Rachel King 40th Birthday

As she walks through the door after a long and exhausting day, Monee King is greeted with “Hey Mom!”, from her 4 beautiful teenage girls. She cooks an amazing dinner after cooking for others all day. They sit at the kitchen table and bow their heads in prayer. After a quiet “Amen” the table erupts in stories about each of the young girl's day. She listens and laughs while thinking “This wasn't easy but it was worth it”

In the short story, "Eleven," by Sandra Cisnernos, Cisneros describes the birthday of Rachel, an eleven year-old who was humiliated on her birthday. Her teacher, Mrs. Price, claimed that an old sweater belonged to her, when in reality, it was Sylvia Saldivar's who ironically claimed it belonged to Rachel. Rachel was left crying and depressed the rest of the day, when she was commanded to wear it. Cisneros best characterizes Rachel through her well use of her diction,imagery, and repetition.

Kelley Brennan has an amazing day planned. It's Earth Day and Her sixth-grade class is going to plant a blooming dogwood tree, and she is going to give a short speech to everybody about the project she did for science class to help protect the wild bird hatchlings on top of the local hardware store. She even gets up early to attempt to paint a picture of the world on her thumb in honor of the special event. Kelley is so very excited about all these things. But what she doesn’t know is that there is something else in store for her and her mom that day, something that they did not plan on happening.

I never thought I would return home until I was an old lady, or, at least, someday with my entire family. Instead, there I was, underneath the celestial sky, on the side of the Sierra Madre Occidental mountains, in the town that I once lived in: La Esperanza. That night, a cool breath of air blew throughout the corners and curves of the cobblestone streets flapping the curtains of cement houses around like the skirt of a dancing woman. As I walk through the streets, the night cannot put the living to rest. Small children with dirt-streaked faces and hole-ridden clothes ran around the streets playing

Ally, a 7th Grader at Greenwood Middle School, is sitting in math class when she received an email. She opened up her email hoping it was her coach emailing her about the championship game tonite. Disappointed , however still surprised, she saw the email was from her mother. She opened up the email that was a picture with the words ,”Don’t forget!!!” She downloaded the picture and saw that the email was for Grandma’s 75th Birthday. Oh no! She totally forgot about Grandma’s birthday party! She knew she could still fit in Grandma’s Birthday party after the game.

Cora Lee had many children. As a child she was obsessed with baby dolls. Every Christmas she would get a new baby doll. Until she was 13, when her father said she was too old. Beginning in her sophomore year of high school, she started having babies one after another. Cora Lee neglects her children as they get older since she can only take care of them while they’re babies. Kiswana catches one of Cora Lee’s children eating out of a trash can and takes him to his mom to tell on him. Kiswana then see how filthy Cora Lee’s apartment is. Kiswana offers her to come and bring the children to a play. So Cora Lee cleans her children up and they all go to the play with Kiswana. Cora Lee is touched by seeing how much her children enjoyed the play and from that day to vowed to be a better mother.

East Village is stuck in its old-fashioned ways and reluctant to accept the changes happening outside of their community. No trains run through town and the doctors are given a hard time because they both represent modern ideologies. Within the community, many people such as Lids’ parents believe that the best way to help their ill

A few miles down from the busy beaches of Venice, was an abandoned looking shack. The shack was surrounded by partially dead palm trees, and litter of the young beach goers. Here lived Tom Walker and his wife in the secluded shack. They both could be described as miserable, and anti- social. They weren't what you typically think about when you think about a resident of Los Angeles, but they were very unhappy with their lives there.

Jenna felt her stomach begin to growl and she thought of the dinner her father had prepared for them before he’d left for work. Spaghetti and meatballs with cheesy garlic bread, her absolute favorite. The very thought of it was now making Jenna 's mouth water as she licked her lips in hunger. She silently wished that she would have eaten earlier with her father back when he had just finished cooking it. That was right before he had kissed her on the cheek, told her he loved her, and headed off to work the night shift as a paramedic at Saint Christopher 's Hospital. But, she was too excited about Halloween to eat just then, the anticipation of trick-or-treating being such a short time away filling her every thought with joy. She was a

As Anna is watching her sister and her friends, she steams up a crazy idea that she is going to the party too. The time comes for all the girls to leave, so they all hop in the car and head to the party. What they do not know is little Anna secretly followed them on her bike. Anna, pedaling as fast as she can, she finally arrives at the party. She begins to walk around, and she is mesmerized. Everyone is dancing and having the time of their life. While keeping an eye out for her older sister Alice, she gets a little thirsty. She grabbed a drink off of a table and realized it tasted a little funny, but that didn’t bother Anna. As she’s walking around looking at everyone she starts to feel a little light-headed, and she passes out under a tree. When she wakes up, she sees that everything was different, even her. She was a big girl now, just like she wanted. She takes off walking home, as she sees many homeless people on the streets she gets confused. Anna walks past a store and sees a calendar, it’s the year 1932, twenty years later. Anna arrives home feeling very disarranged. She sees that her family is now poor, and

