Final Reading Response

       My book club has just recently finished the book Divergent by Veronica Roth.  This book is about a female protagonist, Beatrice, who grows up in a city, Chicago, where people are put into factions that make them think a certain way.  However Beatrice is “divergent”, so she has the power to think differently then the factions want you to.  When Beatrice finds out she is divergent, she starts to change from a good girl who follows everything her parents say, to a very independent person.
Beatrice finds out she is divergent through a serum that helps determine what faction a person is best fit for as an adult.  Before a person gets the serum, they live in the faction their parents chose after getting the serum.  Beatrice grows up in Abnegation where you aren’t expected to question anything your elders do.  For example: in the beginning of the book when Beatrice’s parents have to discuss something important, they send her and her brother up to their rooms.  Even though she is curious about what her parents have to discuss, Beatrice goes to her room without arguing.  The reason she goes to her room is because she convinces herself it is wrong to be curious, since that is not the Abnegation way.  At this point in the book she doesn’t know that since she is divergent, she doesn’t actually belong to any faction.  This means she isn’t suppose to act and think like any faction says you should.
When the serum results show that Beatrice is divergent, Beatrice doesn’t completely know what that means, but knows she was never really tied Abnegation rules.  During the choosing ceremony she doesn’t choose Abnegation, but instead chooses Dauntless where she feels more free.  During Dauntless initiation she fights willingly, “My mother and father would not approve of my kicking when she’s down.  I don’t care.” (Roth pg.155).  Before she found out about her “divergence”, violence wouldn’t even cross her mind.  When the fighting starts between factions, Beatrice ends up shooting some people.  Her father doesn’t approve of this action, but instead of feeling immediate guilt, Beatrice explains to her dad that she would have gotten killed herself if she didn’t shoot those people.  In the beginning of the story Beatrice would have just assumed that her father was right, and wouldn’t have tried to justify her reason.
Beatrice, the main character, is what made Divergent such a great read.  Her dramatic change from an innocent girl who always did what she was told, to an aggressive girl who made her own decisions was so interesting and exciting to read about.  Her finding out about her divergence, made her stand out from the other characters and helped complete her change.

RR to Poetry (final)

“The red emblem of michael looked as if it could fly”.  This is one of the many examples Reg Gaines, author of the poem “Please Don’t Take My Air Jordans”, uses to show how Air Jordans taunt people.  Gaines uses the importance of Air Jordans in the poem as symbolism.
Kids have always cared about their looks, but kids now, have taken it to another level.  Kids now a days feel like they have to dress up nicely.  And they don’t do it to impress girls, they do it to make sure they don’t get bullied.  A part of dressing up well, is the sneakers you wear.  If you’re not wearing a brand shoe like Nike, Jordan, Adidas, that’s eighty dollars or more, you’re most likely to get picked on.  There’s a flip side to that as well.  If you’re wearing a flashy sneaker, or a pair that stand out, you run the risk of being jumped by someone who wants them.  People are very greedy these days, and will do anything to look good.
The main character in this poem murders an innocent person for their new Air Jordans.  The main character is a teenager in poverty who lacks the money to buy expensive nice looking clothes.  In the beginning of the poem, the character is looking for new sneakers because is current ones are worn out and ratty-looking.  The speaker uses similes to show how much the character cares about his looks on the outside:  “but I really must get some new gear soon/or my ego will pop like a ten cent balloon”(Gaines 17-18).  The character decides he’ll have to murder someone for a new pair of “fly” shoes.  He then proceeds to ditch school and find his victim at the park.  Almost immediately he spots sneakers he likes, plain white Air Jordans.  He chases down the owner of the pair of Air Jordans, and shoots him in broad daylight.  Afterward he shows no sympathy at all, “the very next day I bopped into school/ with my brand new Air Jordans man I was cool/ I killed to get them but hey...I don’t care”(49-51).
I can make connections between “Please Don’t Take My Air Jordans” and incidents in real life.  In the poem, the main character killed someone to get his Jordans.  In real life there have been many cases where someone was murdered over exclusive, or new Jordan brand sneakers.      Two years ago a young man was murdered in Houston over his newly purchased Air Jordans.  According to the article “2 Charged In Killing Over Air Jordans”, “Neal Bland, 18, and Kegan Arrington, 19 are charged in the Dec. 21 shooting of Joshua Wood...”.  Bland and Arrington were both very young adults at the time and they committed a murder!  None the less over Air Jordans!
After reading this poem, I realized that the situation the main character put himself in sounded so familiar because you always here something like that happening on news when a limited edition Jordan sneaker releases to the public.  We care so much about these sneakers that we forget about the more important things in life, like how we are as people on the inside not the outside.  Hopefully readers can learn from this poem, and stop caring about how they look so much.

