Morganville Vampires

Who knew that karma be so real?In The  Morganville Vampires , Claire, a 16 yr old genius goes to Morganville, Texas for college. When Claire is there, she is bullied by a girl named Monica. It's so bad that that Claire had to find a place out of  college to sleep. In the  end Monica gets what she deserves.

 When Claire was still in the college dorms,  Monica was really cruel to her. This whole war between Claire and Monica started when  Claire corrected Monica in front of her friends. Monica said that World War two,"Was the dumb ass Chinese thing," and Claire corrected her. Monica probably felt embarrassed and thought Claire was trying to steal her spotlight. So the first thing that Monica did,to get back at Claire, was take all of Claire's good clothes out of the washing machine, and then dump them down the garbage chute. Monica even wrote Claire a note that said,"Dear dork, we found trash in the machines and threw it down the chute. If you want it, dive for it." This made me think that Monica is sending a message. Monica wants Claire to go away or be taken away like the clothes she threw down the chute.Monica probably wants to seem smart, and she thinks Claire will ruin that  for her. Also Monica and her friends also fought Claire after she say the note Monica wrote her. When Claire was walking up the steps, Monica and her friends started pushing Claire around. When Claire started to defend herself, all the girls pushed down the steps.While Claire was on the ground defenseless, Monica said,"You'll get what coming to you," when Monica actually gets whats coming to her.

In the second half of the book Monica gets it. Claire and Eve (one of Claire's housemate) are lookig for someone to help them save Shane, when Monica finds Claire and abducts her, Claire wakes up on the floor of one of Monica's vans and one of Monica's friends on her. Then the van was stopped by another van,  a man with bikers stepped out and approached their van. Monica was going to hurt Claire, but her plans were ruined because the man takes Monica and Claire hostage, but lets Monica's friends go. Monica was so scared,  that Claire even saw,"Tears glitter in her eyes." You can tell that Monica is scared. I think the reason why she's scared is because she knows this man can really hurt her, the tears prove that.Monica also probably heard of the terrible things her did to vampires, and she knows that whatever he's going to do to her is going to be painful. Monica deserves to feel scared, she made Claire so afraid, that she didn't even want to go to school  for classes. This shows that Monica got her karma

 When it comes to karma, it means what goes comes around. Monica made  feel pain, now she's going to get hurt. I think that Monica got herself into this mess and if she was just a nice person to everyone, she would have not been apart of this.No one deserves to feel the way Claire felt, and now Monica will feel the pain.  I discovered  that when I look at some of the things I said, I notice that this book was really good at teaching a lesson that no good comes out of putting negative energy into the world.

The Drummer Boy of Shiloh

Usually in a  war, soldiers are nervous and afraid of battle, but some also show bravery and they believe that they are immortal. In The Drummer Boy of Shiloh," a fourteen year old boy named Joby is the new drummer boy for one of the sides in the civil war.This boy is just scared of war because he believes that he doesn't stand a chance in the war even because he thinks he's going to die, even though he's just going to be drumming. In the end, Joby overcomes his fear by talking to the general.

Why is Joby so afraid? Well  the troops and Joby are in a forest where nothing seems like what it really is. Anything can happen at anytime. Joby was deep in thought he said,"Me, I got only a drum, two sticks to beat it, and no shield." This proved to me that he was really scared because  he feels hopeless and that there is no way he'll survive. Joby  can't take it! Joby is so scared that he even starts to cry, and what makes it worse is that no one is there to comfort him.Except when the general comes.

Joby  has no courage at all and who's there to change that? The general! One way the general helps, is by letting Joby know it okay to cry. By the general doing this, it lets Joby know that he'll be able to go home, the general even told him, "Many years from now,when you're as old or far much older then me, when they ask you what you did in this awful time, you will tell them-one part humble and one part proud- I was a drummer boy at the battle of Owl Creek or Tennessee River." The fact the general even thinks Joby will survive, gives him more courage.

