The Clay Marble By Minfong Ho

When they arrived in America a cowboy helped them settled into their new house. He paid the rent three months ahead. Mother could not believe his generosity until Brother Quang says the American government gives sponsors money, she was even more amazed by the generosity of the American government until Brother Quang says it’s all to ease the guilt of losing the war.” Ha and her family will now have to adapt to her new surroundings because it’s different from Vietnam. Most of the things will be unfamiliar to Ha because she has to learn English. Ha then started school at first it was ruff because she was getting bullied, “They pulled my arm hair, they threw rocks at me, they promised to stomp on my chest.” It twisted inside out, for her at school. The first person she told was brother Vu, she then asked him to teach her defense. After he taught her defense her life came back again, she started to understand English much better and no longer gets

Later that same year, Pot and the Khmer Rouge took control over Cambodia. Pot wasted no time in starting his mission to reconstruct Cambodia. He thought that all the educated people needed to be killed (Melicharova). Also he thought that all noncommunist aspects of Cambodia needed to be wiped out. All rights you had were now gone. Religion was banned and if you were any kind of leader among the Buddhist monks, you were killed instantly (Melicharova). All kids were taken away and sent to work in the fields (Melicharova). If anyone was currently working and had a job, they were immediately killed along with their family members. It got so bad that you could be killed for just laughing, crying, and knowing another language. The Khmer Rouge motto was “To spare you is no profit, to destroy you is no loss” (Melicharova). If you were lucky enough to escape death, you were put into the fields working usually from 4am to 10pm unpaid (“Pol”). From lack of food and sleep, people often became very ill which sadly led to death.

People were ordered out their houses so that the Khmer Rouge could convert them into bases of operation. Houses that weren’t being used as bases were instead being used as make shift orphanages.

While Loung never gave in to the empty promises of the Khmer Rouge, Kerry never give in to the sore muscles and aching lungs of a difficult workout. Talking about this persistence, Kerry said, “I know that the pain will pay off in the end, the harder I work.” Kerry never gives in or takes the easy way out, because she knows in the end it will only aid her in achieving her goal. Similarly, Loung never lets herself give into the Angkor's words and

This story takes place in the jungle of Vietnam. Readers see how a group of army is unfamiliar with the jungle and that frightens them. They each carry closely specific items that are meaningful

The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, describes the unfortunate struggles of Jeanette and her family throughout her childhood. Often times, the hardships in one 's life can shape their future and how they develop as a person. Jeanette went through so many hardships that seem unbelievable to me. Her struggles and life experiences are much more extreme than mine will ever be. Her hardships have helped shape her personality and her career. She has made the best out of her childhood, and everyone should take a tip from Jeanette, including myself. I have not had many giant hardships in my life to this date. Jeanette is a role model to people everywhere. She showed that it doesn’t matter where or how you grow up, the only thing that matters is

His most perfect love in all the world was on that train. So he’d run to the end of the earth if he had to(Pg. 120). Juan Villasenor, one of the two major characters in Rain of Gold, a nonfiction novel by Victor Villasenor, faces many problems throughout the book that have a significant impact on the skullduggery little boy we knew from the beginning to the scrupulous and surreptitious man at the end. In Rain of Gold, it follows the sides of 2 characters, Juan, Lupe, and their families during the time of the Mexican Revolution, as they travel from Mexico to America, and go through many struggles on this voyage. In these obstacles, Juan faces from beginning to end, he learns many things on this journey and meets new people that change his

The novel is narrated by Mattie Cook in the first person. She is only able to speak for herself. The only thoughts and feelings she displays are her own and the story is set wherever she is.

In the memoir, The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls the author depicts her poverty-stricken past along with her eccentric morals, and dysfunctional parents as they traveled around the country avoiding debt-collectors, while handling unruly situations. The author lives with her three siblings: Brian, Lori, and Maureen Walls; and her two parents: Rex, and Mary Walls. The mother a struggling artist, and the father a jack-of-all-trades with an alcohol addiction. Together they move from town to town, and state to state avoiding the clutches of the ‘FBI’ a nickname Jeannette 's father gave to the debt collectors that were constantly chasing after them. Along the way they struggle with cases of sexual harassment, bullying, and

