Angelica Nucifora August 27,2014 The book I read over the summer is called Unbroken written by Laura Hillenbrand. This book is about a promising Olympic runner named Louis Zamperini from Torrance California. He was called into the service on a bomber crew during WWII and during his time in war his plane had gone down but he and another service member survived the crash But one of Louis’s fellow survivor didn’t live that long. They were living off of rainwater and fish or birds they caught. One of the three crash survivor died on a raft they all were sleeping on. Both Louis and the other survivor reached land but were captured by the Japanese navy. They didn’t tell America that they captured them they wanted America to think they were dead. Nut Louis family kept insisting that the army not stop looking because they know he is alive somewhere. They were not killed but they treated them like guest in their country. But then they held them as prisoner and treated them like they didn’t exists. Since they recognized that Louis was a famous Olympic runner they gave him harsher treatment but did not kill. Louis was in a camp when the Americans dropped the atomic bomb in Japan. The author’s purpose for writing this book is to show us that he never did give up and he knew that he would be home someday. Louis knew that it was not going to be easy but he was going to do it. This book is to show us that not giving up is what we have to do. Since Louis was not much trained for the army he was learning each day how to figure things out. The author did accomplish her goal by showing me as I read how Louis can fight or reach for his goal by never giving up. He took the pain that the Japanese gave him but he was going to die that easily. The time period that my book covers is when the atomic bomb was dropped in Japan. The bomb was dropped August 6, 1945 and that was the year Louis was placed in a prison camp. Louis had to be immediately hospitalized and sent back to his home in California. The author show a lot about this time in history and how America and Japan had a huge war and war wasn’t over till they released Louis. But the bomb killed many immediately but some died months later even with emergency care. The quote “All he could see, in every direction, was water.” Preface, p. xvii this quote is stating when Louis and his reaming survivor were paddling back to shore. They couldn’t find any land but they knew that it was somewhere to be found. Another quote from the book is “Louis and his father rode together to the train station. The platform was crowded with unformed young men and crying parents. Clinging to one another, saying good-bye. When Louis embraced his father, he could feel him shaking.” Chapter 6, p. 54. Now this is my favorite quote from the book because I can tell that his father isn’t ready to let his little boy go. He has no choice now and he is scared that he will never see him again. It was a horrible time for both them and the family. Louis did tell his dad that he would be okay and he will see him soon. This quote broke me because it’s sad to see a loved one go and risk their whole life for the world. I really did enjoy reading this book. It was very interesting but also very sad. Knowing that it was a book about someone I have never heard if till now really touched me. Louis was a strong man and went through a lot in his life. I don’t think I ever read a book that really touched my heart. I was suggest this book to anyone who likes wars and mysteries. I mean it wasn’t a big mystery but finding if he would ever return home was. So if you really was to learn about a survivor of WWII read Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand.
The book I read over the summer was “The Greatest Generation” written by Tom Brokaw. This book is mainly about a man named Tom Brokaw appreciating the things that people did to help our country. In this novel Tom Brokaw was walking among the people who were involved with our country during WW2 and the Great Depression. It talked about how whatever anyone background was, they wanted to help with the war. In this book it was separated into different groups. There were the ordinary people, The Home Front people, The Hero’s, Woman in Uniform and outlooks at the role of woman. In my opinion the Authors purpose for writing this book is to show what people had to deal with back then. Also, how Tom Brokaw had stories from other people that showed what they had to deal what and how they tried to make our country better. Another purpose for this book is how they made many contributions before, during, and after the war. After the war they kept contributing to the progress and greatness of the country. I think that the author was trying to show what people did during WW2 and WW1 was to make progress and achieve greatness. “The stories that follow represent the lives of some of them. Each is distinctive and yet reflective of the common experiences of that trying time and this generation of greatness.”(Times, Pg. 12.) This quote shows that Tom Brokaw was reflecting off the knowledgeable situations. I think he did accomplish the goal. I think he did accomplish this goal because in WW1 and WW2 many people dropped out of school to join the military. Many left their jobs as lawyers, doctors and more that quit their job to go in to the war. Many women went in to nursing so that they could contribute to the war effort. The historical time period my book that I read covers WW2, WW1 and the Great Depression. This book teaches me true and real offensive and the struggle that men and woman wanted to help our country. “Other veterans showed their war experiences to the far corners of their lives and sealed them off as best they could. They could never completely erase the memories or the residual effects of their training, but they were determined to start and entirely new life once the war ended.” (Larsen, Pg. 69.) This quote shows the struggles that the woman and men went through. One quote that taught me something in this time period is “A sense of personal responsibility and a commitment to honesty is characteristic of this generation. Those were values bred in to the young men and woman coming of age at the time the war broke out. It is how they were raised.” (KO, Pg. 37.) This quote teached me that younger men and woman that wanted to help men if they were hurt or making stuff. The second quote that I find that taught me something was, “It is easy to make a buck. It is a lot tougher to make a difference.” This quote taught me that it is very easy to make a dollar, but it is way harder to make a difference on the world. I enjoyed reading this book but there are a couple things I didn’t like or enjoy reading about this book. One thing is that Tom Brokaw talked about all the good things that happened in WW1. He didn’t talk about the struggles that people faced. I would recommend this book to others because it teaches you a lot about patriotism. It shows that when people were under attack the country still helped each other with what they could do. They quit their jobs and helped out each other in the war. The one quote that I like the best is “It is easy to make a buck. It is a lot harder/ tougher to make a difference.” I feel that quote shoes that it is easy to make one dollar but very hard to make a difference on our country. Or try to change one thing.
The book that I chose to read is called Columbine. This book is about two teenagers who decided to one day go to their school with dangerous weapons and kill the innocent students inside the school building. This was a massacre that was well-known worldwide and changed the world and how we see it in a drastic way. I believe that the author’s purpose for writing this book was to explain and describe teenage killers and the different crimes going on the United States. He accomplished his goal because the topic of the book was a real tragic event that happened in the world. Dave Cullen spent 10 years doing research just to write this book. He had actual details about every single piece of evidence he included in the book. There were also a lot of quotes of the people that were witnesses during the incident that happened at the high school. In the back of the book there was a map of the plan that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had for the day of the event on Monday, April, 19, 1999. The author supported his facts and details with notes that he had and a bibliography in the back of the book. The book was very thorough and made it very clear of every little detail; the author surely did accomplish his goal. The historical event/period that this book covers children carrying weapons to harm innocent people in a building that’s supposed to be a safe environment for the minors. The Columbine shooting happened in the 1990s where 2 teenage boys thought that it would be a good deal of getting their anger out by killing innocent people that attended the same school as them. No one saw this kind of situation coming, and this event went worldwide and caused a lot of scares around the world. One quote that really got to me while reading this book was, “As difficult as it may be, please stay away.” At that time of the book where the quote was placed, the two shooters were already inside the school building killing and bombing people and parts of the building; parents were hearing the news and were all going crazy to enter the building. The whole world was hearing this news and were very terrified for the children inside the building and were having a hard time to cope for the families suffering, especially Eric and Dylan’s family. It made me feel like I was there a part of the situation with all the parents and other students going through this tragic event. Another quote that really taught me a lot is, “The violence intensified in the springtime, as the school year came to a close. Shooting season, they began to call.” This told me that the Columbine shooting wasn’t the only major event happening in this time period, a lot of innocent people were getting shot and killed by teenagers getting a hold of dangerous weapons. It was a very scary, violent time and no one was able to feel safe anywhere they went without looking around their surroundings and having security everywhere. I really enjoyed reading this book, it taught me a lot about this incident and it was a true story; every bit of detail made me want to keep reading more. I would most definitely recommend this book to others; because it gave a lot of true facts and shows how cruel our world is why we are the way we are with high schools, just everywhere around the world. When the principal walked into the building again after the massacre had ended, everyone started clapping for him. I felt like that was a good quote; because they felt that he was a good principal and was still keeping a positive vibe even after the incident.
