Book talk presentation

Book 3: Book Review :)

(Angle #3) After reading both of these amazing books I have realized that both Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs have a similar idea in the book which is solving a mystery about someone else. Even though the genres of each book is completely different, In Thirteen Reasons Why the genre of the book is realistic fiction and in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children the genres of that book is fantasy, fiction, and children’s literature. Also in each book the plot of each book is different too.

In Thirteen reasons Why the main character Hannah had just committed suicide. In the book this boy named Clay is trying to figure out why she had made this decision by listening to a bunch of tapes that were given to him at the being of the book. Throughout the book Clay goes to different locations of town to get more information out of each tape. Discovering more and more of the story of Hannah Baker. In Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children the main character Jacob is trying to figure out if his grandfather’s past was true from the stories that he told or if they were just made up of lies. When his grandfather gets murdered Jacob decides that he wants to go to the island of where his grandfather grew up. There he finds many photographs of the children his grandfather talked about. Same as the first book discovering what happened to someone, but in this book he is finding out about the untold story of his grandfather and the many crazy stories of his past.

In both books they have many similarities like having someone dying in the book; also another connection between the two books is that someone is trying to figure out more about someone else in the book. “Go to the island, he said.” “I thought that I could protect you, he said. I should’ve told you a long time ago…”(pg. 36). “I spend months following my grandfather’s death cycling through a purgatory of beige waiting rooms and anonymous offices, and analyzed and interviewed, talked about just out of the earshot, nodding when spoken to, repeating myself.”(pg. 39). In the first quote Jacob is saying his last words to his grandfather before he dies and the second quote is Jacob going through what happened to his grandfather. “I almost forgot. If you’re on my list, you should’ve received a map. I let the wrapping fall back into the trash. I’m on the list. A few weeks ago, just before Hannah took the pills, someone slipped an envelope through the vent of my locker.”(pg 11). This quote is when Clay is starting to go to the locations that are stated in the tapes, when he starts investigating Hannah’s death.

For each book even though they have many similarities they have themes that are somewhat similar. For both books a theme that they both have is that the choices you make can affect others but mostly affect you. The reason I say this is because in Thirteen reasons because of all the bad choices that the people at her school make about her completely ruin her. When she killed herself it mostly affected her but it still affected others like Clay who wanted to know her more but was afraid to talk to her because of all the bad things that were said about her. In Miss Peregrine’s Jacob has to decide if he wants to stay with the children to help they find a new time period or if he decides to go back home to his ordinary life and could be in danger from the hallow ghosts. A theme that is in Thirteen reasons but isn’t in Miss Peregrine’s is that you should be careful what you say about someone else otherwise it could hurt the other person. This is a theme because from the result of all the bad rumors, bullying, lying, and stealing things that were important to Hannah, the people at her school made Hannah feel cornered and made her feel like her couldn’t do anything. A theme that is in Miss Peregrine’s that isn’t in Thirteen reasons is that fear doesn’t stop you from having the courage to go against it.  This is a theme only in this book because in the book Jacob faces his fear of fighting a hallow ghost. Which in the book all the other children wanted to hide from them for a really long time until Jacob came along. But in Thirteen reasons Hannah faces her fears of standing of up herself instead she commits suicide but she leaves tapes explaining her side of the story and what happened.

Lastly the rating for Miss Peregrine's would be 5 stars and 13 reasons would be 4 and a half stars. I would choose becasue for 13 reasons you can expect how the plot is going to happen but the book was still really good. For Miss Peregrine's the book would be 5 stars is becasue the book isn't as predicable and the plot has many plot twists in the book and the style of writing is more different that any other book that I have read.

 

Post #9:Heroes vs. villains

The book that I am reading right now is called Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. In the book the main protagonist is Jacob. For him he would be considered an anti-hero because in the beginning of the book he is confused with the truth of his grandfather’s stories of his childhood. He tries to believe them but doesn’t really understand if his grandfather is telling the truth or not. When his grandfather dies, he is completely lost. He starts to see a therapist to see if what he saw when his grandfather died was true. His parents think that he is crazy and he was just imagining things. He doesn’t know if he has lost his mind.  I think that Jacob fits the pattern of a hero because he is left with a problem (figuring out his grandfather’s childhood and his death) in the book which he has to solve it. He finds old photographs in his grandfather’s house of the stories he told about the children that he told him about. Another protagonist that is similar to Jacob would be Bee fox from Where'd You Go, Bernadette because in that book Bee is trying to find what happened to her mother after she disappears in the book. The difference is that she is looking through many different documents and Jacob is looking through photographs. The books are kind of similar in a way. In my book the protagonists in my book would be the hallows and weights. They are described as evil monsters that eat peculiar children. I think that they kind of fit the pattern for a villain because they don’t really want revenge on the children they want to kill them to feed their hunger. They kind of have a history with the children.

