Blog Post on Child Poverty

I recently read an article about child poverty in the United States. The main idea of the article was that child poverty is a big issue in the US, and that children are the poorest age group. The author talked about how child poverty is an issue that needs to be resolved immediately and actions are already being taken to prevent child poverty. Some facts and details the author included are,"14 States saw statistically significant increases in their child poverty rates." She wants us to realize that child poverty is all over the US and that it is increasing at a very high rate. Some other facts and details she included are,"16.1 million children are poor" and,"with more than seven million children living in extreme poverty". The author uses these facts to convey the large amount of children that are in poverty and how enormous child poverty is. The author also includes the name of the states that have 25% or higher child poverty rate, in which there are more than 13 states. This connects to the main idea because the main idea is that child poverty exists in the US at a very high rate and needs to be stopped through action.
I think the author wants us to feel bad for the children living in poverty and to want to try and help. When she mentioned all the states that had high percentages of child poverty, I think people who lived in the states that were named would want to take action and lower their child poverty in their state. One direct quote is,"These shameful child poverty levels call for urgent and persistent action." As I read this sentence I felt pretty ashamed too  Adults should be able to care for her kids, and the author did a good job using facts and her opinion to make a plea for a lower poverty rate for children in all of the United States.
Some things I will take away from this article is how big child poverty is of a issue. I knew very little of the facts, and because I am a teenager I feel this issue relates to me a lot. New York wasn't on the list of states with a 25% or higher of child poverty, and this makes me happy because it shows how our city has been doing a good job dealing with kids in poverty. I think we could do more, however. We could have fundraisers for homeless shelters and have programs that deal with kids that may not be able to afford after school activities.  Some other things I want to know are, what can we the kids do to help? This article did a good job fully explaining the issue, but left the ending open-ended. I think that people understand and are very concerned about this issue, but don't know how to help. Indeed, it is something very difficult to help, because if you don't a kid in poverty, what could you do? I think this issue needs more recognition in government because it is very important. Plus, the kids today are our future. Don't you want to make sure they have a future?

Blog Post on The Talented Mr. Ripley (Spoilers!)

I just read a really great book, called The Talented Mr. Ripley and I thought it was one of the best books I have read. It is about a man Tom Ripley, who travels to Italy to persuade a friends to move back to the states. He ends up getting jealous of his friend and kills him, and then takes over his identity.
I thought Tom(Mr. Ripley) was the most interesting character in the book.  He seems normal and cool and collected, but he would kill a man. He is not like a normal "psycho path" he has lived a normal life and is usually very happy. But the smallest things can make him so angry. He hates unfairness, and I think he has to take out his anger that way. Not to be too mean or anything, but the author clearly shows there are a few loose screws for Tom. He once dressed up in his friends Dickie's clothes, and pretended to act like him. (Later taking his whole identity.) He wants to be someone else. Some part of his brain is so rejected by him he manages to pretend he is someone else completely. Even though he is faking, and he is acting, he also believes himself. That he, Tom is his friend. He even makes an effort to talk like him, to move his face like him, this is something he is completely obsessed with.
Tom's job before he went to Italy was forging people's signatures to gain their money from checks, a path to ensure him to break the law. But the thought of killing another being did not come into his head at all. That's what scared me. He was a normal man, just sitting on the beach, when he had the idea he was going to kill his friend and he did. There was no plotting, no deciding whether this was right or not. This scared because you never know when he is going to attack, never going to snap. Some of the world's worst criminals are like that, which makes them the most dangerous. They will be normal one day, killers the next.
And he doesn't stop with his friend Dickie either. After assuming the identity of Dickie, he moves to Rome and pretends to live life as Dickie would. Sending letters to Dickie's girlfriend, wearing his clothes, his rings, leaving behind Tom Ripley as if he never existed. Tom ends up killing Freddie too, Dickie's friend, when Freddie finds out that he is just pretending to be Dickie. The thing is, throughout all these murders, Tom is so uncaring, he hardly seems to realize he is a murderer.
At the end of the book, he almost murders again too. He is staying with his girlfriend Marge and she is annoying him very much. And then out of nowhere he is imagining killing her. It is all so planned out in his head, what he would say to the police, what he would say to Marge's father. This stood out to be because it didn't show a change. Even at the end of the book, when Tom has been through countless police, he will still murder. The author tried to show that some characters might not change their ways, even having been through so much. In fact I think he did change, but not for the better, he became worse and worse.
And the funny thing is, he never got caught for any of the murders. He will probably live his life happily and free from the police. I think the author meant this to show that not everyone gets what they deserves, and not everyone gets punished.

