Hope, By Joan Bauer

“You don't understand the power of loss when it first hits you like a baseball coming fast from an out-of-control pitcher. You reel back stinging from the blow.” (Bauer,162). Throughout the novel Hope Was Here we see characters go through struggles and gain strength to overcome them. In our everyday lives we have struggles that we also have to overcome. In the novel Hope Was Here, one of the characters Braverman has to choose his family or education. The character Addie, faces the struggle of miscarrying three babies. In my life I have struggles and so do the people around me. For instance, my grandma went through the struggle of losing her husband. From this novel it is learned that if there's no struggle there's no strength.

In Danielle Allen’s essay, Our Declaration, she argues that all people should understand and recognize that the Declaration gives all people in the United States the undeniable freedom to self-govern. One person has the power to change the government; although this is not specifically stated, the freedom to self-govern implies every voice matters. She guides the reader to this idea by using simple and easy to follow examples to show the reader that they have the power to invoke a change the government. Allen also uses credible sources in order to give her reasoning credibility as well as using arguments that elicit an emotional connection.

“Ashes” by Susan Beth Pfeffer is about a girl who is caught in a situation in which her father attempts to bribe her to do something immoral. One message suggested in this story is how misdirection and trickery can negatively affect relationships between a parent and their child.

The American Revolution is arguably the most important battle that we as a country have ever taken on. Through this war, we grew together as a country and as Americans. This country was founded through the help of thousands of people of different races and gender. In the novel Revolutionary Mothers by Carol Berkin, the author discusses the role of women and how their various accomplishments are often looked over in the history books. Through the progression of the novel, Berkin details various events that highlight women’s efforts through the course of the revolutionary war. The contributions of women were necessary and helped weave the fabric that is our country.

Braverman is a young man whose mom could not support the family, so he gave up the privilege of an education to make money for the family. He struggled every day to support his family and save up to achieve his dream of going to college for Journalism. Initially, on page 177, Hope explains how Braverman saved up enough money to go to college with a town scholarship set up by G.T. This shows how hard work got Braverman out of his struggle and into his hopes of accomplishment. Furthermore, on page

“ If there is no struggles, there is no progress.” This famous quote was stated by Frederick Douglas. He was an african american abolitionist, civil rights leader, and social reformer that was born into slavery and faced many hardships in his life but eventually he overcame his difficulties and became a very famous colored man in a world full of slavery. In the book “Hope Was Here”, also several characters face struggles that require inner strength to overcome. Some examples are Braverman, Addie, and Hope. All of them had struggles but still overcame them. My great-grandmother had many obstacles in her life, but she still overcame them.

Monday Mourning by Kathy Reichs is a crime fiction book, where, a forensic anthropologist, Temperance Brennan tries to unveil the identity of three skeletons that were found in the basement of a pizza parlor in Montreal, Canada. Brennan works with homicide detectives Luc Claudel and his partner, Michel Charbonneau, and Andrew Ryan, who is also her lover. Throughout the book, both Brennan and Claudel doubted each other’s competence to solve the case. According to Brennan institution, she believes that the three skeletons might be recent, however, Claudel speculates it to be century old due to findings of three antique buttons near their bodies. As a result, Claudel puts very little effort in this case, whereas, Brennan is determined to identify the year of death so to validate her inspection and to drew attention of Claudel and her other colleagues to this case. In the process of solving this investigation, she finds herself dragged to other homicides that were affiliated with the three skeleton remains.