The Devil In the White City Erik Larson Andrew Alekseiko There have been many murder mystery stories in the past, but the first one to take place in the US is probably one of the most macabre. One of the most interesting features of the story, is that it has no chronological order. The main characters of this story are Daniel Burnham and H. H. Holmes. Daniel Burnham was the lead architect behind the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. His partner, John Root, whom had been a helpful assistant architect, and architect behind Grand Central Station in New York, had suffered an unfortunate and untimely death due to pneumonia. Meanwhile, the economy had been slowly crashing to the ground in the US, so it was even more of a task to complete the design and construction of the White City. Thankfully, he had a group of other faithful architects to help him design the fair, including the prominent figure, Frederick Olmsted, the landscape architect of the fair. Olmsted was famous for laying the ground rules behind landscape architecture. While all of this was happening, a new man had just arrived from Toronto, Canada, his name is H. H. Holmes. A former teacher looking to start a new life in Chicago as a pharmacist or doctor. Eventually Holmes finds a good place to start his business in Englewood, very near the soon-to-be White City. Interestingly, when the site of the fair was announced to be Holmes renovated the building into a hotel, it was called, "The World's Fair Hotel". He used this building to lure tired or vacationing people into the hotel and murder them there. He used various tactics to get rid of the body. Such as sending the bodies off to be made into skeletons, or burning them in his basement kiln. He had spent quite a bit of money he wasn't going to return. Along with this, there were many claims of insurance fraud against him, causing him to go on the run around the country. He was finally caught and put in prison in Philadelphia, where a Detective Frank Geyer starts to get suspicious that H. H. Holmes had murdered the three children of one of his colleagues. Geyer started to trace Holmes' path across America, and finally discovered that he had been a murderous psychopath due to some letters about Nellie and Alice Pietzel, two sisters that Holmes murdered in Toronto. Later Holmes confessed that he had killed countless people and was hanged for his crimes.
Meanwhile, Burnham had finally finished the fair, and had experienced many problems along the way, including economic decline, union strikes, and construction accidents. He was able to finish successfully, unfortunately never finding out that his fair had been the death for countless people. The Ferris Wheel was the biggest accomplishment of the fair nonetheless, supposedly beating out the craftsmanship of the Eiffel Tower even. The fair came to close when psychopath Patrick Prendergast assassinates Mayor Carter Henry Harrison during his speech.
Diana Pinho Mr. Sullivan Period 4 Flyboys written by James Bradley
The book I decided to read is called, Flyboys,. written by James Bradley. The book was about a group of 9 American airmen whose mission was to take out Chichi Jima, an island part of the Bonin Islands, while the Marines were in charge of taking out Iwo Jima, another island in the Bonin Islands, their objective was to make the airs save for the B-29s. The battle of Iwo Jima was one of the battles with the most civilian casualties as quoted on page 7 “Most of the Chichi Jima Flyboys fought and died during the worst killing month in the history of all warfare --- a thirty day period in February and March of 1945 when the dying in WWII reached its climax. If you look at a graph charting casualties over the four years of the Pacific war, you will see the line jump dramatically beginning with the battle of Iwo Jima and the Flyboys’ assault against the mainland Japan.And few realize the U.S. killed more Japanese civilians than Japanese soldiers and sailors. This is the most disturbing intensity.” This quote showed me about the time period of WWII this point was one of the United States’s worst because they killed a LOT of innocent women, men and children. The airmen were to use Napalm, which was suppose to incinerate the city. Unfortunately, their mission was compromised when a Japanese aircraft shot down the planes and captured 8 of the men and imprisoned them, in a dark room with little for and water, they were ale tortured until eventually executed. The 9th airman was located and rescued by the U.S. Navy, his name was George W. Bush, whom later went on to become the 41st president of the United States. With this, comes one of my favorite quotes of the book, “The Flyboy who got away became president of the United States. What might have been for Warren Earl, Dick, Marve, Glenn, Floyd, Jimmy, the unidentified airman, and all the Others who had lost their lives? A Nobel prize, a wife’s love, a daughter’s soft memory? And what might have been for those millions of doomed Japanese boys, abused and abandoned by their leaders?” (pg.339)This is my favorite quote from the entire book because it forces you to think of the negative outcome of wars, people dying, children loosing their parents, and poor innocent civilians just caught at the wrong place at the wrong time. Which in reality is sad because now all of these people loose their lives and their loved ones which leads the author to say “War is just a tragedy of what might have been.” (pg.339)Once the men were executed all of the records that had anything to do with them were destroyed by the United States and Japanese governments, as if they never existed. Their families were left to wonder what happened? Is he still alive? All questions they will never know the answer to. In my opinion, the author, James Bradley’s purpose for writing Flyboys was to inform and share the stories of the 9 airmen that so bravely entered WWII to fight for our country and keep us safe. The author wrote about the WWII era, in my opinion he did a very good job describing all of the events and important details about WWII. I believe that the author accomplished his goal because he included important details and described all of the events and happenings with great detail so that the reader could understand and comprehend the reading with more ease. This book was not one of my favorites to read, just because these are not the type of books that I usually enjoy to read. I would however recommend this book to people who enjoy reading books about wars and are interested in knowing about the events in WWII.
This story is about different characters in the late 1800's, the most important or main subject is about the Chicago World Fair also known as the Worlds Columbian Exposition and the two architects that were hired to plan and build the fairgrounds. The other main character in this story is H. H. Holmes, who changed his name from Herman Webster Mudgett and who is a serial killer that lives in Chicago. The story switches back and forth between these characters. Chicago was a very poor city and the crime, arson fires and murders were at an all-time high, the people in Chicago were very excited because the fair would bring a lot of jobs and money into the city. The two main architects are John Root and Daniel Burnham. These two architects are from Chicago. This fair is so big that they need to hire more architects. They search all across the United States for the best builders. However, many of these architects aren't as excited to join their team because of Chicago's reputation and don't want their names attached to this fair if it isn't a big hit like the previous World Fair that was held in Paris. They eventually make their team with other well-known architects who reluctantly joined. Meanwhile the story jumps to H.H. Holmes, a doctor and pharmacist, who moves to Chicago and gets a job in a pharmacy. The owner of the pharmacy is sick and dies. Holmes offers to buy the building from the widow and offers her an apartment to live in the apartment upstairs. She is the first victim of Holmes in Chicago. She mysteriously disappears and is never heard from again. He then buys property across the street from the pharmacy and builds a new building that will have offices and apartments to rent out. He calls the building The Worlds Hotel. He hires and fires many contractors and carpenters throughout the building period. He doesn't want any of them to know the actual layout of the building. He has hidden rooms a vault built and buys an incinerator to put in the basement. When the building is complete, he makes phony companies to fill the empty offices to make the building to look legitimate.. He also rents out the apartments on the upper floors. Holmes only accepts single women who are either working or visiting the fair. If any gentlemen inquire about renting an apartment or room, he tells them there are no vacancies. He also during these times marries and has a child but move them out to a separate house away from the hotel. Soon women are starting to disappear and he makes excuses that they moved or went to visit sick relatives. He would torture and then murder these women.