In the vivid, personal memoir The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, she painstakingly recalls her “story” and how it affected and made her who she is today. She grew up in an environment that most children typically do not. Her father was an alcoholic, and her mother was a selfish woman who put herself first. You could say their way of parenting was not your average “cookie cutter” household. One main social issue in The Glass Castle, is the impact on child neglect in a family and how that affects the way the child turns out. Although, Jeannette Walls ended up as a successful writer along with her siblings Lori and Brian, her other sister Maureen took a route which many neglected children face. What set apart these siblings and how the

This summer I read the memoir “The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls. This is the first book that I have read of hers, although I would be interested in reading one of her other books such as “The Silver Star” or “Half Broke Horses”. The memoir takes place in many different cities and states. The novel starts out in New York City when the author is an adult and married, but then it flashes all the way back to when Jeannette, the main character, was three and living in southern Arizona. Jeannette was home alone and she was making herself food when she caught on fire and was taken to the hospital. After six weeks of being in the hospital, her dad, Rex Walls, decided that the nurses and doctors were not trustworthy and was uncomfortable with hospitals, so he snuck her out without being discharged. Soon after, the family “did the skedaddle” as Jeannette called it, and moved to Las Vegas. On the way to their destination, at night, the kids asked their dad to tell them a bedtime story. He told them mostly stories about himself and in the stories he was always the hero. In this particular story, however, the author’s dad describes the plans that he has for the future. This plan consisted of building the Glass Castle, which he has been planning for a very long time. The castle would be a large house for the whole family in the middle of the desert and it would have a glass ceiling, thick glass walls, and a glass staircase. For electricity, there would be solar cells on the

“The Glass Castle” by Jeannette Walls is a memoir of a family that is frequently homeless and living in very poor conditions. Despite all this, the protagonist Jeannette Walls does not lose faith but, but does the exact opposite. She does everything in her power to earn money and get an education so she can escape her current life and move to a place with better opportunities, which is New York (Walls 2005) This book intrigued me because of the way Walls tells her story. She does not have a trouble-free life, but she is a brave woman for telling her story to others. Walls admitted in her interview with Oprah as well as in her book, that she is so embarrassed of her parents in the streets. While she lives in her warm and comfortable home, her parents are in the street looking through garbage cans for food. Jeannette Walls’s approach to life is astounding, and the way she tells her story with such emotion but at the same time some parts are relatable to many others. Walls uses many rhetorical techniques in her writing that absorbs the reader not only to enjoy her book but also to empathize for her.

Jeannette Walls is an American writer in journalist who found success in New York City, most notably writing a gossip column for MSNBC in which she details the effects of gossip in politics. She published her memoir, The Glass Castle, in 2005. The book spent 261 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list. In it, Walls recounts her childhood while growing up in an unstable family with her father and mother, Rex and Rose Mary Walls, her older sister Lori, and her younger brother and sister, Brian and Maureen. Rex and Rose Mary could not settle down and constantly uprooted their family of six to different locations in the southwest region of America. Neither parent could keep a job and struggled to feed and put a roof over their heads. In the novel, Walls views her parents as irresponsible because it rarely seems as though Rex and Rose Mary genuinely want to work and make money to support the family. They thrive off their sense of adventure, as they drive all over the country in a rundown car, looking for their latest shack to pile their family into, usually without running water, heat, or indoor plumbing. Walls will tell the story of her childhood through a series of pivotal moments that ultimately shape her opinion of her parents and lead her to a successful career in New York City.

Loung is a ten-year-old girl living in the town of Phnom Penh in Cambodia. Loung was once a normal village girl. She had friends and went to school. All that changed when the Khmer Rouge came into power in 1975.“When Pol Pot’s communist Khmer Rouge stormed into the city April 17, 1975, my charmed life came to an end. On that day, Cambodia became a prison and all its citizens prisoners.”(1). Loungs life takes a sudden turn, Her once luxurious life has turned

“The Glass Castle” by Jeanette Walls is an extremely captivating novel that really kept my attention throughout the entire story. It’s a fascinating story of growing up in circumstances that kept me shaking my head as I turned the pages. The Walls family is unquestionably one unlike any I’ve ever come across. The lessons and experiences that the children learned and endured were ones that molded their lives and established who they are today. Jeanette Walls goes through many descriptions of situations that she faced that people normally should not face. For most of her childhood, her family traveled from town to town because her parents always thought that they would hit it big, unfortunately her father was never ever to find a