Mary Norton incorporates three perspectives in the way she narrates “The Borrowers”. Mrs. May explains to Kate that her brother might have made up the Borrowers up, since he was a fanciful kid. She also tells Kate that Arrietty made her e’s “like little half-moons with a stroke in the middle-” (p.180) and her brother made his the same way, leading the reader to be suspicious , trying to decide if the Borrowers were made up by her or by her brother’s figment imagination. Mrs. May mentions that her brother had been jealous because “We were older and we could read better. He wanted to impress us; he wanted, perhaps, to shock us “(p.7). The boy is not named since his name is not important. His role in the story was to awaken the Borrowers from

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan is about four Chinese immigrant mothers and their four daughters, who were born and raised in America. The mothers, through their experiences in China, have attained vast knowledge that they now wish to pass on to their daughters. One mother, An-mei Hsu, wants to pass on her knowledge to her daughter, Rose Hsu Jordan. Rose is worried about her inevitable divorce with her husband, which was caused by her indecisiveness. An-mei hopes that by giving Rose advice, she can help her daughter overcome her insecurity and vulnerability. Only when Rose stands up for herself does An-mei know that she has successfully passed on her wisdom to her daughter, thus helping Rose become a stronger and more independent woman.

All You Need Is Love by Elizabeth Cobbs Hoffman all about the Peace Corps in the 1960’s. Its gave you the history of the Peace Corps and how the spirit of the sixties. Hoffman talks about the Peace Corps through many stories that she has through working with the Peace Corps and other people’s stories.

My life has had its ups and downs and, for that, I am utterly grateful; for it has made me a stronger and better person. As a child, I had a simple but fruitful childhood. I was born before one in the afternoon, and I am told that I was welcomed with much love on February 13, 1992, in National City, California. I was named after my father’s youngest brother to commemorate his honor. I would be the last child my parents would ever have. My father had been married twice and fathered a total of five boys. Growing up, I would say, that we as a family, had our ups and downs just like any other family; however, our ups and downs, in the end, ultimately, always brought us closer and closer –we learned to lean on each other, to support one another, to preserve each other. This, I believe, helped me for what was to come. In my early years, my mother fell into an illness that she would never overcome. It vastly impacted my life in the most dramatic way possible. After her passing, it was like a great icon in my life was now gone… an icon that would never return. The months that followed were the hardest in my life. But with the help of my loving father and brothers I would prevail; I would eventually fill this hole in my heart and raise to an enhanced me. The void left from my mother’s passing helped bring the family even closer; it was like a cliché: for the most intense of hopes come from the saddest tragedies.

We lacked stability as we framed the foundations of our character. We were forced into a world of coping with anxiety and fending for ourselves, while typical children of the same age mastered the art of tying their own shoes. Oh, dear sister, our years of coming-of-age truly were filled with tribulation, and it has inevitability changed us in countless ways. The past is now stone, and we are left with that monster’s creations. Though you and I will always struggle with our broken past, I cannot fully emphasize the necessity of this one word: resilience. It is the key to rising above the crippling events of our childhood. We must make resilience an integral piece of our fragile lives as we battle the darkness of depression, learn to open ourselves to sincere caring hearts, and continue to write to immortalize the messages of our

“She could neither protect nor defend nor honour by loving; her hands were completely empty. She who would gladly have given her life, must go empty – handed to love, like a beggar. She could only debase what she longed to exalt, defile what she longed to keep pure and untarnished” (Hall 2978).

Ever since Florence Nightingale was a young girl she was, “never satisfied with the traditional female skills of home management” (Selanders). In “Florence Nightingale” an article from Britannica, the author, Louise Selanders, stated that Nightingale, “preferred to read the great philosophers and to engage in serious political and social discourse with her father”. Florence Nightingale, born into a wealthy, landowning family, was expected to marry a wealthy man. This marriage is what would keep her family’s social standing in tact. Nightingale was very unhappy with this decision being forced upon her, which is why she later declined a proposal from a suitable gentleman (Selanders).

The book I’m reading is a novel titled Tears in a Bottle by Sylvia Bambola. This book caught my attention mainly because of the cover, but after reading the synopsis I was fully interested. It focuses on abortion, and not just the procedure of it but the heartbreak and how it affects others. It also interested me because I have yet to read a Christian Fiction book that is based off abortion. Tears in a Bottle is about a teenager named Becky who is pretty much inexperienced when it comes to sexual intercourse. Her peers and boyfriend are worried that she’s not comfortable with it, being that she is still a virgin. Feeling as though she has to prove to others that nothing is wrong with her she takes the risk of being intimate with her boyfriend