Allyssia Houck, August 26. Post 1/2 The book I read is called “Ghosts in the Fog” by Samantha Seiple. The contents of this book were about the Japanese invasion of Alaska during World War II. Throughout the books, you could see the horrible living accommodations and the daily torture people would have to go through every day. Normal civilians that lived on remote islands like Atka Island or St. Paul Island would constantly have to worry about invasion and being moved from one place to another during the war. They would have to be Evacuated from one place to be moved to another, and then another after that, just too finally be placed somewhere with atrocious living conditions. While the Aleuts where on the boat to the place where they were told they could finally settle down and have a home, they were singing and dancing out of happiness because they wouldn’t have to live in constant fear; but their “home” ended up being a bunch of flimsy housed that would have to become shelter for eight to ten people at night. Although these people had it pretty bad, they paled in comparison to the US soldiers that were going into battle against the Japanese. The Japanese were very strong headed and they would always were by a code. If they lost or were captured then they would be dishonored. Most Japanese soldier’s would rather die in battle or kill themselves before being captured or won against. The US definitely had a hard struggle winning against them. At first, the Japanese army would start by invading and occupying islands from America’s territory. Of course, the US would have to fight back and take their territory back from the Japanese. Seizing their own land from Japanese rule was a long and bloody fight. These soldiers would have to fight hand to hand against well trained men for days on end with maybe three hours to sleep and barely any food. All in all, this war was one of the hardest for both soldiers and everyday civilians. This book took place from 1940 to 1945. There are a few different ways I could tell this. One being that there were historical dates all throughout the book. Not only that, but in the beginning of the book, there was a paragraph that stated a year after Japan mad alliances with Adolf Hitler of Germany, and Mussolini of Italy, they launched an attack on Pearl Harbor. I personally know that these alliances were made in World War II, and World War II began in 1940. These are two main reasons that I believe the time period of this book took place between 1940 and 1945. While I was reading this book, the Author made it very clear that the daily conditions of every sing persons live was difficult. I couldn’t imagine having to live in fear of being invaded or killed constantly. I believe that if the author were to try to tech somebody something about this specific time period it would be about the living conditions. Throughout the whole book, the author is constantly telling about what people had to do and go through. I also believe that this is the purpose of the author writing this book as well. I think that Samantha Seiple was attempting to educate people on how life was like during the invasion of Alaska. I believe that she wanted people to know that this actually happened. I believe this because in the beginning of the book there’s a Quote “Because of this silence, one of the bloodiest and deadliest hand-to-hand combat battles between the United States and Japan was virtually forgotten”. This gave me a feeling that the author’s two main purposes of writing the book was to let people know that this actually happened, and to educate them on what happened as well. Personally, I believe that she succeeded. Throughout the book, you could tell how deadly and difficult everything was for everybody. She really got her point across with the way she wrote this book.
Allyssia Houck, August 26. Post 2/2 Personally, I had a very difficult time reading this book. To me, it was very hard to keep up with because each chapter would jump from one thing to the other and it confused me a lot. I would not recommend thus book if you don’t like Factual articles. The way the book was written was very factual; there weren’t really any stories on any one person. Usually the book would talk about what a certain group did as a whole, and it didn’t really entice me. However, there is one Quote in this book that I did like because of how much meaning it can hold to it. “But I imagine they, too, are lonely, for loneliness is loneliness, and hardships are hardships to anyone.” I like this quote because of how true it is. It doesn’t matter what situation somebody is in, if they are lonely then they are lonely, and the context this was put in kind of made that stand out to me. This was said by a commander while he was talking about all the soldiers that would be missing home. To me, that made it have all the more meaning to it because even though these people are trying to do what they need to do, they are still human and they are still lonely. It really helps put emphasis on what they are going though as human being and that’s why I like it so much. In Conclusion, this book was very well done, and the author did a very good job with writing and educating people on what happened during the invasion of Alaska. She was very efficient on getting her point across and I found this book to be a bit inspiring. My compliments go to Samantha Seiple in writing her book “Ghosts in the fog”.
He had different ways to get rid of the bodies. Some of the victims’ bodies were skinned and he sold the skeletons to medical schools and others he burned in the incinerator. The fair finally opens on May 1, 1893. It was not totally completed but they opened any ways because there were expecting very important people to come including President Cleveland. There were many countries participating in this world fair. The fair was held on over 600 acres and all the buildings were new but were made for temporary use. A total of 46 countries were represented at the fair. There were many new inventions that were unveiled at the fair. The first Ferris wheel was built there. The zipper was introduced. Many products were also introduced like Juicy Fruit gum and Dr. Pepper soda. Some days the fair would not have a high attendance rate so they would have to strategize on how to get the numbers up. The fairs best day was when 750,000 people attended because they called it Chicago Day.
and sentenced to death. He admits to killing but never tells how many people he killed. Before his death, he has a book published about his life. The end of the book tells about how everyone that was tied to Holmes or the World Fair died in some strange way. I think the author wanted to write about two major events in history and how they were tied to each other. This author was very knowledgeable in the facts about the fair and Holmes. I learned a lot about the Chicago World Fair and about the murderer Holmes. I enjoyed this book a lot because it was interesting to learn about the fair and the new inventions that were discovered there. I would recommend this book to anyone that likes to learn historical information or would like to read a murder mystery. These are two quotes that describe the timeline of the story. The first one is "The wheels needed 20 minutes for a single rotation." This is describing how even though the Ferris wheel was invented and did not work to perfection. The other quote is “As the start of 1893 the year of the big fair, no one including Holmes had noticed the footprint on the door." This quote tells the time period this story is based on. The quote that left the biggest impression is “I was born with the devil in me, I could not help the fact that I was born a murderer, no more than a poet can help the inspiration to sing." This quote shows how Holmes knew that early age that he was born to be a murderer and that he couldn't stop himself if he wanted to He compares this to you cannot stop a poet from being a poet. He is a killer and he cannot stop either.
Carlos Castellano Fallen angels By Walter dean Myers It is about Richie Perry a very young man that went to be a part of the Vietnam War after he left school because he did not know what else to do since he could not afford to go to college. During his time in the army he had faced many hardships and tragic moments there. One of the first biggest things to happen to him was a man part of his team had died because he had stepped on a land mine. When that he felt bad for two big reasons 1 was that he had died and 2 he was relieved that it was not him that had died. It’s a feeling everyone has at least felt one in their lives for example "if one night your next door neighbor was robbed and killed you will probably feel really sad for them but also a little happy cause it could’ve easily have been you". He has to deal with the pressure of war and his own morality. I think the authors point of writing the book is to appreciate every day and be grateful because even though you have a bad day there are people how care and are strong enough to help give people like you a better life while risking theirs. It’s showed how hard life of a military person and how much they sacrifice for regular people they don’t even know. It doesn't even have to be a part of the military it can be any body giving up something trying to help other people. I do believe that Walter dean Myers did accomplish that goal because that is the impression it gave me while reading the book and made that pretty clear. It takes places during the Vietnam War a hard time for many people especially if you were part of the war to fight. It lasted since 1959 till April 30, 1975. It started with Vietnam trying to spread communism while other places like South Vietnam and America. During the long battle many people were hurt and killed. "I didn’t want to tell her about Jenkins for another reason. I didn’t know how I felt about it. in a way I was really sorry for Jenkins, but there was a small voice inside me that kept saying that I was glad that it wasn’t me that got killed." that told me that we are all human and the pressure gets to you it is really hard to get it of you but that is what those people do on a daily bases. The other is "peewee stirred in his uneasy sleep. The plane droned on. A fat man complained that they didn’t have the wine he wanted. we were headed back to the world" that made me feel bad for all those people that sacrifice them self’s in wars to come back alive and to be kind of disrespected knowing all they did some people act like it is not even happened getting made and starting fights over pity reasons. I did enjoy it a bit because I just kept getting lost allot and rereading it but it wasn’t bad I would recommend this book especially if you enjoy books about war. My favorite quote was "peewee stirred in his uneasy sleep. The plane droned on. A fat man complained that they didn’t have the wine he wanted. We were headed back to the world" because I just can’t imagine how they felt after seeing/hearing that.
Kacey Blais I read the book Spies of Mississippi by Rick Bowers. This book was mainly about segregation in Mississippi. Blacks were treated very poorly. At one point black people were the majority of this state but it was not taken over, but… changed, in a way. Oddly enough, people liked segregation and passed a law called “The Sovereignty Commission” which was a bill basically allowing separation to be okay during the upcoming two years. During the forming of the commission, people turned themselves into spies and a spy agency just so they could find a change in the Mississippi way of life. It started off small but then spread throughout the state. Such things as a black person wanting to go to college was challenged as an attack. Spies would take many things such as tags, addresses of some, and license plate numbers. These spy agencies were put in place to stop people like Martin Luther King. A big issue was when they tried to stop voting rights for black people. It was cruel and rude what they were doing and this book was showing many ways of segregation and separation. I think the author’s purpose for writing this book is to show how awful it was back in the day. Blacks were spied on for a while for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I believe Rick Bowers did accomplish his goal because if I got out anything from this book, it was that in the 1950-1960’s it was very separated and segregated to a point where there were 160,000 spy reports filed. This book covers a historical time period of 1950 through the 1960’s. Obviously, the author teaches me a lot about the time period of history in this book. One thing it tells me is how blacks really were never superior. Blacks always got the short end of the stick and were obviously treated very poorly. Another thing I learned was you had to watch what you said back then. As mentioned before, if a black person wanted to go to college, it was saw as an attack. One quote I read that taught me a lot was on page three when it said “A segregationist and skilled public speaker, Coleman launched into his inaugural vowing to ‘maintain the continued separation of the white and the Negro races.’” This showed me that not only did they have spies, but they had skilled speakers to persuade people to go against the blacks! Another quote I chose was on page 106. In this part of the chapter, it explains people that have died sticking up for their rights. The quote I chose was about a guy named James Meredith and it says, “After graduation from Ole Miss, Meredith was shot while leading a march against fear.” This goes to show how big of a deal separation was. This was my favorite quote from the book to. Not only did it show the problem during this time frame but it showed others who stuck up for what they believed in and I found it very inspiring. I actually really enjoyed reading this book. I thought it was very inspiring and full of interesting facts. I usually don’t like history books but I have to say this definitely made it to the top of my list. I would 100 percent recommend this book to others. I would because even if you dread reading, this book teaches you so much information that will never forget. Spies of Mississippi: The True Story of the Spy Network That Tried to Destroy the Civil Rights Movement, was a GREAT and easy read.
