Krista Ramsey's Columns

I read her article on how lose a month of what they learned over the summer. And the article is exactly what the title says. It explains how kids lose what they learned and why. My favorite line is this article is, "
 young brain at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force." I like it because it references Einstein's theory while still being very true and as being a student I understand. I feel Krista's writing style is very informative and a little persuasive like she's trying to get to do something. She says in her article,

"By the end of the summer, that outside force is usually highly frustrated parents who resent having to be the homework police.

But somebody's got to step in."

She literally says that someone has to step in and make a change and give kids something productive over the summer because the losses are too great. Although she does give evidence which where I said it's informative, it's more like a persuasive speech trying to make a difference.

Article

Connection

I made a very weird and gross connection from my book to a movie I saw. In my book "The Road" the man and boy find a house that seems to be in relatively good condition, and given there circumstances of not having much food left, they decide to check it out. When they go in the can't find anything on the main floor and decide to go down stairs. The main pulls out his lighter and looks around and sees about ten naked people all staring at him and they whisper, "help us" The man grabs his sun and sprints up the stairs and sees a couple men about to walk into the house through the front so they turn and try to find another way out. Then right there was when the teacher said put away your books...


This part in the book actually gave me nightmares. I don't think this book was suppose to do that but I just stopped reading for a couple days because it freaked me out.


Although that part freaked me out, it reminded me out a movie called "The Book of Eli" This is another apocalyptic movie and in this movie they find a similar house and get trapped in there by people who eat other people. This helps me make inferences on why those people were trapped in the basement. But don't let this part discourage you from watching this movie, it was very good. It's about the world going through a nuclear war and books are scarce and people try to find them to rebuild.

Finished Miracle on 49th Street

     
       I finished the book Miracle of 49th Street by Mike Lupica and I was very disappointed in the book. In the beginning I thought this book had some potential with a girl looking for her father trying to put together the clues and the story of man learning to love something other than himself. But the girls ignorance and the stories predictability really bothered me. Molly's mother dies and she seeks out to find her biological father, then he doesn't believe her then he does. Then the have an awkward relationship and everything gets smoothed out. This post is short because there really isn't much to say on this book. Although there was one character in the book that I really liked and that was Mattie Josh's maid. She is such a doll. She is always there for anyone and always consults Molly and Josh. She reminds me of a sweet old grandmother.

      The next book I'm going to read is hopefully better and a little more challenging than this one. this one had a very simple plot and not a wide vocabulary.




                                                                       

Characterization of "The Road"

     My book the "The Road" has some very awkward characters in the book. There are really only 2 characters so far in this book and one is a man and another is a boy who is supposedly his son but I'm not quite sure. I'm about half way through and I still haven't figured out the characters names yet. They both are fairly simple characters. I find the man to be very caring and loving of the boy, although he doesn't show much emotion, you can tell he cares through his actions. The man always makes sure the boy wanders off and makes sure he eats and has the energy to move on. A couple times the boy runs off and the man gets mad at him and that shows a parenting style which means he cares for the boy. The boy is very curious and I don't think he knows what happened to the world and is always asking his father questions about things. I feel like although the boys doesn't know what happened I think he knows they might not make it and it makes me feel sad.


   
 Although it confuses me how the father responds to his questions. He gives very simple and incomplete answers. One of their conversations go,


We have to stop
Its really cold
I know
Where are we?
Where are we?
Yes
I don't know
If we are going to die would you tell me?
I don't know. We're not going to die.

New Book

        
         I grabbed a new book off the shelf the other day and just started reading it and was blown away. I just started reading the book called "The Road". So far, not much has happened but I'm already stuck to it. This book has some of the best imagery I've read. Like I said the story hasn't quite picked up yet but I can picture the world they live as if I was there. A great passage of imagery in the book is, "When he woke in the dark and the cold of the night he'd reach out and touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darness adn the days more gray than that had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world."

         This book has a lot of mystery to how it started and it forces you to wonder what happened to the world. I still dont know the main characters names yet and so far they haven't encountered anyone else in the world. Throughout the book the author uses imagery to descibe the gray skies, the ashes, and the bitter cold. It has definitely hinted that something has laid waste to the country. I just don't know what. At first I thought that it was a bomb, but now I'm starting the think it was a series of fires that burned America, and that where all the ashes came from and they went up in the atmosphere and covered the land making it dark and cold.

        I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys apocalyptic type stories and survival books. This books envolves a lot of scavenging for food and surviving on little resources out on your own in a destroyed world.