In the book "19 Minutes," by Jodi Picoult, there are 5 different characters who tell the story at different parts. These characters are Josie, Peter, Josie's mom Alex, Peter's mom Lacy, and Jordan (Peter's defense attorney). Each character is telling the story from their point of view. 

When Josie tells the story, she makes it seem like her mom, Alex, is the "bad guy." In Josie's retellings, Alex repeatedly ignores Josie, or seems uninterested in anything Josie tells her. But, when Alex tells the story, she makes it seem like Josie doesn't want to talk to her. Alex explains how Josie keeps blowing her off when Alex wants to spend time with her. In reality, Josie and Alex probably don't have a great relationship, but it probably doesn't go to the same extremes that they both think it does. 

This happens many times in the book, including when Peter and his mom, Lacy, are telling the same story. Peter always describes Lacy as never sticking up for him, and always wanting him to be more like his brother, Joey. But Lacy always describes Peter as wanting to do his own thing, and as being someone very independent who really doesn't need her support. This shows that they aren't really communicating with each other, so they don't know how the other person feels and they are just saying what they think is going on. 

I found it very interesting that so many characters would describe the same events so differently. This shows how when more than one person tells a story, it will be told in many different perspectives. 

In the book "Speak," by Laurie Halse Anderson, Melina is repeatedly punished for things that she shouldn't have been punished for. She tries to make a mini-protest in her social studies class, and is sent to the principal. She stops talking all the time, and her parents are called in by the school. Some of the characters in the book overreact to Melinda's "misbehavior," when all she's really doing is trying to stand up for herself.

Melinda has an extremely mean and non understanding social studies teacher who she likes to call "Mr. Neck." In the beginning of the book, Melinda is failing his class, she never does the homework, and doesn't even show up half of the time. But, towards the middle of the book, she starts trying a lot harder. She does all of the work she's asked to do, and hands it all in on time. Then, she hands in a social studies project on the women suffragette movement. She hands it in exactly on time, and he tells her that in order to receive the credit for the project, she has to do an oral presentation in front of the class the following morning. Melinda never talks, especially not in front of a group. So instead, she protests against the unfairness of the assignment. She goes up in front of the class, hands everyone a copy of the report, and stands there, completely silent, for the full 5 minutes that she had to do her presentation. Mr. Neck sends Melinda to the principal, where she is unfairly punished. Melinda was only trying to make a point and stand up for herself, but no one listened to her.

In the beginning of the book, Melinda has almost completely stopped talking. She will say the occasional two-word sentence to some people, but usually not any more than that. When Melinda's teachers finally realize that she has stopped talking, they call her parents. Her parents come to the school, and they have a huge meeting with the guidance counselor, the principal, and Melinda. Throughout the meeting, Melinda is trying to block out what everyone is saying, but she can't completely. Her parents think she's trying to be funny, and get even more upset. They all agree that she needs to spend time in M.I.S.S., which is basically an extended detention within the school. Melinda shouldn't be punished for not talking, because she didn't actually do anything wrong. She has a lot of reasons for staying silent, so the adults shouldn't be trying to force her to talk. They aren't paying attention to what Melinda is trying to say, and need to be more thoughtful of her than of themselves.

In the book, Melinda is constantly being punished for things that don't deserve punishment. No one is listening to what she is trying to tell them, and they automatically assume that the only way to get her to do what they want is by giving her unreasonable punishments. This isn't going to help anyone in the situation, and will really only make things worse.

I recently read the book "Crank," by Ellen Hopkins. In the book, Kristina is visiting her father in New Mexico. Soon after she arrives, she meets Adam, also known as Buddy. Kristina introduces herself as "Bree," her alter- ego. Throughout the book, Bree repeatedly does things that Kristina would never think of doing, including doing dangerous drugs such as cocaine and meth.

When Kristina/ Bree is still in New Mexico, she is continually getting herself into trouble. By becoming Bree, Kristina lets herself do all of the crazy things she would've never done, without thinking of the consequences. She's letting herself get into serious trouble with boys and drugs, and regrets it as soon as she becomes Kristina again.

When Kristina/ Bree gets back to Nevada to be with the rest of her family, she meets a lot of new people. First she meets Chase, and then she meets Brendan. She introduces herself as "Bree" to both of them, and doesn't act like Kristina at all. This gets her into even more trouble than she was in in New Mexico, especially because in New Mexico she could leave and never come back, but in Nevada everyone knows her.