The contents of Flyboys was about a group of U.S. Airmen heading into Chichi Jima a Japanese army camp which held many anti-aircraft weapons. But the catch about going into this camp and taking out the anti-aircraft weapons was that this army camp had about 3000 more Japanese soldiers than Iwo Jima and the fact that these airmen were heading into an anti-aircraft area with jets is a suicide mission. When these airmen had flown into Chichi Jima theses 4 soldiers had crashed down and one soldier that was known as the unknown soldier since his body could not be found. In my opinion the author of Flyboys was trying to tell people about something he knew know one had known and something people would want to know. The author had noticed that everyone knew about Iwo Jima and the four soldiers that had lifted the American Flag in Iwo Jima, one of them the authors father. But he knew know one had known about Chichi Jima and the struggle they had to do to stay alive as prisoners of a full Japanese army camp. Going into this camp was basically suicide and the fact that they had crashed landed on this island and were stuck on a Japanese infested island where they are most likely to die is nerve racking and suspense full. Another reason the author had wrote this was to tell people the truth since the Government had covered up what had happened to these people and had left family's with no answer and especially mothers and fathers who had died not even knowing what had happened to there sons. The author had accomplished his goal of telling us the story he believed that happen through research and evidence. The author used a suspenseful approach towards this nail biting story of five soldier's, stranded and imprisoned on a Japanese island, most likely to die a horrible death or even tortured for the rest of their lives. Unknown of the future ahead of these soldiers. This novel covers the 1940's period and through the event of World War 2. This book teaches me a lot about how the extremely racial the war had made people through both sides. And how the racial tension was taken out in prisons and by torturing the prisoners of the war. It showed how these soldiers that were prisoned had to stay wrong and hope for the best and try their best to stay alive. I had enjoyed reading this book a lot as it gave world war 2 a different story to tell tat you wouldn’t really know of. It gave a suspenseful tone of these 5 soldiers and how they tried to survive through the torture they were put in how all they had was each other. It’s a crazy story as if you were there with the soldiers in the prison fighting for your life. I would recommend this book to a lot of people just so they can learn something new, something they had never known had happened in world war 2 and feel like they were there with these soldiers fighting for their lives.
Alexis Zaniewski Summer Assignment Period 4 The book I read was Columbine by David Cullen. This book described the events of another day that lives in infamy for American history, April 20th 1999 in the small town Littleton, Colorado. On this day two boys did something that most of us would never even imagine could happen. This is the day that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold decide to take the lives of fifteen people; thirteen students, one teacher and themselves. David Cullen dedicates a decade to finding out the truth. He didn’t believe the media and he didn’t believe the stories. Cullen spent time with students who were survivors and got their stories. What David had discovered along with the police reports was that they both had a car with bombs and the bombs didn’t go off like they planned. So both of the boys marched into the school with guns in their hands and went off on the first students they saw. Finding this out, however, did not make Cullen happy because he still wanted to know why. In this book he goes more and more into the sides of the stories of both the boys and answers the questions of what was going on in their minds. He also explains how mental health can play a very big role in acts like this and helps teach his readers how to read the warning signs. The purpose of writing this book that I found was David Cullen was trying to show both of the boy’s, Dylan and Eric, perspectives. David wanted people to know why they did what they did so people wouldn’t just think of them as psycho paths but as people who need professional help. Hi goal was able to be accomplished because he did a good job of helping us, the readers, understand Dylan and Eric in a way we couldn’t have before. I personally enjoyed reading this book. The book really opened up my eyes to see that you never know what a person could be dealing with and what they are capable of doling due to what they are going through. I would most definitely recommend this book to most people. I used the word most because this book is about a real life tragedy that could be to close top home to some people. However, in my opinion it is great to know and to have the important resources of events that took place in my country not too long ago. This book not only gives us the facts, but it helps us figure out ways to prevent school shootings, such as columbine, from happening again. Two quotes that help go along with the time period that this book was written about. “you cant really teach a kid anything: you can only show him the way and motivate him to learn himself” page 127. Another quote I found was, “the world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong at the broken places” page 41. My favorite quote that helped me better understand and relate to the situation described in the book was “Eric dreamed big, but settled for reality”. This is my favorite quote because he was a hurting kid on the inside but this is not what he wanted.
In the book If I Die In A Combat Zone Box Me Up and Ship Me Home By Tim O’Brien, O’Brien narrates his life from being in the army in Vietnam and his base in Washington by going back and fourth from then and before he was drafted after college. The beginning of the book starts off with him in the jungle marching behind his buddy Barney while they are under fire. But then, the second chapter of the book goes back to before he was drafted to the army when he was living in Minnesota. It talked about how he used to pick up girls and take them to the drive in movie theatre and the A & W Root Beer stand. In this book, O’Brien expresses his hate towards the war and at the beginning of the book when he first goes out to Seattle, Washington, he co templates escaping to Vancouver, Canada and catching a flight to another country.
In this book, O’Brien’s purpose was to put you in his shoes and help you to feel what he felt during the war. That is why this book is written as a memoir, so he can tell you about his experience of the war. I truly believe that this was the purpose of the book because Tim O’Brien does a good job of narrating his experiences and expressing his feelings. The Vietnam War, in which this book takes place, was a hard time and the war was very brutal. Tim shows us this by talking about how there were hand grenades always going off, minefields to worry about, and being under fire multiple times. With over a million casualties, he’s lucky to have made it out alive. If Tim O’Brien were writing a non-fiction book about the Vietnam War, then there would be facts about how many deaths there were, why the war had started and other interesting facts. But since the book is written as a memoir, there aren’t really any facts about the war, just mostly his experience.
The book If I Die In Combat Box Me Up and Ship Me Home was an okay read. I really didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. Even though there was some action parts where he was under fire and bombs were blowing up nearby, there wasn’t as much as I would’ve liked there to be. It seemed to drag on and the majority of the book was walking and talking in the woods or the bunkers. But, I did think Tim used good symbolism but showing the forest was the symbol of his fear because it could swallow him up at any time or he could get lost. Also, the quote “It’s sad when you learn you’re not much of a hero, (Pg. 125, O’Brien) really spoke to me because Tim talks about how all of his friends were heroes and he had no reasons to think of himself as one, so this really made me feel sorry for him. If he were a hero, I feel like he would’ve made so much more out of his experience in the war. Besides the fact of his good symbolism and word use, I would not recommend this book to someone to read unless they like feeling filled memoirs. Even though it was a quick read of only about 180 pages, I feel like you could get more out of a shorter book that is more well written.
Edgar Polanco A Night to Remember Essay By: Walter Lord
The book i chose to read for the U.S. essay is A Night to Remember. This book was about the horrifying experience on the Titanic. Knowing this, my book goes over the Historical event of the Titanic sinking. On April 14, 1912 at 11:40 p.m. The Titanic hit an iceberg then sunk at 2:20 am on April 15, 1912. “The statistics suggest who they were- the Titanic’s casualty list included four of 143 First Class women (three by choice)… 15 of 93 Second Class women…and 81 of 179 Third Class Women. Not to mention the children. Except for Lorraine Allison, all 29 First and Second Class children were saved, but only 23 out of 76 steerage children.” This quote was found on page 88 and 89. This taught me a lot from this event. This showed me how during this time period those in higher class were obviously the first priority to be saved on the Titanic because of there importances and the statistics in that quote show this. On page 139, this quote taught me about this event. “We place absolute confidence in the Titanic. We believe that the boat is unsinkable.” This quote explained to me me how sure everybody was about the boat being unsinkable. When the ship hit the iceberg nobody freaked out because of this reason, and throughout the story they mention the ship being “unsinkable” many times.
