clothes. Normal for her was a long floor-brushing pioneer dress or skirt. Stargirl is definitely different. She’s a fun loving, free-spirited girl who no one had ever met before. She was the friendliest person in school. She loves all people, even people who don’t play for her school’s team. She doesn’t care what others think about her clothes or how she acts. The lesson that Stargirl learned was that you can’t change who you are. If you change for someone else, you will only make yourself miserable. She also learned that the people who really care about you will like you for who you are. The people who truly love you won’t ask you to change who you are.
Feed by M.T. Anderson is an ADULT sci-fi novel about a world in the future where a new technology, called the Feed, is implanted into your brain. Feed was a boring and uninteresting book that should not be added to the already rigorous English curriculum for 9th grade students. The curriculum consists of other novels such as Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I write to parents, teachers, and school administrators because they have the ability to make the right choice for our students. I believe that the book Feed shouldn’t be adopted into the English curriculum for freshman students because it sets a bad example for students, it teaches very little to children, and it is not practical for 9th graders.
One in five veterans from Afghanistan and Iraqi wars have been diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition triggered by a terrifying event and mostly effects military veterans. The book Lone Survivor, written by Marcus Luttrell, is an eye witness account of the 2005 operation Red Wing that tells the harrowing story of SEAL Team 10. Throughout the book, Marcus hears voices in his head of his fallen teammates. Even today, Marcus wakes up in the middle of the night because of the terrible nightmares, which are symptoms of PTSD. There are a lot of ways to combat PTSD so our troops do not have to endure this hardship. Some of the ways to combat the disorder is to understand PTSD, detect it early, having family support and preventing it.
When life becomes a question of survival, do rules in everyday life/ behavior seem to matter? Lies and deceit can show to be motive if or when life is threatened. Throughout this paper it will become apparent that when put into a certain position where there are decisions to be made, everyone might show another side of themselves that you may not have known to be there. Within the story, Night lies and deceit will prove to show not only character traits, but how they affect decisions that are made and how the overall ending is changed due to denial that comes along with it all.
What is the difference between effective or ineffective communication skills when working with children, this essay is determine to find out the appropriate ways to communicate with children by analyse, the video clip ‘Unloved’ by Tony Grison, where a young White British girl aged 11 was taken into care, due to her father being abusive towards her and mother not wanting to see her.
In the graphic novel Fun Home, by Allison Bechdel, sexual self-discovery plays a critical role in the development of the main character, Allison Bechdel herself; furthermore, Bechdel depicts the plethora of factors that are pivotal in the shaping of who she is before, during and after her sexual self-development. Bechdel’s anguish and pain begins with all of her accounts that she encountered at home, with her respective family member – most importantly her father – at school, and the community she grew up within. Bechdel’s arduous process of her queer sexual self-development is throughout the novel as complex as her subjectivity itself. Main points highlight the difficulties behind which are all mostly focused on the dynamics between her and her father. Throughout the novel, she spotlights many accounts where she felt lost and ashamed of her coming out and having the proper courage to express this to her parents. Many events and factors contributed to this development that many seem to fear.
Tuesdays with Morrie is an inspiring tale in which Mitch, a young man struggling with the concept of a meaningful life is given a second chance, and a new outlook on life when he meets his past teacher, Morrie. They quickly renew the relationship they once possessed in college. Morrie becomes Mitch’s mentor, role model and friend once again. This time around, however, the lessons are on subjects such as life, love, and culture.
Suga Boom Boom (Chasing Dragons) was written and sung by D. L. Downer a.k.a. James Williams and his 16-year-old niece Laleazy. It is a rap and hip-hop song that was released on October 26, 2014. It was produced as a single by MajorEpic music label and is two minutes and fifty-five seconds long. This song is a metaphor for James Williams’ life and it is about a man who was working and living his life like everyone else when he was led to try heroin for the first time. This caused him to lose his job because he was not going to work. One day when he was going through severe withdrawals, he decided to attack and rob a man, even though he was in clear view of the cops because he wanted more heroin. Suga Boom Boom is like a metaphor for James Williams’
Mrs Kay firstly asks Carol why she does not and go and look round the