Blog Post on Black Beauty

I am almost done with Black Beauty and it is the story of a horse named Black Beauty, and the series of owners he goes through and life experiences. I personally loved Black Beauty and I feel that it was a very well-written book.
Black Beauty the horse was a very interesting character.  He was always willing and ready to please, and had the same personality of a human. All the horses could talk to each other and they were like humans in that respect, they had feelings and wants and needs, and I think Anna Sewell ( the author) wanted us to realize we are not so different from the animals around us. A very kind lady quotes this in the book and it reminds when we studied how the author puts his or her voice into the book. I think Anna Sewell put her own opinions and thoughts into the mouths of the character and that is how she carries her ideas across. Like I was saying the quote is, "just because horses can't express themselves the way we can, that does not make them dumb, they still feel pain as much as we do." This quote and many others sound like something the author would see, and it helps carry across the idea that animals should be treated equally.
Black beauty goes to a lot of different homes where he is treated very bad. This makes me think of the time period (late 1800s) where there was almost no animal rights, and people could treat there animals in most anyway they wanted. Black Beauty does go to some good homes though, where people are mindful of how they treat their animals. I think this is one of the reasons people still read this book today, there are many sad moments in the book that show how cruel people were. Black Beauty's friends Ginger, gets sold as a cab horse and tells Black Beauty later in in the book, "I wish I would fall down at my work and die rather than continue living." This quote makes me very sad and it reminds me of other books when characters say similar things, and I notice that is doesn't sound weird that it comes from the mouth of a horse rather than a human.
In all, I really like this book and I am excited for the ending. I hope that Black Beauty does eventually go to a good home, because he deserves one. When someone has been so good and kind and patient their whole life, they deserve to have a good peaceful end to their life, and Black Beauty definitely deserves one.

Non-fiction blog Post

I recently read an article that was on cyber-bulling and internet security, and how kids are becoming less protected online. Kids as young as 10 years old are chatting with complete strangers and can be talking to anybody with a computer. The article says, "many kids find it easier to chat with someone and bully them, rather than talk to them face to face." I think this means that kids have the guts to do things online they could never do in person. Over a computer screen, lies are a lot easier to be told.
Sharing pictures can that should be private is also a problem too, with kids leaving their facebooks open for friends to go on. Many people can also post things anonymously, and as it says in the article, "most people who cyberbully do it anonymously, and that can hurt the person being bullied even more. The fact you are being bullied is bad, but not knowing who it is can be even worse." I think in our age of technology it is so easy to chat people and even get personal information it is very easy for people to be bullied.
Cyber-bulling has spread to a wider age group too. Kids as young as nine and ten often say mean comments to each other online with worry they will get in trouble. As they grow up they will probably still continue to cyberbully because they did not get in trouble when they were younger. I think that kids so young cyberbully and act mean is really bad, and must be stopped.
My whole opinion on the article is that there should be more safety settings and more ways to keep your computer private. I know several websites such as Omegle, and ask.fm where people are allowed to chat and ask people questions without knowing at all who they are. You might be chatting with someone thinking they are a 13 year old girl when they are really a creepy old man halfway across the world. In real life that would be seen as creepy and not right, so why should it be okay online?