In my personal opinion the author’s purpose in writing this book was to enlighten the readers about the historical event of the Titanic sinking. The author did accomplish this. I learned a lot about this historical event from reading this book. Before reading this book all I knew about the Titanic were the basics, the fact that the ship hit an ice berg and sank. After reading this book I learned that most of the people that died during this tragic incident were those of lower class. I also learned that everybody was so certain of the ship being “unsinkable” that nobody realized how bad this was going to affect those on the ship. Also, I learned that other ships came to save people on the ship like the Parisian and the Carpathia.
The best quote, also known as my favorite was on page 36, saying. “God himself could not sink this ship.” This was my favorite quote because it showed how certain they were of this ship not sinking, and then at the end the ship ended up sinking. This showed me that no matter how certain you are of somebody or something, anything can happen to anything no matte how big and how big the expectations. Those who built the ship thought this was the best way a ship could be built, and it just goes to show you how things change. In the days we live in we have huge cruise ships twice the size of the Titanic and back then nobody would have ever imagined anything like this to be built.
By the end of this book, I did enjoy reading, A Night to Remember, because it taught me a lot about the historical event of the sinking of the Titanic. I was surprised to know how much I learned from the book. I would recommend this book for others doing this assignment because it was a quick and normal pace read that had a lot of information. In my luck it was actually very pleasing to read.
Dominik Puka The book I read about was called Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. This book was mainly about this guy named Louis Zamperini. He at first moved into this place called Torrance in 1919. Louis was basically known for robbing and starting fights with people to make money. He was a troublemaker and he pulled a stunt at school, and that finally made his brother, Pete stand up for him. Pete would coach him to do track. As he grew older and older, he got less violent, but he started doing much better at track; he would win UCLA meets and such. Eventually, he was competing for the Olympic Games in 1938 in Berlin. He set a record for the next fifteen years. He really achieved his goal. Even Adolf Hitler wanted to shake his hand. Later on, he joined the Air corp to not get drafted into the army. He went through tons of training and missions. The missons that he went through were mind-traumitizing and everything, seeing people die, injuries, everything, also Pearl Harbor. Further in the story, Louis gets stranded on a island and hides in a bomb shelter. An extraction team is suppose to get him, but the plane or 'Green Hornet' crashed. Luckily, there were rafts there, so he got away. He fought through the cold getting back to his home, swimming, walking, anything. It was a cruel trip. In the end, he went back to the prison where his other teammates were. The point is that Louis witnessed all of his teammates becoming his friends were dying, prison-ed, crashing. He never broke through from all of that, and he made it through, he survived.The authors purpose for writing this book was to show that Louis could stay Unbroken. The author did accomplish her goal writing this story because that was the main goal in the story. The time period this book covers is about in the 1900's, mostly 1920s to 1940's. It was based on World War 2 mostly. This book taught me about the time period about how dangerous it was back then, because of the war and everything.You couldn't be too careful. My first favorite quote from the book was "Louie and his father rode together to the train station. The platform was crowded with uniformed young men and crying parents, clinging to one another, saying good-bye. When Louie embraced his father, he could feel him shaking." (Chapter 6,page 54) The second one is "When the school track season began in February, Louie set out to see what training had done for him. His transformation was stunning." (Chapter 2, page 17) Both of these are my favorite quotes because they taught me about how back then it was much harder to work and you had to earn for it. Life was not easy. I think I enjoyed reading this book overall because it was full of adventure and suspense. I would recommend this book to others because it definitely was a great book to read. Lastly, my favorite quote was "Everything he saw in his direction was water." That was my favorite because it foreshadowed the story in the beginning.
Courtney Kamansky Period 4 Wheels of Change By: Sue Macy
In the book Wheels of Change by: Sue Macy, she explains how women rode the bicycle to freedom. In the nagging of this book Macy writes about how the bicycle was invented, the first model was created by Baron Karl von Drains. It was called the laufmaschine (running machine) that was propelled by the rider’s feet. After the first bicycle was invented men and women throughout the United States had drawn an interest in the bicycles and all made their own designs for new types of bicycles. The women were starting to fight for their freedom, want to be able to vote in all elections and be able to get an education to find a job to provide themselves with the necessities in life. They wanted to be treated equally to men and because of the bicycle they were they accomplished their goal of gaining the right to vote and many more things. In my opinion I believe that the author has wrote this book to show that because of the bicycle people had started to treat women the same as men. For example, in 1807, New Jersey lawmakers take away the right for women to vote. No women in the United States were allowed to vote until 1890. Wyoming state and its constitution granted women the right to vote in all elections since the 1800s. I believe Sue Macy had accomplished her goal of explaining how women rode the bicycle to freedom. The book Wheels of Change spans over the time period of the 1800s until the early 1900s. This book taught me how the women started to be treated equivalent to men. Here are two quotes that I thought had taught me the most about this time period. The first was, “I began to feel that myself plus the bicycle equaled myself plus the world, upon whose spinning wheel we must all learn to ride. He who succeeds in gaining the mastery of [a bicycle], will gain the mastery of life.” This quote taught me that because of the bicycle women started to fight for freedom and those who fight for what they believe in will be successful in life. Another quote that had helped me understand this time period is, “These ladies assert their claim to rights, which we of bifurcated raiment are charged with usurping, they design to evict us. They will enter per force of fame, and honor, and wealth, we now occupy, to compete with us and strip us of our present monopoly” This quote explains that the women will not back down from their fight and won’t stop fighting for what they believe in until they have achieved freedom for women. I enjoyed reading this book because it showed me how women started to be treated as equivalents. I would recommend this book to others so they can learn how the bicycle brought women to freedom. My favorite quote from the book Wheels of Change is, “To men, the bicycle in the beginning was merely a new toy, another machine to the long list of devices they knew in their work and play. To women, it was a steed upon which they rode into a new world.” This is my favorite quote because it perfectly explains how men took for granted what they received, however the women had saw this as an opportunity to be treated equally. The book Wheels of Change is what I had chosen to read throughout the summer because I had found it very interesting in “how the women rode the bicycle to freedom with a few flat tires along the way.”
Angelica Nucifora August 27,2014
ReplyDeleteThe book I read over the summer is called Unbroken written by Laura Hillenbrand. This book is about a promising Olympic runner named Louis Zamperini from Torrance California. He was called into the service on a bomber crew during WWII and during his time in war his plane had gone down but he and another service member survived the crash But one of Louis’s fellow survivor didn’t live that long. They were living off of rainwater and fish or birds they caught. One of the three crash survivor died on a raft they all were sleeping on. Both Louis and the other survivor reached land but were captured by the Japanese navy. They didn’t tell America that they captured them they wanted America to think they were dead. Nut Louis family kept insisting that the army not stop looking because they know he is alive somewhere. They were not killed but they treated them like guest in their country. But then they held them as prisoner and treated them like they didn’t exists. Since they recognized that Louis was a famous Olympic runner they gave him harsher treatment but did not kill. Louis was in a camp when the Americans dropped the atomic bomb in Japan.
The author’s purpose for writing this book is to show us that he never did give up and he knew that he would be home someday. Louis knew that it was not going to be easy but he was going to do it. This book is to show us that not giving up is what we have to do. Since Louis was not much trained for the army he was learning each day how to figure things out. The author did accomplish her goal by showing me as I read how Louis can fight or reach for his goal by never giving up. He took the pain that the Japanese gave him but he was going to die that easily.
The time period that my book covers is when the atomic bomb was dropped in Japan. The bomb was dropped August 6, 1945 and that was the year Louis was placed in a prison camp. Louis had to be immediately hospitalized and sent back to his home in California. The author show a lot about this time in history and how America and Japan had a huge war and war wasn’t over till they released Louis. But the bomb killed many immediately but some died months later even with emergency care.
