Ashes By Susan Beth Pfeffer Summary

When Lori and Jeanette are growing older, they decide they want to move to New York City to start a new life, away from their parents. Lori and Jeanette get jobs and begin to earn money. They hide their earnings from their parents in a piggy bank they named Oz. One day Jeanette tries to find Oz to put her paycheck in. Instead she says to Lori “Someone has slashed him apart with a knife and stole all the money” (Walls 228). The kids knew right away who had stolen it. It was Dad. When Lori confronted Dad with the news about Oz, he started playing dumb, acting like he had not idea what was going on. But in fact he did steal the money. This action shows that Dad is very selfish and only cares about himself.

On September 11th 2001, 70 years old Rita Laser lost her brother. Along with Kelly, Colleen, David, Eva, and Amber who as well lost someone special to them in the attack. Many of the victims families hid in silence after the attack, full of sadness, the government was trying to get revenge for the victims that were lost in the attack. However Rita Laser had a different outlook, she and others did not want revenge by killing other, her, Kelly, Colleen, David, Eva, and Amber were all trying to install peace into the world not start a war. In Sue Halpern’s “A Peaceful Mourning” describes that in the aftermath of the attack they have all devoted their lives into advocating peace throughout the world, in their lost one’s name.

It was extremely sad to see Margaret’s parents make her communicate with the coffin salesman. This is something a young child should not even be exposed to but Margaret is forced to buy her brothers coffin because her parents cannot do it on their own.

needs the cash however becasue his better half likewise needs the cash as well, he rejects it, just to shield her from

If there will be little downtime in between when the money is used and when it is gained back. On page 2 it disclosed, “All I need to do is put together a little financing, and I will be set for life.” The money that Ashleigh’s dad needs is going to be made back supposedly very soon. If so, that means that there is a good chance that Ashleigh’s mother wouldn’t even notice that the money was gone. If more evidence is needed, Ashleigh’s dad went out and said it. Page 4 read, “I’d have the money in your hands no later than Friday.” That would make it very likely, assuming that all goes to plan, that the statement sould be true. Additionally, Ashleigh herself asked if she could help, not her father. This would explain that it was only a favor that she brought onto herself. The compensation was really just a kind of thank-you gesture towards Ashleigh if she takes up the offer. On page 3 it disclosed, “‘Can I help?’ I asked.” The burden of asking was not Ashleigh’s father, but on

There is a part in the beginning of the story where Ashes, says“When I was little, Dad used to promise me the stars for a necklace, but like most of his promises, that one never quite happened.” This quote explains that he speaks more and is actionless. He has promised her things and accomplished nothing. If he had bought her a necklace with fake stars, it would make Ashes feel like her at least cared for her. He did not have to hype her up with hopes and then destroy them by not fulfilling it.

He brings Ashes to a diner and tells her how he has a possibility to make him on easy street. He informs her that it is more like he needs to pay $200 to some guys because he is debt, but he doesn’t have the money so he asks Ashes to steal from her mother. This is an example of how the father teaches something that he shouldn’t be and that it is okay to steal if you are in a dire need of the money. While this is the last point I believe that it really pulls the whole theme together.

However, with her alcoholic dad who rarely kept a job and her mother who suffered mood swings, they had to find food from her school garbage or eat expired food they had previously when they had the slightest bit of money. In addition, when bills and mortgage piled up, they would pack their bags and look for a new home to live in, if they could even call it a stable home, since they would be on the move so often. Jeanette needed a dad who wouldn’t disappear for days at a time, and a mom that was emotionally stable, but because she didn’t have that, she grew up in an environment where she would get teased or harassed for it. Jeanette suffered so much, that even at one point, she tried convincing her mother to leave her father because of the trouble he had caused the family already. A child should be able to depend on their parents for food and to be there for them when they need it, and when that part of a child’s security is taken away, it leaves them lost and on their own, free and confused about what to do next.