Kristina/ Bree sees her self as two completely separate people. There is Kristina, who has good grades, gets along well with her family and friends, and doesn't do anything dangerous. Then there's Bree, who is easily bored when she isn't doing something "insane." Bree is daring, and Kristina is safe. Kristina / Bree seems to like Bree more when she is being Bree, and as soon as she becomes Kristina, she tells herself how stupid she was to do whatever Bree was telling her to do.

When Kristina/ Bree first got off the plane in Nevada, she says that "Kristina had seen it all before. Kristina was home. Bree saw it all through new eyes. Bree was a stranger." This shows that Bree had only really become a part of Kristina while she was in New Mexico with her dad, and that Bree was new to Kristina's family in Nevada.

In the article "Justice Denied," the author Dan Barry discusses multiple "racially motivated killings," including one in 1965 when Frank Morris (African American) was murdered by 2 white men for unknown reasons, and they weren't charged. I chose this article because it shows one of the many brutal, racially motivated killings that continue even now. Just last year, 17 year old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, who was 28. Zimmerman claimed to have acted in self- defense, but Martin wasn't carrying any weapons. Zimmerman was found innocent, and wasn't charged. Many people thought that it was because George Zimmerman was white and Trayvon Martin was black, and if it had been the other way around, the shooter would've spent the rest of his life in jail. This is another one of the racially motivated killings that are still occurring today.

I am currently reading "Crazy," by Anne Reed. Connor, one of the main characters, has a close friend named Isabel, another main character. Isabel is severely bipolar, and Connor is trying to help her through all of her highs and lows. But, Isabel always tells him to leave her alone, that she doesn't need his sympathy, and so on. Connor keeps trying to help, and Isabel won't let him.

Towards the beginning of the book, Connor realizes that Isabel's problems are getting to be too serious for him to handle, so he asks if he can talk to his mom (a therapist) about her. Isabel immediately responds with "Just because you can't figure me out doesn't mean I'm crazy. How could you even say something like that?" Connor feels the need to apologize, even though he was only trying to help. How was he supposed to know it would upset her so much? I think that Connor feels the need to always give in to Isabel, even when she gets mad at him for helping her.

Every once in a while, Connor gets fed up with trying to help Isabel and her always rejecting or insulting him for trying to help. Towards the middle of the book, Isabel asks Connor to forgive him for something that she had done, and he doesn't. He tells her, "No. I will not forgive you. I am sick of always forgiving you... I have to pretend it doesn't hurt because I'm afraid that if I tell you how I actually feel, you'll run away even more. You get mad, and I apologize for things I didn't even do wrong... Everything is always about you." Connor finally tells Isabel how he really feels, and how he can never even do that because he's afraid she'll get mad. It was extremely brave of Connor to finally admit everything he'd been thinking, since he had always been so afraid to.

In the book so far, Connor continually goes back and forth between always forgiving Isabel and giving her everything she needs, and telling her how sick of it he is all the time. Isabel is always surprised and upset when he reveals how he's been feeling, but its because she only thinks about herself whenever she makes any decisions. She never thinks about anyone else, especially not Connor, so she really can't be too surprised when he tells her that he doesn't want to be treated so badly anymore.

Dear Ms. Berner,

I understand that M.S. 51 is planning to ban certain books from the 6th grade libraries at school. Many articles show how banning books badly affects students, and why letting them read books they are interested in is so important. Books shouldn't be banned because students who are dealing with heavy issues that they might not want to talk about often turn to books that discuss the same or similar issues.

When a child or teen feels uncomfortable talking about a problem going on in their lives, they often turn to books that are about the same issues that they are dealing with. This way, they feel understood, knowing that other people have dealt with the same issue, and that they are not alone. "Illness, depression, sexuality- these are all things teens are going to bump against in their lives, whether directly or at one remove, through family members, friends, or other representations in media. The Daily Mail seems to be suggesting that it is inappropriate for these issues to be looked at in one place where difficult subjects have been most sensitively explored for teens: fiction written specifically for them." ("Sick Lit? Evidently Young Adult Fiction is Too Complex for the Daily Mail," by Michelle Pauli). If teens don't have books to turn to, they will feel as though no one understands what is going on in their lives and they have no one who they can talk to about it.

Many teens who are dealing with complicated issues in their own lives might feel as though adults are uncomfortable with or afraid of talking about whatever is going on in their lives. "Ignorance is no armor. And those whose lives are touched by the issues I write about deserve to know they are not alone." ("Banned Books Week 2010: An Anti- Censorship Manifesto," by Ellen Hopkins). If these students see that not everyone is afraid to talk about the issue if people are currently writing about it, they will know that they are not alone. This will cause the students to be able to talk about the problem freely.