The quote “All he could see, in every direction, was water.” Preface, p. xvii this quote is stating when Louis and his reaming survivor were paddling back to shore. They couldn’t find any land but they knew that it was somewhere to be found. Another quote from the book is “Louis and his father rode together to the train station. The platform was crowded with unformed young men and crying parents. Clinging to one another, saying good-bye. When Louis embraced his father, he could feel him shaking.” Chapter 6, p. 54. Now this is my favorite quote from the book because I can tell that his father isn’t ready to let his little boy go. He has no choice now and he is scared that he will never see him again. It was a horrible time for both them and the family. Louis did tell his dad that he would be okay and he will see him soon. This quote broke me because it’s sad to see a loved one go and risk their whole life for the world.
I really did enjoy reading this book. It was very interesting but also very sad. Knowing that it was a book about someone I have never heard if till now really touched me. Louis was a strong man and went through a lot in his life. I don’t think I ever read a book that really touched my heart. I was suggest this book to anyone who likes wars and mysteries. I mean it wasn’t a big mystery but finding if he would ever return home was. So if you really was to learn about a survivor of WWII read Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand.
The book I read over the summer was “The Greatest Generation” written by Tom Brokaw. This book is mainly about a man named Tom Brokaw appreciating the things that people did to help our country. In this novel Tom Brokaw was walking among the people who were involved with our country during WW2 and the Great Depression. It talked about how whatever anyone background was, they wanted to help with the war. In this book it was separated into different groups. There were the ordinary people, The Home Front people, The Hero’s, Woman in Uniform and outlooks at the role of woman.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion the Authors purpose for writing this book is to show what people had to deal with back then. Also, how Tom Brokaw had stories from other people that showed what they had to deal what and how they tried to make our country better. Another purpose for this book is how they made many contributions before, during, and after the war. After the war they kept contributing to the progress and greatness of the country. I think that the author was trying to show what people did during WW2 and WW1 was to make progress and achieve greatness. “The stories that follow represent the lives of some of them. Each is distinctive and yet reflective of the common experiences of that trying time and this generation of greatness.”(Times, Pg. 12.) This quote shows that Tom Brokaw was reflecting off the knowledgeable situations.
I think he did accomplish the goal. I think he did accomplish this goal because in WW1 and WW2 many people dropped out of school to join the military. Many left their jobs as lawyers, doctors and more that quit their job to go in to the war. Many women went in to nursing so that they could contribute to the war effort. The historical time period my book that I read covers WW2, WW1 and the Great Depression.
This book teaches me true and real offensive and the struggle that men and woman wanted to help our country. “Other veterans showed their war experiences to the far corners of their lives and sealed them off as best they could. They could never completely erase the memories or the residual effects of their training, but they were determined to start and entirely new life once the war ended.” (Larsen, Pg. 69.) This quote shows the struggles that the woman and men went through.
One quote that taught me something in this time period is “A sense of personal responsibility and a commitment to honesty is characteristic of this generation. Those were values bred in to the young men and woman coming of age at the time the war broke out. It is how they were raised.” (KO, Pg. 37.) This quote teached me that younger men and woman that wanted to help men if they were hurt or making stuff. The second quote that I find that taught me something was, “It is easy to make a buck. It is a lot tougher to make a difference.” This quote taught me that it is very easy to make a dollar, but it is way harder to make a difference on the world. I enjoyed reading this book but there are a couple things I didn’t like or enjoy reading about this book. One thing is that Tom Brokaw talked about all the good things that happened in WW1. He didn’t talk about the struggles that people faced.
I would recommend this book to others because it teaches you a lot about patriotism. It shows that when people were under attack the country still helped each other with what they could do. They quit their jobs and helped out each other in the war. The one quote that I like the best is “It is easy to make a buck. It is a lot harder/ tougher to make a difference.” I feel that quote shoes that it is easy to make one dollar but very hard to make a difference on our country. Or try to change one thing.
The book that I chose to read is called Columbine. This book is about two teenagers who decided to one day go to their school with dangerous weapons and kill the innocent students inside the school building. This was a massacre that was well-known worldwide and changed the world and how we see it in a drastic way. I believe that the author’s purpose for writing this book was to explain and describe teenage killers and the different crimes going on the United States. He accomplished his goal because the topic of the book was a real tragic event that happened in the world. Dave Cullen spent 10 years doing research just to write this book. He had actual details about every single piece of evidence he included in the book. There were also a lot of quotes of the people that were witnesses during the incident that happened at the high school. In the back of the book there was a map of the plan that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had for the day of the event on Monday, April, 19, 1999. The author supported his facts and details with notes that he had and a bibliography in the back of the book. The book was very thorough and made it very clear of every little detail; the author surely did accomplish his goal. The historical event/period that this book covers children carrying weapons to harm innocent people in a building that’s supposed to be a safe environment for the minors. The Columbine shooting happened in the 1990s where 2 teenage boys thought that it would be a good deal of getting their anger out by killing innocent people that attended the same school as them. No one saw this kind of situation coming, and this event went worldwide and caused a lot of scares around the world.
ReplyDeleteOne quote that really got to me while reading this book was, “As difficult as it may be, please stay away.” At that time of the book where the quote was placed, the two shooters were already inside the school building killing and bombing people and parts of the building; parents were hearing the news and were all going crazy to enter the building. The whole world was hearing this news and were very terrified for the children inside the building and were having a hard time to cope for the families suffering, especially Eric and Dylan’s family. It made me feel like I was there a part of the situation with all the parents and other students going through this tragic event. Another quote that really taught me a lot is, “The violence intensified in the springtime, as the school year came to a close. Shooting season, they began to call.” This told me that the Columbine shooting wasn’t the only major event happening in this time period, a lot of innocent people were getting shot and killed by teenagers getting a hold of dangerous weapons. It was a very scary, violent time and no one was able to feel safe anywhere they went without looking around their surroundings and having security everywhere. I really enjoyed reading this book, it taught me a lot about this incident and it was a true story; every bit of detail made me want to keep reading more. I would most definitely recommend this book to others; because it gave a lot of true facts and shows how cruel our world is why we are the way we are with high schools, just everywhere around the world. When the principal walked into the building again after the massacre had ended, everyone started clapping for him. I felt like that was a good quote; because they felt that he was a good principal and was still keeping a positive vibe even after the incident.
The Devil In the White City
ReplyDeleteErik Larson
Andrew Alekseiko
There have been many murder mystery stories in the past, but the first one to take place in the US is probably one of the most macabre. One of the most interesting features of the story, is that it has no chronological order. The main characters of this story are Daniel Burnham and H. H. Holmes. Daniel Burnham was the lead architect behind the Chicago World's Fair of 1893. His partner, John Root, whom had been a helpful assistant architect, and architect behind Grand Central Station in New York, had suffered an unfortunate and untimely death due to pneumonia. Meanwhile, the economy had been slowly crashing to the ground in the US, so it was even more of a task to complete the design and construction of the White City. Thankfully, he had a group of other faithful architects to help him design the fair, including the prominent figure, Frederick Olmsted, the landscape architect of the fair. Olmsted was famous for laying the ground rules behind landscape architecture.
While all of this was happening, a new man had just arrived from Toronto, Canada, his name is H. H. Holmes. A former teacher looking to start a new life in Chicago as a pharmacist or doctor. Eventually Holmes finds a good place to start his business in Englewood, very near the soon-to-be White City. Interestingly, when the site of the fair was announced to be Holmes renovated the building into a hotel, it was called, "The World's Fair Hotel". He used this building to lure tired or vacationing people into the hotel and murder them there. He used various tactics to get rid of the body. Such as sending the bodies off to be made into skeletons, or burning them in his basement kiln. He had spent quite a bit of money he wasn't going to return. Along with this, there were many claims of insurance fraud against him, causing him to go on the run around the country. He was finally caught and put in prison in Philadelphia, where a Detective Frank Geyer starts to get suspicious that H. H. Holmes had murdered the three children of one of his colleagues. Geyer started to trace Holmes' path across America, and finally discovered that he had been a murderous psychopath due to some letters about Nellie and Alice Pietzel, two sisters that Holmes murdered in Toronto. Later Holmes confessed that he had killed countless people and was hanged for his crimes.