By Micheal Patrick MacDonald. (Ballentine Books under The Random House Publishing Corporation, 1999, 266pp. $14.00)

Ashley Rhodes-Courter was only three years old when she was separated from her mother. She spent the next nine years bouncing from one foster family to another. Her mother, Lorraine, was only twenty years old, and she was also too young to take responsibilities for her two children. However, Ashley grew up earning straight “A’s” in her classes; she won a world-wide Harry Potter essay contest in New York, as well as many others. She was born in South Carolina, and later was taken to her first foster family in Florida. The closest family member she was kept with was her step-brother Luke, who didn’t share the same father. Later on, when Ashley was eleven years old, she got a new step-sister, who did not share the same father as she and Luke.

The “gentleman” decided to pay her back in a way I never would have thought he would: taking her to seduce the man he was trying to pawn so he can give her the money she needs. I mean she was almost raped! If it wasn’t for her scars she would have never gotten out of the place she was later dragged into, something her father allowed. I almost ripped my book apart really; I could literally feel my blood boiling at that animal. My frustration due to the injustice of Jeannette getting underpaid at Becker’s Jewelry Box was nothing compared to this. It was especially nothing to what I felt when I saw Jeannette stand up to her nightmare of a mother for not working and getting hit by her father for it. I know she was furious, that was the moment Jeannette did start saving up to escape Welch before graduation, but in my opinion that is not enough. I couldn’t and can’t believe her. She should have been out for blood, not for escape. I know what it’s like, to suffer in embarrassment after an event like that, but if I was ever in a situation worse than I have been I wouldn’t even be stuck in a situation like hers. I don’t think I would have even tried to tough it out with the savages she’s lived with for so many years. I would have left as soon as I could think for myself, I would have never

“We don’t accept handouts form anyone” says Rose Mary Walls, the mother of Jeannette Walls. In the memoir The Glass Castle written by Jeannette Walls she describes events from her life from childhood to adulthood and how she overcame her struggles. She had to adjust to her family’s situation and comply with how her parents wanted her to act, which was to be independent. Walls’ memoir embodies the theme of being self-sufficient by illustrating scenes that take place in hers and her siblings life that demonstrate the need to become self-sufficient. Jeannette Walls has been learning how to be independent from a young age.

C) I found this in paragraph 16, sentence 9,which states, " My father has lots of money" to me this quote means that he is telling bill and Sam that his father has lots of money, so that his dad has lots of money that he would pay them to bring the boy back home. E) To conclude my answer , my dog went missing and the people who took her wanted money, so we paid him to get my fur baby back. but we didn't have a lot of money so we gave him what we could.

When Paul's mother received the letter from the lawyer, she got even more greedy. She went to the lawyer and asked if she could have all the money at once. Paul agreed that this would be okay. But the house just whispered louder, with more greed. Paul's mother had used the money foolishly again, instead of using it wisely to pay off her debt. "The voices in the house suddenly went mad, like a chorus of frogs on a spring evening. There were certain new furnishings and Paul had a new tutor…there were flowers in the winter, and a blossoming of the luxury that Paul's mother had been used to" (442). Paul's mother and Paul's greed amplified: Paul continued to bet to make more money for his mother, and his mother kept spending money that she didn't have.

Angela’s Ashes is an autobiographical memoir written by Irish-American author Frank McCourt. McCourt is the oldest of five brothers and one sister. He along with four of his sibling were born in America in Brooklyn, New York and lived there until he was four and then moved back to Ireland because they had a hard time surviving in America. His family and moved back to Ireland in the midst of the Great Depression finding it hard for his father to get a job because of his alcoholism and his Northern manner. Throughout McCourt’s childhood he was caught in the middle of all the hardships his parents endured. Although, his family endured much struggle, that did not stop them from fulfilling his religious duties, such as First Communion. It also did not stop him and his brother, Malachy from going to school to learn more about their religion. In his early teens, he realized that his father had abandoned his mother and his siblings when he said he would go look for a job. At the age of 14, Frank stopped going to school and got odd jobs to help support his mother and siblings. He remembers his childhood as the miserable Irish Catholic childhood. He himself decided to move back to America when he was 18 to get away from the poverty in Ireland.