Some parents, teachers, or librarians might argue that many younger students (such as 6th graders) are too young to read about darker topics such as the ones found in many young adult books. In "Darkness Too Visible," author Megan Cox Gurdon explains that young readers are surrounding themselves with "dark images," which is apparently "unhealthy." But everyone is different, with a different maturity level, so a book that may be too "dark" for one 6th grader could be interesting and even useful to another. "If you don't like the content in a book, don't read it. If you don't want your child to read a book, take it away. But you do not have the right to decide 'appropriateness' for everyone. What's perhaps not right for one is necessary to another." ("Banned Books Week 2010: An Anti- Censorship Manifesto," by Ellen Hopkins). This shows that some teens need to read certain books to know that they are not alone against the problems they are facing.

In conclusion, books shouldn't be banned from the 6th grade libraries. If 6th graders are dealing with a certain issue, and they read a book where the character is dealing with the same issue, they wont feel as alone knowing that others have dealt with and understand the issue. Also, teachers, librarians, and parents don't have the right to decide what's appropriate for everyone. A parent should be allowed to make sure that their child doesn't read a certain book/ genre, but that doesn't mean these books should be taken away from the entire grade. "This (book banning) is merely a stupid, cruel idea invented by some marketing maven who thinks only of the convenience of supermarket shelf stackers and nothing of the way in which children come to books." ("Age- Rated Books: Right or Wrong?," by Anne Fine).

I recently read the book "Sold," by Patricia McCormick. Throughout the story, the main character Lakshmi gains and loses trust in people and situations very easily. She will begin to trust someone very quickly after she meets them, but will also stop trusting them seemingly out of nowhere.

In the book, Lakshmi places all of her trust in "Uncle Husband" almost immediately. She barely knows him, but automatically assumes that he will keep her safe and is scared when she has to be separated from him. While she is staying in the "Happiness House," she repeatedly says that she missed him and is scared without him, even though he wasn't nice to her at all and she barely knew him. She even refers to him as "A man who gives out sweets and slaps with the same hand." She probably trusted him so easily because she knew that if she didn't, she wouldn't have anyone left to trust.

In the book, Lakshmi didn't trust "the boy with the tea" for a very long time. Every day, he would come to the "Happiness House," selling tea to all of the girls. Lakshmi refused to buy tea each day, since she was saving her money so she could go home, but the boy always gave her a cup of tea anyway. He never asks for anything in return, and its not until he gets fired from his job for giving away free tea and he stops coming the the "Happiness House" that she realizes how good of a friend he was to her, and that she never even knew his name. She didn't talk to him for so long, and by the time she realized that they were friends, it was too late.

Throughout the story, Lakshmi trusts some people too easily, and others not enough. She trusts some people because she knows that without them, she'll have no way to feel safe. She doesn't trust other people because she knows that she has misplaced her trust in people before. A lot of the time, she trusts the wrong people and doesn't trust people she should've trusted.

In the book "The Pact," by Jodi Picoult, Chris's and Emily's parents aren't speaking to each other anymore, now that Chris has been charged with Emily's murder. The two families used to be extremely close, but Emily's parents refuse to believe that Emily was suicidal, so they think that Chris killed her.

Melanie, Emily's mom, used to be best friends with Gus, Chris's mom. After Emily's death, Melanie stopped speaking to Gus. She probably felt that it was Gus's fault that Melanie's daughter was dead, and didn't want to talk to Gus because of it. "Melanie pulled away and turned her back... Melanie did not respond... When Melanie swung around, she looked completely unfamiliar. 'What I know about Chris,' she said, 'us that he's still alive." In this part of the book, Melanie was telling Gus that it couldn't have been a suicide pact, because then Chris would be dead as well. Melanie thinks that Chris killed Emily.

When Michael, Emily's dad, started having lunch with Gus after they visited Chris in jail, Melanie couldn't understand why Michael would want to talk to Gus. She was still so mad at Gus, and didn't know why her husband wouldn't be, as well. "Melanie shook her head. 'You're a fool. Don't you understand the lengths a mother will go to to protect her child?' She glanced up, her nostrils flared, her lips white. 'That's what Gus is doing, Michael. Which is more than I can say for you.'" Melanie was saying that Gus was trying to convince Michael that Chris was innocent, so Michael would be a defendant for Chris.

Although the Gold's and the Harte's were once extremely close family friends, Emily's death (which was possibly caused by Chris) caused the families to almost entirely stop speaking to each other.

In the book "19 Minutes," by Jodi Picoult, the issues are often pushed away and not talked about. A lot of the characters don't know how to express their feelings, so instead of trying to talk about them, they try to push the feelings away.