Christian, Carol. "2 Charged in Killing over Air Jordans." Houston Chronicle. Hearst Newspapers, 29 Dec. 2012. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.

RR to poem draft #1

“The red emblem of michael looked as if it could fly”.  This is one of the many examples Reg Gaines, author of the poem Please Don’t Take My Air Jordans, uses to show how Air Jordans taunt people.  Gaines uses the importance of Air Jordans in the poem as symbolism.

Kids have always cared about their looks, but kids now, have taken it to another level.  Kids now a days feel like they have to dress up nicely.  And they don’t do it to impress girls, they do it to make sure they don’t get bullied.  A part of dressing up well, is the sneakers you wear.  If you’re not wearing a brand shoe like Nike, Jordan, Adidas, that’s eighty dollars or more, you’re most likely to get picked on.  There’s a flip side to that as well.  If you’re wearing a flashy sneaker, or a pair that stand out, you run the risk of being jumped by someone who wants them.  People are very greedy these days, and will do anything to look good.

The main character in this poem murders an innocent person for their new Air Jordans.  The main character is a teenager in poverty who lacks the money to buy expensive nice looking clothes.  In the beginning of the poem, the character is looking for new sneakers because is current ones are worn out and ratty-looking.  The speaker uses similes to show how much the character cares about his looks on the outside:  “but I really must get some new gear soon/or my ego will pop like a ten cent balloon”(Gaines 17-18).  The character decides he’ll have to murder someone for a new pair of “fly” shoes.  He then proceeds to ditch school and find his victim at the park.  Almost immediately he spots sneakers he likes, plain white Air Jordans.  He chases down the owner of the pair of Air Jordans, and shoots him in broad daylight.  Afterward he shows no sympathy at all, “the very next day I bopped into school/ with my brand new Air Jordans man I was cool/ I killed to get them but hey...I don’t care”(49-51).

I can make connections between Please Don’t Take My Air Jordans and incidents in real life.  In the poem, the main character killed someone to get his Jordans.  In real life there have been many cases where someone was murdered over exclusive, or new Jordan brand sneakers.      Two years ago a young man was murdered in Houston over his newly purchased Air Jordans.  According to the article 2 Charged In Killing Over Air Jordans “Neal Bland, 18, and Kegan Arrington, 19 are charged in the Dec. 21 shooting of Joshua Wood...”.  Bland and Arrington were both very young adults at the time and they committed a murder!  None the less over Air Jordans!  You see, this type of stuff happens in real life too.

After reading this poem, I realized that the situation the main character put himself in sounded so familiar because you always here something like that happening on news when a limited edition Jordan sneaker releases to the public.  We care so much about these sneakers that we forget about the more important things in life, like how we are as people on the inside not outside.  Hopefully readers can learn from this poem, and stop caring so much.

Christian, Carol. "2 Charged in Killing over Air Jordans." Houston Chronicle. Hearst Newspapers, 29 Dec. 2012. Web. 10 Feb. 2014.

