>3. Finn

I like the fact that Huck is so relatable in the beginning. He seems like a boy  who loves to play around and wants make believe to be real. He doesn't like school, but he does like it. It's sad when his dad comes back and he has to kind of grow up immediately and take care of himself since his dad doesn't take care of him.  

I like how Huck takes care of Jim and Jim takes care of Huck. They have each others' backs  which is a nice thing. I like how Huck runs away and manages to get away by faking his death and such. Though, it must be nerve-wracking  for everyone else at home, even his dad. I like that the book is told from Huck's perspective and not an outside narrator. And I like the dialect it's written in, even if I can't always understand it that well and have to read things twice sometimes.

Overall, I kinda like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn...

Huckleberry(2.)

I suppose that Huck's dialect is southern, or a what I would expect from a young southern boy. The widow doesn't speak like Huck. He uses worlds like git for get, 'em instead of them, and says other things like "I didn't lose no time." It's very simple and short.

So far I like this book. It ain't bad. I haven't liked older books like this before. It's 'bout a boy whose name is Huck. His pap is a drunk and he's got a friend whose name is Tom Sawyer. Tom is always saying Huck and him can be robbers but then makes Huck go back home to the widow. The widow takes care of Huck 'cause his pap's a drunk. Every person in town thinks his pap is dead but Huck knows for a fact that he ain't. As it turns out he really ain't dead. He beats steals Huck away from the widow and Tom and takes him back into the woods to live with him. Huck's pap beats him and locks him in the cabin and goes into town, gets drunk, then he comes back and beats him again. Soon Huck finds his way out and takes off. As you can see this book has a nice plot. I do very much enjoy reading it.

... Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

I was kinda inspired by Diondra to read Speak. I've seen the movie, so I already know what happens... When I was at Westchester I read a historical fiction novel by the same author called Fever 1793. Gosh, I loved that book. So yesterday at Barnes and Noble I picked up Speak and lucky for me, my mom brought the check book and bought it for me.

So far I've gotten to Thanksgiving where Melinda's mom can't get the Turkey to thaw. Her dad took it out of the house and chopped it with an axe. Then they gave up and ordered a pizza. From what I remember of the movie, it seems to follow the book. I hate that I cheated myself out of the opportunity to read it first, but it happens some times. 

Melinda has an old janitors closet to her self... I kinda wish I did. It'd be really nice. Maybe I can find myself one. Hahaha. Melinda has some weird teachers. Hairwoman is weird and Mr. Neck is just plain mean. He just accuses her of being a bad person every time he sees her and starts a debate on immigration saying that the U.S. should have closed their borders in 1900. UGH. I don't like people like him. Melinda's art teacher, Mr. Freeman is always "sticking it to the man." He doesn't get money for new supplies and such.

I feel bad for Melinda because she's lost all of her friends and is stuck with Heather from Ohio... I wonder what it would be like if Decatur was a big school system and we came from several middle schools to one big high school.  Would things be like Heather's world?

The Cheer Leader by Jill McCorkle

On Christmas this book was under the tree with my pile of presents. Like the title of this blog tells you, the name of this book is The Cheer Leader by Jill McCorkle. I'd never heard of this book ever before, but one night I picked it up and read it at like 1:00 in the morning because I couldn't fall asleep. I got about twenty pages into it.

The narrator never says this, but she's looking at pictures. Each date represents a different picture and she tells the reader a story about each one. So that is how we I guess get acquainted with the narrator, it's how she reels us in, by looking through these pictures.

I believe that her mother is dead or has run away, because there is a picture of her mother that is yellow and fading and stashed away by her father, it's the picture that she starts the book off with. The narrator is always very nostalgic about her mother.

Each picture that the narrator, Jo Spencer talks about has it's own story behind it. We all here the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words, Jo might not make a thousand words for every picture, but she's at least got something to say.

My favourite story so far is about a picture that her brother took of her and her friend Jeff Johnson who had come down to visit his aunt and Jo's neighbor. Jo's brother Bobby teases her saying that Jeff is her boyfriend before he snaps the picture. It seems that Jo will never forget that about Jeff even though she was 11 before that picture was taken on their way to get slushies from the Quick Stop even though he left that summer and never dropped her a line.

It's an interesting story so far... but I read it late one night and have kinda forgotten exactly how far I've gotten, but I'm planning to revisit it soon.

My Sister's Keeper part two.

In the last blog about My Sister's Keeper I just lightly brushed over the book.The reason I like this book so much is that it's told from the different perspectives of all of the main characters in the story. When we had a sub in chemistry and watched a movie I spent my time just going through my favourite character's perspectives. That's what I like about books that you've read before, you don't necessarily have to read through the whole thing, you can just pick and choose the parts because you already know what's there.

Anna Fitzgerald is the 13-year-old sister who is suing her parents for the right to her own body. She's indecisive about what she's doing most of the time and pines for a normal life. She's stuck in a difficult position and is just trying to find a way out. To get money for a lawyer, she sold a that she recieved from her father when she was five for giving her sister "a gift" of lymphocytes.

Kate Fitzgerald is Anna's older sister who has had leukemia since she was two. Kate is a 15 or 16 loves soap operas and boys. She's currently in remission and needs a kidney transplant. Right now I don't know how Kate feels about her sister's decision.

