Just A Dream By Chris Van Allsburg

Throughout history there has been 450 school shootings in America. Since 1840, there has only been eight school shootings in Alabama. The book I read was about a school shooting in Alabama, in a small high town called Opportunity. This book was called, This Is Where It Ends. Marieke Nijkamp is the author of this book, and published it January 5th, 2016.

Pieces of You is a fictional novel written by Daniel Armand Lee, comprised of ten short stories taking place in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The stories are personal accounts by different men in New York, ranging from young students to adults, written in Lee’s undergraduate years at Stanford University. Each short story allows the reader to connect with the narrator in varying hardships of life.

In a life of poverty, illnesses surround its inhabitant. From poor nutrition to unfit living conditions come afflictions that range from a cough to polio. And as a society we preoccupy ourselves with the short comings of poverty. Creating a revolving door at hospitals treating the poor for their present illnesses, but paying no mind in preventing them for the future. In SAT," Ofri describes her experience as a doctor treating an impoverished unambitious young man, Nemesio Rios. Instead of just following up on Rios' routine check up, Ofri decides to prepare Rios for the SAT so that he could have a chance to go to college. For educational preparation is the preventative medicine for ones future well being because improving ones economical

There are an infinite amount of unique responses to the question “What is the meaning of life?”. However, the majority of people will agree that the true meaning of life is to find happiness and what is really important to one’s self. In Jon Krakauer’s, Into The Wild, Chris McCandless conveys this idealism through his life’s journey as he bravely defies all limitations. Chris McCandless isolates himself from society in his Alaskan Odyssey as a way to defy accepted expectations and to begin discovering the meanings of life without any corrupted influences.

If I stay, which is an outstanding novel written by Gayle Forman, was published in 2009 and is an emotionally gripping story. The most interesting part of the novel starts with Mia’s life after the accident. The readers also learn about her life before the tragedy with the help of plentiful flashbacks. She recalls her colorful and vibrant family members so vividly that they could easily step off the page and break the hearts of the readers. Furthermore, her remembrances also highlight her passion for music and romance with her boyfriend. Moreover, the readers will find the entire novel very interesting and inspiring and will also find the climax of the novel very satisfying. The story revolves around seventeen year old Mia, who finds herself dealing with the aftermath of a terrible car accident which killed her entire family. During the coma, Mia goes through an out-of-the-body experience and observes all her friends and family that gather at the hospital. The memory of Mia flashes before her and she debates about whether or not she should wake up and face the grief of losing her family or, if she should die. Before summarizing the story, it is pertinent that the main characters of the story should be discussed briefly.

The poem “Between the World and Me” by Richard Wright reanimates the horrible scene of a racial lynching and forces the reader to endure the victim's pain through the first person’s narrative voice. The poem contains structured lines and visual division into three stanzas. Moreover, there is one more type of division in the poem. The author uses an ellipsis four times throughout the poem. This punctuation mark frames the poem into the timeline, where the historical past of the African American poet becomes the present experience of any human, despite the race. The climax of the poem is presented in the middle of stanza two. The animated moment, which starts from the sentence “the ground gripped my feet”, dramatically shifts the

The piece is classified as Aboriginal Australian literature. It was published in the 1960’s. The purpose of the text is to give hope in a new beginning after the events involving the racial tension between the Aboriginals and the white settlers. The poem is directed to the Aboriginal people of Australia who suffered from these events

Throughout the course of the book, A Long Way Home, Saroo Brierley, the author, encounters a series of traumatic experiences that lead to bittersweet moments. Unlike a normal child’s infancy, Saroo was physically and mentally consuming. Through his experience, we are able to get a glimpse of the many struggles and hardships young children live in India daily. His petrifying experiences of living on the streets, Liluah, and Nava Jeevan finally lead to his safe haven of being taken by the Brierley’s.

Florida has always been a beautiful state aligned with unique natural wonders which has made it a location of wonder within the U.S. Even with Florida’s majestic natural appeal the state in its territorial years struggled with its public image as Indian attacks were common place in the region along with yellow fever and environmental phenomena such as hurricanes. Following in the end of the Seminole and the Civil war Florida began to search for a new identity and sense of prosperity in the face of massive changes to its economy and societal structure. With the advent of new technologies, the borders of Florida for the first time were opened to larger encompassing audience of visitors from all over the country who came to marvel at the natural landscape and relax in the temperate weather. Gary Mormino author of “Land of Sunshine State of Dreams” described in his book the factors and obstacles which challenged and ultimately propelled Florida to experience monumental growth in the 20th century. From the rapid use of automobiles to the creation of the magic Kingdom Florida has numerous factors to acknowledge when recognizing its recent success in America. While Gary Mormino book makes no effort to shy away from the less favorable aspects Florida history including the financial struggles of the early nineties, his book is clearly portraying an optimistic tone which echoes the glories of Florida’s past and future.