RR to "The Garden Of Beasts"

The Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson, makes me think about how unfair justice is in this world.  I haven’t finished this book, but so far a lot of injustice has been performed.  This book is set around World War 2 (WWⅡ), in Berlin, the capital of Germany.  There was a lot of horrible acts committed by Nazis toward Jews in Germany during this time period.  None of the Nazis where punished for these acts though.
I’m less than halfway through the book, so the Nazis haven’t decided to terminate all Jews in Germany yet, but they have decided to make it a priority to publicly embarrass all Jews.  In one instance when a Nazi parade was happening, an innocent bystander was attacked by a group of Nazis because he looked Jewish (Larson 104).  Also the police where two feet away from the incident, but ignored the man’s pleas for help, and instead smirked down at him.  These two police didn’t care about the man.  In fact they where so amused by him getting beaten up, that they failed to do their job, protect people from crime.  The Nazis specifically targeted Edgar A. Mowrer, a reporter for the Chicago Daily News at the time.  They wanted him out of the country so much “They followed his friends and made threats against his bureau staff.” (75).  Mowrer eventually had to leave for his own safety, but it was against his own will.  The only reason the Nazis were angry with him was he wrote the book, Germany Puts the Clock Back, which talked about how the Nazi regime was a horrible thing for Germany and its people.  This book said the truth, and Nazis despised it for that.  They were scared people would read it and actually listen to what the book said, turning everyone against them.
What they did to the Jews during that time was so unfair.  The Nazis discriminated against the Jews just because they believed Jews were evil and bad for Germany.  The only reason this stupid belief even happened was because Adolf Hitler needed someone to blame the depression Germany was going through on.  Hitler led a Nazi regime of terror, distrust, and violence that no one tried to stop until the damage was done.  Almost 6 million Jews where murdered by the Nazis (*not just in Germany).

Non-Fiction RR #1

Rethinking Juvenile Justice by, John Schwartz, is about how it’s becoming harder to try teen offenders in an adult justice system.  Schwartz isn’t biased in this article, but some of the experts he speaks with in this article are.  Some of these experts are excited with the progress of getting juvenile offenders out of the adult justice system, and others are not excited at all.  Nicole Miera, sister of James Stewart, a 17 year old boy who committed suicide after being transferred from a juvenile detention center to an adult jail, also shared her thoughts on the changes taking place in justice for juveniles.
  In many major cities in the US, including New York City, Chicago, and Washington, change is happening in court systems.  These cities are trying to keep juveniles who have committed small crimes like, theft, and fighting, out of the criminal justice court.  The Annie E. Casey Foundation works with many counties across the US to have different choices for teen offenders.  Due to these changes, jailing juvenile offenders has become a less popular option.  Mark Soler, executive director of the Center for Children’s Law and Policy, says, “If you’ve got kids who are really violent and a threat to their communities, then lock them up”.  He then goes on to say that if you have a safer and easier teen to handle in your community, handle them because it cost a lot less money.  What Soler is trying to say is, jail the really bad kids, and keep the kids that can be easily supervised out of jail all together.  His reason to do this would be you can save so much more money, since states are looking for ways to cut costs.
However, not every one agrees with that approach.  Kent Scheidegger of Criminal Justice Legal Foundation thinks this national trend of keeping juvenile offenders away from the adult justice system will be taken to far.  He states that this process could also be unfair to the victim of the crime.  Nicole Miera thinks juvenile offenders should be evaluated.  She believes, “Some juvenile offenders show such cruelty and viciousness that they should be charged as adults...”.  She then brings in her brother, saying he was different because he didn’t try to go out and murder  someone purposely (he ran over and killed someone while drunk driving).
From reading Rethinking Juvenile Justice, I found out lots of people have different opinions on this subject.  I have also found out, that each opinion has a lot of evidence to back it up, but also take it down.  Whatever decision is made about juvenile offenders in the adult legal system will be a very tough one to make, and no doubt anger some party of people.  