In the book, Peter acted like everything was fine. He spent time with his family, he acted like he enjoyed school, and he seemed relatively happy. Later on in the book, we find out that Peter was depressed, suicidal, and shot and killed 10 students in his own school. No one knew he was planning this, no one knew he was depressed or suicidal. He pushed his feeling so far down that he had to resort to this. If someone had taken the time to ask him what was going on, or if he had decided to talk to anyone about how he was feeling, instead of keeping his issues to himself, the outcome of the story might've been different.

In the book, Alex, Josie's mother, tried for a long time to become closer to Josie after years of neglecting her. When she learns that Josie doesn't want to have anything to do with her since Alex neglected her for so long, Alex tries to pretend that she doesn't care. When Josie finally comes around and her and Alex become closer, Alex admits to missing having Josie always be there, and Josie tells her how neglected and forgotten she had felt for all those years. When they both started talking about the issues they had kept inside for so long, they were able to solve those issues and talk to each other more openly, instead of keeping everything to themselves as they had for so long.

In the book, many of the characters keep their feelings to themselves instead of openly talking about them. If Peter hadn't kept everything to himself and if Alex hadn't pretended not to care about Josie, the ending of this story might've been different. This book shows that a lot of the time, people don't know how to express their feelings, so they push them away instead of deciding to be open about what is going on beneath the surface.

The short story "Faithful Elephants," by Yukio Tsuchiya teaches readers that life isn't always fair. In the story, the zookeepers had to kill the animals in the zoo, bombs were being dropped on the zoo, and and the three elephants, John, Tonky, and Wanly were starved because the trainers could find no other way to kill them, which they had to do. All of these events in the story were extremely unfair to both the people and the animals.

In the story, the zookeepers at Ueno Zoo had to kill all of the potentially "dangerous" animals in the zoo. They were taking precaution in case a bomb was dropped on the zoo and the animals escaped, which could be very dangerous to both the animals and the people nearby. "What would happen if bombs hit the zoo? If the cages were broken and dangerous animals escaped to run wild through the city, it would be terrible! Therefore, by command of the army, all of the lions, tigers, leopards, bears, and big snakes were poisoned to death." It wasn't the animals' faults that there was the possibility of bombs being dropped on the zoo, and yet they were being killed because of it. This was very unfair to the animals. This was also very unfair to the trainers. "All this while, the elephants' trainer loved them as if they were his own children. He could only pace in front of the cage and moan, 'You poor, poor, pitiful elephants!'" The trainers loved these animals, and now they had to kill them JUST IN CASE a bomb was dropped on the zoo.

In the story, the three elephants, John, Tonky, and Wanly had to be killed along with the rest of the "dangerous" animals. But, since they were too smart to be poisoned and their skin was too tough to be given a syringe that would kill them quickly, they had to be starved to death. "The keepers reluctantly decided to starve him to death. Poor John died seventeen days later." It wasn't the elephants' faults that there was no other way for them to be killed, and yet they had to die an extremely slow an painful death because of it.

In "Faithful Elephants," we are taught that life can be very unfair. The text had lots of evidence for this moral: the zookeepers had to kill their beloved animals, the elephants were starved to death, and there were bombs being dropped all over Japan. This story teaches us that, although we wish it could be, sometimes life is very unfair.

Over the summer, I read the book "The Great Gatsby," by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I think one of the themes of the book is dissatisfaction. All of the main characters in the book should be satisfied with what they have, and yet they still want more.
Gatsby is rich, famous, and loved by so many people, and yet he decides that he has to have Daisy love him again. And even after she tells both him and Tom that she loves Gatsby, Gatsby forces her to tell Tom that she had never loved him, and that she had always loved Gatsby. Even when Gatsby had gotten what he said he wanted most (Daisy's love), he pushes his luck and makes her admit to never loving Tom. This shows that Gatsby is never fully satisfied, even though he got exactly what he thought he wanted in the first place.
Daisy had everything she thought she wanted: a rich, handsome husband, a huge house and all the dresses she could possibly want, but she needed more. She needed to have both Tom and Gatsby love her, so she would never have to choose between them. Even though she could've stayed with Gatsby before she even met Tom, and she could've been happily married to Tom, she had to have them both. This shows that no matter who she chose, she thought she would be even more unhappy, so she chose both thinking that this way, she would never have to regret her decision.
The wealthy people in this book were often careless, unhappy, and dissatisfied. Even though they thought they knew exactly what they wanted and what they would be happy with, they didn't actually know, and this made all of their problems worse. No matter what they thought would satisfy them, it always ended up dissatisfying them even more.