This birthday had been wonderful. My friend Emily and I hiked up to a place called Griffith Observatory. I had heard that the view was amazing and you could see all of LA. I walked to a artsy concrete staircase where you could see the lively and bustling city in the background. From our point of view, the skyscraper buildings looked tiny and ant sized. The golden crisp sun had slightly set behind us and caused the sky to shift deep colors throughout the city. When the cotton candy like clouds drifted across the electric baby blue sky, I felt an overwhelming rush of pure happiness. The condensed and shrubby bushes in front of us were a shamrock green color, and looked as if they were full of life. I knew

Riley’s family move from Minnesota to California. With the difficulty of moving homes, the emotions go into panic mode, like any normal pre-teen would react, but Joy recognizes the problem and tries to help keep the situation positive. On the trip to Riley’s new house, the emotions share the possibilities of what their new house could look like. The creativity that the emotions contain depict houses with slides, dragons, candy, and even in a tree. When she arrives at a new house all the emotions are quickly disappointed by the exterior of Riley’s new home. Joy then remembers that Riley’s dad was talking about how great Riley’s room was going to be. Again, Riley is disappointed and Joy is pushed off the control board by Anger, Sadness, Disgust, and Fear to create memory balls. Joy tries to influence the emotions by creating a dream room for Riley. As Riley heads downstairs for her stuff from a moving van, she discovers that they van is delayed for a couple of days. Bad situations seem to keep piling up for Riley’s family and when Riley realizes this, she begins to play hockey with a piece of paper to take her parents out of their mood. Her dad gets a phone call from his job and the mood goes down again. Her mom seems sad and Riley suggest pizza from a place she saw down the street. The pizza is a disappointment, it has broccoli on it. Riley can’t seem to get out of her rut. When night comes, she overhears her dad still upset on his phone and asks to be tucked in. Her mom comes into her room and right before Riley was about to get mad, her mom thanks her for her positive attitude in

I awoke from mid-slumber, and the grogginess of my eyes could make out one simple specific time: 3:00 AM. The smell of dust resided inside my nose from the restless amount of sleep I’d gotten since the previous night. I rotated my head to the stand at the right of my bed to see a photo of me and my two younger sisters. A morbid chill ran down my spine in the remembrance of the countless nights that my younger sisters Clarice and Tarice, stayed up to tell scary stories in the time that they considered to be “witching hour”. My head was in excruciating pain, for once again I have cried myself to the point of falling asleep. I wouldn’t normally, but in this moment, the day of the anniversary had finally arrived. Today is the month and day of the date October 13th, 1995; the date that marks my sisters’ death. Five years have passed since then.

This story is about a wife named Louise Mallard who has heart trouble, so she must be informed carefully about her husband’s death. Her sister, Josephine, is unfortunately the one who has to break the news to newly widowed wife. One of her husband’s friends, Richard, learned about her husband’s death when he was reading the newspaper and heard about the crashing of a train that Brently was on. Louise is devastated when she learns of her husband’s death and runs upstairs to be alone. Louise sits down and ponders about life while looking out the window and hears a vendor yelling what he is selling. Still crying, she looks into the distance wondering what’s next. She is nervous for her life ahead and doesn’t know what she is going to do without her husband. She starts to think about what life is going to be like without having anyone telling her what to do, when to do it, or how to do it. She starts to feel warm inside knowing she is finally free. Louise knows she will become overcome with emotions when she is forced to see Brently’s body. She imagines the years

The morning sunshine seeped through the cracks between my shutters, lighting up my room. I could hear the clock ticking and the rays of sunlight bouncing off of my eyelids. I barely got any sleep last night because I was ecstatic that tomorrow was, my birthday! I jumped up out of bed, how could I have forgotten that it was my birthday? Suddenly all of my drowsiness turned it into excitement and I jumped up, throwing the red gradient quilt off of my bed. I slowly walked out of my room, making very little noise, checking to see if anyone else was awake. I peeked through the intricate staircase railings and tried to spot anyone downstairs, no one was in sight. I tiptoed down the cream coloured stairs, reached the bottom and got startled when my mom yelled, “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”, her voice bouncing off the walls of house. A grin so big spread across my face, I couldn’t believe I was turning four years old!