Works Cited

Schwartz, John. "Rethinking Juvenile Justice." Upfront 09 Dec. 2013: 8-11. Print.

Revised Response to Never Fall Down

    I’ve recently just finished the book Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick.  The main character in this book, Arn, was an eleven year old boy when the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia.  The book is told from Arn’s point of view, who like all the other people from Cambodia became enslaved by the Khmer Rouge.  In this book there’s two interesting perspectives missing though.  Those perspectives are the Khmer Rouge’s and Peter Pond’s, the man who adopted Arn.  These two perspectives could differ greatly from each others and Arn's, making the story much more intriguing.
   
     I think seeing the story from the Khmer Rouge’s view would be so interesting because they’re the “bad guys” in this situation.  They killed so many people ruthlessly, including fellow soldiers.  Lots of these Khmer Rouge were teenagers and carried out orders because of fear.  When Arn was finished practicing on his instrument, he asked the soldier who supervised him, why the Khmer Rouge killed.  The soldier answered by saying, “They kill only so they won’t be killed themselves.” (McCormick 96).  This shows me that the Khmer Rouge were just as scared of dying as the slaves were.  They may have not wanted to slaughter people, but they did to protect their own lives.

     Peter Pond is an american dad of three who adopted Arn, and two other kids from the orphanage in Thailand.  One thing I wonder is, why did Peter even cared so much about those kids from the orphanage in Thailand?  He cared so much about the kids he got “very worry about the sick kid, very angry if one dies.” (159).  This strikes me odd because he didn’t even have to be in Thailand, he could’ve be in America living the good life with his wife and kids.  If we would have been able to see through Peter's eyes his motives would have seemed more clear and less confusing.  

     Overall this is a great book, and is written so you could see through Arn’s eyes.  But I also think having these two other important people(s) view of what was going on would have made this book better.  You could see how the enemies saw the war and enslavement, and how Arn looked through a wealthier american’s eyes.

Response to "Hoops"

RR to Hoops

Hoops, by Walter Dean Myers was a great book to read.  This book was about a seventeen year old boy, Lonnie, living in Harlem trying to make it to the NBA with the help of his coach.  The theme of money however, added twists and turns, and surprising new discoveries to the book.  By the end of the book not only was Lonnie affected by money, but also side characters, his best friend and his girlfriend.
          For the main character in this book, Lonnie Jackson, money was always an issue.  Like many others in Harlem at the time, Lonnie and his mom struggled in poverty.  What made there situation even worse was Lonnie's father had left them, and his mother wouldn't find a job.  Since his mom was unwilling to find a job "By my senior year she was on my back just about all the time, too." (Myers 2).  Lonnie said she was always pestering him about going to college, and this really annoyed him.  This bugged [Lonnie] because even though he wanted to make it to the NBA, college wasn't really a reality with no scouts coming to see him play.  Plus he knew she was relying on him to make some good money, and get them out of poverty, and he felt that wasn't fair.    
            Having not enough money wasn't only a problem for Lonnie.  Paul, Lonnie's best friend, stole checks from peoples mail just to get some money.  His sister, Mary-Ann(also Lonnie's girlfriend), stole all of Paul's stolen checks to help raise money to bail her mother from jail.  But she got caught and one of Paul's associates, Lenny, beat her up without Paul knowing.  When Paul did find out, not only was he angry, but it made him realize he shouldn't have stolen the checks in the first place.  When Lonnie confronted him, he broke down and admitted, "You see me hanging out with Lenny trying to get into that middle-class thing..."(90).  This was Paul's way of being honest, but also realizing stealing wasn't the best way to try and make money.    
            In Hoops the theme of money interfered with Lonnie's basketball dreams, which made the book interesting and exciting.  That's why money figured as a big piece in this book.  Whether you were trying to make money, or stealing money, it was everywhere in this text.  Overall this was a well rounded book.