Reading response on other blogs Blog Post On Other Blog's

http://busyfizzyizzy.blogspot.com/2013/02/house-rules-by-jodi-picoult.html
I read Izzy's blog Post on House Rules by Jodi Picoult and I loved her blog post.  It was very informative, and clearly showed the views of all the characters in the book.  The book is about a family with a child with autism. Although many readers will want to focus on the child with autism, Izzy focused on all members of the family to show all the views of the book.
I found it most interesting how she describes Theo, who's brother has autism. Theo feels like he just wants to be normal, which is impossible for him because of his brother. Izzy did a good job describing how Theo feels, saying that he always wanted to have a older brother, and now he is the older brother. Living with someone that will be forever branded "the person with the weird brother" will affect Theo deeply and I think Izzy was very smart to have understand Theo's personality that well.
Izzy also described Emma, the mother of the two sons, very well. She showed her thought and also used some retell to fully understand the character. She comments on how it must be very hard for Emma to out in a brave face and go on living with a kid that has  autism. If something as small as the car next to them is orange, she has to find another place to park. I think Izzy did a good job of describing her character as someone who feels alone and stressed but still manages to be brave. I also liked how Izzy added her own opinion to make her ideas more true. I also agree with Izzy that if I was in her situation I would not be able to face having to change my life for her son, Jacob.
Jacob, is one of the most interesting characters in the book is a complex person. Izzy describes him as smart, smarter than other people give him credit for. I agree with Izzy and that because people see him with autism, they think he cannot do anything himself. This makes me think of many common stereotypes and how people think of others.
In all, I think Izzy did a very good job on her blog post, it was organized very well and made a lot of sense. She had the perfect combination of thoughts, retell and evidence from the story to form her conclusion. I would like to try her strategy of describing all the main characters of the story and not focusing so much on the themes of the story.

Blog Post on The Book Thief

I just read The Book Thief, this is a story of a girl in Nazi Germany and crazy and scary things happen to her, including risking her life for others, and stealing books. One of the most unusual thing about this book is the fact that is narrated by death.
Death, in the book is a not really a person, not really anything. When people die he carries their soul's in his arms, and he says that is his only and one job. I think people because of scary movies and stories would associate a figure of death as scary and threatening, like a big figure with a black hood and a bloody sword or stick. But, as death tells us in his book, he is not scary and he means no harm, and throughout the book I felt that he felt like any normal character, but I still felt it was a little weird for the book to be narrated by someone who wasn't really in the story that much.
The main character is a girl named Lisel,  whose brother dies on a train with her and her mother sends her to live with strangers, I think Lisel was represented by death because she too is lonely and sad in the world,  and that is why death is drawn to her so much. Not that she is dying or coming close to dying that often, but she understands death in the way her peers don't.
The name of the book, The Book Thief, is talking about when Lisel stole many books from houses and even from a burning fire. I think the name is supposed to be mean that even in such a crazy time,  before world war two and during, while one single girl suffered  she stole books. Out of all the crazy things that were happening, out of all the people who were dying, the author chose to write about a girl who stole books, making the book special and more interesting.

Blog Post on I Am the Messenger

I just finished I am the Messenger and it is a story about a man, Ed Kennedy who is a 20-year old man that lives with his dog and works as a cabdriver. His life is very boring until one day he stops a bank robbery and he starts receiving cards in the mail, that tell him addresses to go to.
Ed the main character makes me think about people in the real world, how one small event can affect people in the biggest ways. Ed has a very normal and boring life, but when he receives the cards in the mail he is a different person. He does risky things, which makes me wonder how I would react in those situations. Honestly, I don't think I am brave enough to do all the crazy things Ed does, and I think that sometimes the quietest people can be the best in a crisis. Anyone else faced in Ed's situation might've chickened out, or worse been overly violent. Instead, Ed accepted all the missions he had to complete despite the fact he had no real reason to do them. Like i was saying, I think I am more of a quiet person who likes to play by the rules, but in an example form the book the quietest people are the one's who are more important.
Ed meets so many people and they change his life in so many ways. Even hough Ed lived in a pretty small town, he met so many new people that he had never discovered before. This makes me think that there are so many secrets that can be hidden in people and towns, and the Ed discovered a world he had never known. Going through a experience like that will change a person forever and I am sure that is what happened to Ed.