Sara Fitzgerald is Kate and Anna's mom. So far her perspective begins in 1990 when she found out Kate had leukemia and describes all of her fear and how her sister Suzanne came out of the hectic business world to help her. I think that Kate getting leukemia was Sara's worst nightmare come to life. She once was a lawyer but turned into a housewife because she enjoyed raising her children, now though she really doesn't have much of a choice but to be with her daughter at all times. She's very upset that Anna has brought this law suit upon the family. She doesn't understand what's going on with Anna.

Brian Fitzgerald is Sara's husband and Anna and Kate's dad. Brian is a fire fighters, every day he saves people. He named Anna Andromeda because he likes the stars and the stories behind the constellations. At the station he has a telescope on the roof and during his free time he goes up there to look at the stars. Brian is the first to notice that Anna's locket is gone and sense that something is wrong with Anna. When he finds out that Anna has filed a law suit he's worried about Anna, not upset with her. He lets Anna live at the station while she's figuring things out (away from her mother). Lately the firefighters have been faced with an arson problem, just abandonned buildings, luckily none were occupied.

Jesse Fitzgerald is Brian and Sara's first born son and Kate and Anna's brother. He's around 18 or 19 and lives in the garage and has his own beat up car. He's the troubled kid and uses his sister's sickness to his benifit. Like he says people are always giving you a chance or the benifit of the doubt if your sister is dying. Jesse drives fast, smokes pot and probably drinks too, I can't remember. He loves his family but is impressed with Anna's law suit.

Campbell Alexander is Anna's attorney. At first he wouldn't take Anna's case and was about to send her to Planned Parenthood. But once Anna further explains that she wants the rights to her own body because her parents have used her for organ and cell donations since she was born he comes around realizing that she doesn't need birth control. He thinks this case will make him a more esteemed lawyer than he already is.

Campbell has a dog named Judge. He claims that he's a service dog but Campbell isn't blind and doesn't seem to be impaired in anyway. Each time he's asked about the dog he just says someting ridiculous like he has high blood pressure and Judge barks when his heart beats to fast.

Julia Romano works in the District Attorney's office and has been assigned Anna's guardian ad litem. She's in charge of all of Anna's medical decision while the case is going on. Julia and Campbell used to date in high school, however there relationship ended abruptly after Campbell took Julia to see his parents one night. She believes that after she met his parents they disaproved of her and he stopped his relationship because society said that he couldn't date a tution student rebel who wore combat boots and dyed her hair pink. This makes it difficult for Julia and Campbell to work together. She's also puzzled by Campbell's dog Judge.

I love this book. It's amazing. If you hadn't read it, you have to read it.

Well I've kinda read three books since the last time I blogged. Two of them were young adult books, so I don't know if they really count... I actually blogged about one of them and made a connection to the transcendentalists, but I can't find that blog after I saved it as a draft. I also read the Magician's Nephew by C. S. Lewis. I also stared a book that I got for Christmas one night... I think I'll be doing a blog about it later once I refresh my memory.

I didn't get to go to the Gatsby talk at the library. I kinda forgot about it. But I did listen/watch someone on youtube discuss it. I'm still working on Little Women. I watched the movie while I was babysitting one night and I think that I should just make it my goal to read it by the end of spring break or else I don't know if I'll ever finish it.

Huckleberry Finn

"You don't know about me, without you have read a book by the name of 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,' but that ain't no matter."

I don't really see what the first line is supposed to be tell me other than the fact that I don't know who Huck is unless I've read "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," but that doesn't matter. Huck is talking to the reader as if the reader is right there he uses the word you which is really annoying. It seems really informal to me. Huck doesn't seem very educated. Obviously there's another story since it doesn't matter if we don't know about Tom's adventures. It's a friendly tone and I suppose the mood is carefree. I feel like I need more than a sentence to determine the mood or tone of something.

Huckleberry Finn lives with a widow in a lovely house. He reads the Bible and eats dinner with her and is very fortunate and cannot really recognize it. At night Huck sneaks out with Tom. The boys almost get caught by one of the slaves because Huck has many itches that he wants to scratch, but he doesn't scratch because that would blow his cover. The slave, Jim falls asleep and the boys put his hat on a tree branch over him. This makes Jim think he's been bewitched or something. Jim and the story of his hat becomes famous. Huck tells us about Tom's gang of robbers and in order to be in it Huck must go home to the widow, which he does.

Twain ended chapter one when Huck sees Tom so that it's sort of a cliff hanger I suppose. There's a distinct line between being inside with the widow and outside with Tom. Chapter two continues with the same language, Huck still is narrating the story. Chapter two however is less about the life inside and more about the life outside, the life Huck likes and the chapter ends when he enters the house.

I expect a to find out what a "great American novel" is from this story. I like the first chapters fine, they kept me engaged. I don't really now what exactly to expect story wise. I know I've watched a Huck Finn episode of Wishbone, but it's been a LONG time since then. I hope to like this book. I don't really know why people think that Huck Finn is the "great American novel." Even my mom said it was. I suppose there must be a good story about a boy who achieves something. But other than that I don't really have an inkling as to what it could be about. Sorry.

Hiatus

Since you've given us the opportunity to better focus on other work, I've taken it. I'm taking a break from these blogs until the next ones. But I am reading... just not American Literature.