Activism, culture and value have always had a tremendous influence in society. When it comes to the Appalachian region of the United States, people tend to see our culture and values differently. The individuals of the Appalachian region have been stereotyped for far too long, people forget that West Virginia has played a huge role in building this country. Our coal miners have put their lives in danger time and time again, some losing them, for worker’s rights. The Battle of Blair Mountain was the largest labor rebellion in the history of the United States. This was the foundation of the movement for eight hour work days and minimum wages. The novel Storming Heaven by Denise Giardina is a fictionalized tale of the conflict that took place in these coal fields of West Virginia. The novel brings to light the stereotypes, race and religion of the Appalachian people.

Rebecca Stead is fame as an American writer of fiction for children and teens. The achievement of her novels is not doubtful. She was born on January 16, 1968 and raised in New York City. Vassar College was the institution where she acquired her bachelor’s degree in 1989. Moreover, she has started to write since she was a child but she altered her career to become a lawyer. However, Stead started to become of writing subsequent to the birth of her two children. Her inspiration of writing children’s novel was from her son and her collections of story stories on her laptop. One day, her 4-year-old son by chance pushed her laptop out off the dining-room table and destroyed her piece of writing. Stead was very angry with her son and she went to the bookstore to find books which can inspire her to write. From that moment, her motivation and loving in writing began to boost up, and her debut novel was First Light which won The New York Best Times. Due to her great spirit in writing, she won The American Newbery Medal in 2010, Winner of the Boston Globe –Horn Book Award for Fiction, IRA Children’s Book Award for Young Adult Fiction, A Parents’ Choice Gold Award Winner and A National Parenting Publications Gold Award for her second novel, When You Reach Me, followed by achieving Guardian Prize in 2013 as the first winner for her third novel, Liar & Spy.

Teju Cole’s phenomenally written original novel majorly takes place in New York City. Cole character was easy to relate to because of his Nigerian American decent being that I am a Ghanaian American. Cole is a Nigerian American. He was born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria and came to the United States in 1992 at the age of seventeen. Cole is also well educated and is a graduate student at Columbia University. I found it insightful how in the novel Cole met several various types of people, including other immigrants. He met and shared stories with a Haitian shoe shiner, at work in Penn Station; a Liberian, imprisoned for over two years in a dentition center in Queens; and a Moroccan student working at an Internet café. I enjoyed the fact that the narrator was well stocked minded. He touched on the topics of art, music, and interesting books. He had a very eclectic set of interest.

The six characteristics of literary journalism that we discussed in class are all used to help the writer communicate with the audience in a more effective manner. Although literary journalism is a form of nonfiction writing, the audience has not necessarily experienced what the writer is talking about, or if they have, they could feel differently about the subject. Therefore, it is extremely important for the writer to use well thought-out techniques that will help the audience step into their shoes and understand their point of view. The piece of literary journalism my partner and I chose to focus on, which was “It Will Look Like a Sunset” by Kelly Sundberg, did an exceptional job of communicating to the reader the true feelings of a domestic

The movie, The Ultimate Gift, is a moving example of how one man, who while in search for the “ultimate gift,” actually learned and gained many more precious gifts along the way. Jason Stevens was a man on a mission to get to the big pay-off at the end of his quest but thanks to his wise grandfather Jason gained much more than just money. Throughout his journey in the movie Jason was taught and given the gift of hard work, the gift of love, the gift of friendship, etc. After learning and receiving these gifts, it was only then that Jason would receive and truly be able to appreciate the ultimate gift that his grandfather had waiting for him. Jason struggled to complete the tasks, but with the completion of each task, he then was motivated to move on to the next task. This motivation to achieve certain “gifts” and then move on to the next one is explained in Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow believed that people are motivated to achieve certain needs and then when the need is actualized then they will move on to the next one. The stages in Maslow’s Hierarchy are psychological, safety, social, esteem, and self- actualization. In The Ultimate Gift, Jason, in order to receive his grand prize, goes through stages within his missions that are very much like the steps in Maslow’s hierarchy of Needs.

*It is important to teach children that it no role is too small and that even the slightest effort to clean up the environment is important. We live in a world where it is normal to throw materials away when we are done with them. Not all people think of recycling or re-purposing items that could still be useful. Landfills are full of materials that can be recycled or reused in a variety of ways. The following story features a lesson from Jhon and his father about pollution and how one man's trash can be a treasure to another man.*