The general also helped Joby by letting him know how important being a drummer boy is. The general said,"You are the heart of the army,"and Joby couldn't believe it! The general also said by the way that Joby hits his drum is the way the army matches. If the beat is slow, then the army will feel depressed and have no energy, but if the beat is strong, then the army will march strong and be ready to fight. Since the general said this, Joby feels more ready then ever and he can't wait to drum.

Joby has gotten his courage and it was all because of the general. When I think about our world and the way we get over our fears are usually from the help of someone else. This person gives us advice or comforts us when we need it. I know when i start a new school and i'm afraid, I can always ask my mom for advice. The advice that general gave Joby was great and now Joby is ready to play his best and forget about his fears.

theme and response

When you usually make a choice to go with someone it's because you trust them, but how do you choose to go somewhere with someone you barely know? In the book "Only the Good Spy Young" by Ally Carter, things like that don't seem to matter that much to Cameron  or Cammie Morgan. Cameron has been spying for a while, and now in this book Cammie is being chased by the 'Secret Circle' which is a group that recruits boys and girls from  schools that teach them how to be spies, they want Cammie because her father was a very important spy that was killed. Cammie dodges many interferences with the secret circle and she also learns new shocking things about the people she trust. I'm going to explain the difference between how Cammie's ways of life and ours.

   Speaking of trust, lets talk about Cammie's sort-of -boyfriend Zack, he's a spy too and he happens to be a pretty good liar when it comes to Cammie. Cammie can barely tell if Zack is lying. Through out the story Zack has been keeping a bunch of secrets from her and one of his biggest secrets come out, but she has nothing  to but thank him. But that doesn't mean she trust him. Cammie also has a choice to make, either to save herself or the people she love. Through this decision  she has to go with the guy she doesn't trust, interesting turn out huh? I guess you have to read the book to figure it out.

 In our world we don't deal with people we don't trust. Usually we stay away from someone  we no longer trust is because the person we don't trust did something that made us no longer trust them. Sure we give them one more chance maybe even two, but then that's it. This trust thing mainly applies to problems like back stabbing, cheating, and talking about about your friend in bad way. What's crazy, is that these things are little and Cameron's problems are big, and she still gives Zack more chances.

That is why their is such a big difference to our world's. Yes they both are complicated, but if I had to guess, the spy world is way harder then ours. From what I know, trust is a hard thing to gain,it's even harder to regain, but its easy to loose, so be careful with what you do and be smart with what you say.

Dillon's writing and Andriena's writing

Dillon's reading response was interesting and clear. This was one of the books i wanted to read this summer.Dillon had a good amount of description with his work. You could tell that he really took his time to write this response and it wasn't short. I really enjoyed reading his reading response.

Andriena's reading a on "Before we were free" by Julia Alvarez. Andriena's writing was  a really long stretch of words. It was also really descriptive like Dillon's. I like how she didn't miss any detail or it seemed like it. It was very interesting.

The Earth, My Butt, And Other, Big, Round Things

The Earth, My Butt, And Other, Big, Round Things

Through out this book Virginia Shreves, deals with her confidence problem, and the fact that she is over weight doesn’t help. Her father is always watching baseball games and he’s always complimenting women with good bodies. Virginia is always feeling out of place with her family because everyone is perfect except her. Virginia also is not sure about moving forward with Froggy, (a boy she fools around with that goes to her school), and ask him about their relationship because she is afraid he’ll turn her down because of her weight.

This story makes me think of the idea of weight in this world. Yeah girls are always saying beauty is in the inside, but usually we just say it to make someone feel better. The thing that is crazy though… big women and girls can still look amazing on the outside too. Who said being big is no longer beautiful. Granted skinny is healthy, but females are always complaining about their weight. Women and men should feel differently about this subject.

For Virginia’s confidence problem, it was taken care of because she started gaining some from the other problems in the book that she had. For example Virginia’s mom is always having her go to the doctor because of her weight. Virginia finally stood up to her mom and took a stand. Virginia is finally doing what she wants and is really growing.