Meanwhile, Burnham had finally finished the fair, and had experienced many problems along the way, including economic decline, union strikes, and construction accidents. He was able to finish successfully, unfortunately never finding out that his fair had been the death for countless people. The Ferris Wheel was the biggest accomplishment of the fair nonetheless, supposedly beating out the craftsmanship of the Eiffel Tower even. The fair came to close when psychopath Patrick Prendergast assassinates Mayor Carter Henry Harrison during his speech.
Diana Pinho
ReplyDeleteMr. Sullivan Period 4
Flyboys written by James Bradley
The book I decided to read is called, Flyboys,. written by James Bradley. The book was about a group of 9 American airmen whose mission was to take out Chichi Jima, an island part of the Bonin Islands, while the Marines were in charge of taking out Iwo Jima, another island in the Bonin Islands, their objective was to make the airs save for the B-29s. The battle of Iwo Jima was one of the battles with the most civilian casualties as quoted on page 7 “Most of the Chichi Jima Flyboys fought and died during the worst killing month in the history of all warfare --- a thirty day period in February and March of 1945 when the dying in WWII reached its climax. If you look at a graph charting casualties over the four years of the Pacific war, you will see the line jump dramatically beginning with the battle of Iwo Jima and the Flyboys’ assault against the mainland Japan.And few realize the U.S. killed more Japanese civilians than Japanese soldiers and sailors. This is the most disturbing intensity.” This quote showed me about the time period of WWII this point was one of the United States’s worst because they killed a LOT of innocent women, men and children. The airmen were to use Napalm, which was suppose to incinerate the city. Unfortunately, their mission was compromised when a Japanese aircraft shot down the planes and captured 8 of the men and imprisoned them, in a dark room with little for and water, they were ale tortured until eventually executed. The 9th airman was located and rescued by the U.S. Navy, his name was George W. Bush, whom later went on to become the 41st president of the United States. With this, comes one of my favorite quotes of the book, “The Flyboy who got away became president of the United States. What might have been for Warren Earl, Dick, Marve, Glenn, Floyd, Jimmy, the unidentified airman, and all the Others who had lost their lives? A Nobel prize, a wife’s love, a daughter’s soft memory? And what might have been for those millions of doomed Japanese boys, abused and abandoned by their leaders?” (pg.339)This is my favorite quote from the entire book because it forces you to think of the negative outcome of wars, people dying, children loosing their parents, and poor innocent civilians just caught at the wrong place at the wrong time. Which in reality is sad because now all of these people loose their lives and their loved ones which leads the author to say “War is just a tragedy of what might have been.” (pg.339)Once the men were executed all of the records that had anything to do with them were destroyed by the United States and Japanese governments, as if they never existed. Their families were left to wonder what happened? Is he still alive? All questions they will never know the answer to.
In my opinion, the author, James Bradley’s purpose for writing Flyboys was to inform and share the stories of the 9 airmen that so bravely entered WWII to fight for our country and keep us safe. The author wrote about the WWII era, in my opinion he did a very good job describing all of the events and important details about WWII. I believe that the author accomplished his goal because he included important details and described all of the events and happenings with great detail so that the reader could understand and comprehend the reading with more ease. This book was not one of my favorites to read, just because these are not the type of books that I usually enjoy to read. I would however recommend this book to people who enjoy reading books about wars and are interested in knowing about the events in WWII.
Devil in White City Murder
ReplyDeleteJared Simmons
This story is about different characters in the late 1800's, the most important or main subject is about the Chicago World Fair also known as the Worlds Columbian Exposition and the two architects that were hired to plan and build the fairgrounds. The other main character in this story is H. H. Holmes, who changed his name from Herman Webster Mudgett and who is a serial killer that lives in Chicago. The story switches back and forth between these characters. Chicago was a very poor city and the crime, arson fires and murders were at an all-time high, the people in Chicago were very excited because the fair would bring a lot of jobs and money into the city. The two main architects are John Root and Daniel Burnham. These two architects are from Chicago. This fair is so big that they need to hire more architects. They search all across the United States for the best builders. However, many of these architects aren't as excited to join their team because of Chicago's reputation and don't want their names attached to this fair if it isn't a big hit like the previous World Fair that was held in Paris. They eventually make their team with other well-known architects who reluctantly joined. Meanwhile the story jumps to H.H. Holmes, a doctor and pharmacist, who moves to Chicago and gets a job in a pharmacy. The owner of the pharmacy is sick and dies. Holmes offers to buy the building from the widow and offers her an apartment to live in the apartment upstairs. She is the first victim of Holmes in Chicago. She mysteriously disappears and is never heard from again. He then buys property across the street from the pharmacy and builds a new building that will have offices and apartments to rent out. He calls the building The Worlds Hotel. He hires and fires many contractors and carpenters throughout the building period. He doesn't want any of them to know the actual layout of the building. He has hidden rooms a vault built and buys an incinerator to put in the basement. When the building is complete, he makes phony companies to fill the empty offices to make the building to look legitimate.. He also rents out the apartments on the upper floors. Holmes only accepts single women who are either working or visiting the fair. If any gentlemen inquire about renting an apartment or room, he tells them there are no vacancies. He also during these times marries and has a child but move them out to a separate house away from the hotel. Soon women are starting to disappear and he makes excuses that they moved or went to visit sick relatives. He would torture and then murder these women.
Allyssia Houck, August 26. Post 1/2
ReplyDeleteThe book I read is called “Ghosts in the Fog” by Samantha Seiple. The contents of this book were about the Japanese invasion of Alaska during World War II. Throughout the books, you could see the horrible living accommodations and the daily torture people would have to go through every day. Normal civilians that lived on remote islands like Atka Island or St. Paul Island would constantly have to worry about invasion and being moved from one place to another during the war. They would have to be Evacuated from one place to be moved to another, and then another after that, just too finally be placed somewhere with atrocious living conditions. While the Aleuts where on the boat to the place where they were told they could finally settle down and have a home, they were singing and dancing out of happiness because they wouldn’t have to live in constant fear; but their “home” ended up being a bunch of flimsy housed that would have to become shelter for eight to ten people at night. Although these people had it pretty bad, they paled in comparison to the US soldiers that were going into battle against the Japanese. The Japanese were very strong headed and they would always were by a code. If they lost or were captured then they would be dishonored. Most Japanese soldier’s would rather die in battle or kill themselves before being captured or won against. The US definitely had a hard struggle winning against them. At first, the Japanese army would start by invading and occupying islands from America’s territory. Of course, the US would have to fight back and take their territory back from the Japanese. Seizing their own land from Japanese rule was a long and bloody fight. These soldiers would have to fight hand to hand against well trained men for days on end with maybe three hours to sleep and barely any food. All in all, this war was one of the hardest for both soldiers and everyday civilians.
This book took place from 1940 to 1945. There are a few different ways I could tell this. One being that there were historical dates all throughout the book. Not only that, but in the beginning of the book, there was a paragraph that stated a year after Japan mad alliances with Adolf Hitler of Germany, and Mussolini of Italy, they launched an attack on Pearl Harbor. I personally know that these alliances were made in World War II, and World War II began in 1940. These are two main reasons that I believe the time period of this book took place between 1940 and 1945.
While I was reading this book, the Author made it very clear that the daily conditions of every sing persons live was difficult. I couldn’t imagine having to live in fear of being invaded or killed constantly. I believe that if the author were to try to tech somebody something about this specific time period it would be about the living conditions. Throughout the whole book, the author is constantly telling about what people had to do and go through. I also believe that this is the purpose of the author writing this book as well. I think that Samantha Seiple was attempting to educate people on how life was like during the invasion of Alaska. I believe that she wanted people to know that this actually happened. I believe this because in the beginning of the book there’s a Quote “Because of this silence, one of the bloodiest and deadliest hand-to-hand combat battles between the United States and Japan was virtually forgotten”. This gave me a feeling that the author’s two main purposes of writing the book was to let people know that this actually happened, and to educate them on what happened as well. Personally, I believe that she succeeded. Throughout the book, you could tell how deadly and difficult everything was for everybody. She really got her point across with the way she wrote this book.