Post #7: The book thief(sorry that I didn't post it before 8)

Post #8:How true does a book have to be in your mind to be considered non-fiction? Why?

I think that if you are going to write a book that is non-fiction it has to be 100% true. No matter how good the story is. I think this because if the story is not 100% true then you can’t tell if they are telling the truth. The story could just be a big lie you would never know. Even though the story might be great which I’m not saying it couldn’t be, why would you, trust an author that would just lie about something that happened in their life that never happened or even was twisted in a way where it did happen but the whole truth wasn't told. One lie could impact the story so much that it wouldn’t really add up like how in James Frey’s novel A Million Little Pieces in the book he wrote that he was involved with a train accident that included killing a girl. Later in an interview he admitted that he was never a part of this but the girl that got killed affected his life deeply. As you see that is just like telling two different stories but saying that they are basically the same.  I think that lying to readers isn't good either because lying isn't going to help you in anyway. And what if your book becomes a best seller and people start to discover that you were just making it up all along? Then what do you then? It will create a bad reputation for you and your writing. You wouldn’t want that because if you decide to write more books no one will want to publish your book, probably because they would think that you are a big liar and wouldn’t trust you or your writing.

Post #6: Readicide

Is readicide a problem in schools?



Yes I think readicide is a problem in schools because if they are creating more ways for children to hate reading then kids aren’t going to like what they are learning and they feel like the teacher is lecturing them. Also it will create children to not try as hard because they don’t really care as much on what they are learning about. They will only read in the class to get a good score on a test or to memorize for class not for enjoyment. They are forcing books on us that most people wouldn’t really want to read. Let’s be honest if you had an assignment in class and they gave you two books to choose from, you would most likely choose the book that has more interest to you. Not the book that the teacher would want to assign. When choosing the book you have more freedom than being forced to read a certain book. The teachers are creating children to become like test takers not actually readers. As schools have started removing good books from children and replacing them with drill and learning skill worksheets and chopped up reading books by making them take notes on books, they have begun to lose focus on the learning of reading. By trying to make tests, quizzes on them isn’t going to create love for reading. They are only getting a main understanding of the information, but not going into depth. Like in trimester one when I had to analyze the story of Romeo and Juliet. At first I was quiet excited and was somewhat interested in what the story was about. I really wanted just to learn about the story not look at every single line in that story. But when I found out that we had to analyze each section of the book I was done. To be honest I don’t really care what this line means or what the meaning of that line means. I bet there isn’t even a deeper meaning to every line and whatever the author wrote is probably what he meant. Simple as that!

Blog Post #5: Adapting The Book Thief

 Some challenges that a film maker would have when adapting my book is that they would have to have a different perspective on the book since it is told by death or the story would partly be narrated in a way. I think it would be difficult because people wouldn't understand that death is telling the story unless they read the book and it would be difficult for them. 3 scenes that are essential to keep are when Liesel is riding in the car to go live with her new foster parents Hans and Rosa Hubberman. They would have to keep this scene because it is the start of the story and how she meets her new parents is important because she doesn't have her real parents and this is where the plot starts in the book . Another scene that they would have to keep is when Max comes to live with them and when Hans Hubberman has a flash back and is telling the story on how he got his accordion and how Max's father saved his life. The reason they would have to keep this scene because this is when the conflict in the book starts because they are trying to hide a Jew in their house which is against the law at the time and is very dangerous. And how he is telling a little background on Max so people know how he connects to Hans Hubberman. A third scene that they would have to keep is when she has her first Christmas with her foster parents and gets 2 books from her papa. This is important to keep because this is one of my favorite scenes in the book and I love the reaction that she has when she opens the books. She wasn't even expecting too much from them but getting a gift from them shows how much they love her and how she has adapted to living with them. 2 parts in the book that I would get rid of when adapting the film is when Liesel and Rudy join this gang to steal food for the group. I would get rid of this scene because it is not very important and also the stealing doesn't really last that long. The leader of group ends up leaving them so its not too important.  Another scene that I would get rid of is when Liesel is delivering laundry to Rosa's customers and Rudy comes alone and they find a coin on the group. They end up spending the coin on candy. The reason I would get rid of this scene is because  the coin didn't really symbolize anything and it was just a little detail in the story not too big.