Allyssia Houck, August 26. Post 2/2
ReplyDeletePersonally, I had a very difficult time reading this book. To me, it was very hard to keep up with because each chapter would jump from one thing to the other and it confused me a lot. I would not recommend thus book if you don’t like Factual articles. The way the book was written was very factual; there weren’t really any stories on any one person. Usually the book would talk about what a certain group did as a whole, and it didn’t really entice me. However, there is one Quote in this book that I did like because of how much meaning it can hold to it. “But I imagine they, too, are lonely, for loneliness is loneliness, and hardships are hardships to anyone.” I like this quote because of how true it is. It doesn’t matter what situation somebody is in, if they are lonely then they are lonely, and the context this was put in kind of made that stand out to me. This was said by a commander while he was talking about all the soldiers that would be missing home. To me, that made it have all the more meaning to it because even though these people are trying to do what they need to do, they are still human and they are still lonely. It really helps put emphasis on what they are going though as human being and that’s why I like it so much.
In Conclusion, this book was very well done, and the author did a very good job with writing and educating people on what happened during the invasion of Alaska. She was very efficient on getting her point across and I found this book to be a bit inspiring. My compliments go to Samantha Seiple in writing her book “Ghosts in the fog”.
ReplyDeleteHe had different ways to get rid of the bodies. Some of the victims’ bodies were skinned and he sold the skeletons to medical schools and others he burned in the incinerator. The fair finally opens on May 1, 1893. It was not totally completed but they opened any ways because there were expecting very important people to come including President Cleveland. There were many countries participating in this world fair. The fair was held on over 600 acres and all the buildings were new but were made for temporary use. A total of 46 countries were represented at the fair. There were many new inventions that were unveiled at the fair. The first Ferris wheel was built there. The zipper was introduced. Many products were also introduced like Juicy Fruit gum and Dr. Pepper soda. Some days the fair would not have a high attendance rate so they would have to strategize on how to get the numbers up. The fairs best day was when 750,000 people attended because they called it Chicago Day.
and sentenced to death. He admits to killing but never tells how many people he killed. Before his death, he has a book published about his life. The end of the book tells about how everyone that was tied to Holmes or the World Fair died in some strange way. I think the author wanted to write about two major events in history and how they were tied to each other. This author was very knowledgeable in the facts about the fair and Holmes. I learned a lot about the Chicago World Fair and about the murderer Holmes. I enjoyed this book a lot because it was interesting to learn about the fair and the new inventions that were discovered there. I would recommend this book to anyone that likes to learn historical information or would like to read a murder mystery. These are two quotes that describe the timeline of the story. The first one is "The wheels needed 20 minutes for a single rotation." This is describing how even though the Ferris wheel was invented and did not work to perfection. The other quote is “As the start of 1893 the year of the big fair, no one including Holmes had noticed the footprint on the door." This quote tells the time period this story is based on. The quote that left the biggest impression is “I was born with the devil in me, I could not help the fact that I was born a murderer, no more than a poet can help the inspiration to sing." This quote shows how Holmes knew that early age that he was born to be a murderer and that he couldn't stop himself if he wanted to He compares this to you cannot stop a poet from being a poet. He is a killer and he cannot stop either.
Carlos Castellano
ReplyDeleteFallen angels
By Walter dean Myers
It is about Richie Perry a very young man that went to be a part of the Vietnam War after he left school because he did not know what else to do since he could not afford to go to college. During his time in the army he had faced many hardships and tragic moments there. One of the first biggest things to happen to him was a man part of his team had died because he had stepped on a land mine. When that he felt bad for two big reasons 1 was that he had died and 2 he was relieved that it was not him that had died. It’s a feeling everyone has at least felt one in their lives for example "if one night your next door neighbor was robbed and killed you will probably feel really sad for them but also a little happy cause it could’ve easily have been you". He has to deal with the pressure of war and his own morality. I think the authors point of writing the book is to appreciate every day and be grateful because even though you have a bad day there are people how care and are strong enough to help give people like you a better life while risking theirs. It’s showed how hard life of a military person and how much they sacrifice for regular people they don’t even know. It doesn't even have to be a part of the military it can be any body giving up something trying to help other people. I do believe that Walter dean Myers did accomplish that goal because that is the impression it gave me while reading the book and made that pretty clear. It takes places during the Vietnam War a hard time for many people especially if you were part of the war to fight. It lasted since 1959 till April 30, 1975. It started with Vietnam trying to spread communism while other places like South Vietnam and America. During the long battle many people were hurt and killed. "I didn’t want to tell her about Jenkins for another reason. I didn’t know how I felt about it. in a way I was really sorry for Jenkins, but there was a small voice inside me that kept saying that I was glad that it wasn’t me that got killed." that told me that we are all human and the pressure gets to you it is really hard to get it of you but that is what those people do on a daily bases. The other is "peewee stirred in his uneasy sleep. The plane droned on. A fat man complained that they didn’t have the wine he wanted. we were headed back to the world" that made me feel bad for all those people that sacrifice them self’s in wars to come back alive and to be kind of disrespected knowing all they did some people act like it is not even happened getting made and starting fights over pity reasons. I did enjoy it a bit because I just kept getting lost allot and rereading it but it wasn’t bad I would recommend this book especially if you enjoy books about war. My favorite quote was "peewee stirred in his uneasy sleep. The plane droned on. A fat man complained that they didn’t have the wine he wanted. We were headed back to the world" because I just can’t imagine how they felt after seeing/hearing that.
Kacey Blais
ReplyDeleteI read the book Spies of Mississippi by Rick Bowers. This book was mainly about segregation in Mississippi. Blacks were treated very poorly. At one point black people were the majority of this state but it was not taken over, but… changed, in a way. Oddly enough, people liked segregation and passed a law called “The Sovereignty Commission” which was a bill basically allowing separation to be okay during the upcoming two years. During the forming of the commission, people turned themselves into spies and a spy agency just so they could find a change in the Mississippi way of life. It started off small but then spread throughout the state. Such things as a black person wanting to go to college was challenged as an attack. Spies would take many things such as tags, addresses of some, and license plate numbers. These spy agencies were put in place to stop people like Martin Luther King. A big issue was when they tried to stop voting rights for black people. It was cruel and rude what they were doing and this book was showing many ways of segregation and separation.
I think the author’s purpose for writing this book is to show how awful it was back in the day. Blacks were spied on for a while for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I believe Rick Bowers did accomplish his goal because if I got out anything from this book, it was that in the 1950-1960’s it was very separated and segregated to a point where there were 160,000 spy reports filed. This book covers a historical time period of 1950 through the 1960’s. Obviously, the author teaches me a lot about the time period of history in this book. One thing it tells me is how blacks really were never superior. Blacks always got the short end of the stick and were obviously treated very poorly. Another thing I learned was you had to watch what you said back then. As mentioned before, if a black person wanted to go to college, it was saw as an attack.
One quote I read that taught me a lot was on page three when it said “A segregationist and skilled public speaker, Coleman launched into his inaugural vowing to ‘maintain the continued separation of the white and the Negro races.’” This showed me that not only did they have spies, but they had skilled speakers to persuade people to go against the blacks! Another quote I chose was on page 106. In this part of the chapter, it explains people that have died sticking up for their rights. The quote I chose was about a guy named James Meredith and it says, “After graduation from Ole Miss, Meredith was shot while leading a march against fear.” This goes to show how big of a deal separation was. This was my favorite quote from the book to. Not only did it show the problem during this time frame but it showed others who stuck up for what they believed in and I found it very inspiring.
I actually really enjoyed reading this book. I thought it was very inspiring and full of interesting facts. I usually don’t like history books but I have to say this definitely made it to the top of my list. I would 100 percent recommend this book to others. I would because even if you dread reading, this book teaches you so much information that will never forget. Spies of Mississippi: The True Story of the Spy Network That Tried to Destroy the Civil Rights Movement, was a GREAT and easy read.
Flyboys
ReplyDeleteBy: Tamarick Evans
The contents of Flyboys was about a group of U.S. Airmen heading into Chichi Jima a Japanese army camp which held many anti-aircraft weapons. But the catch about going into this camp and taking out the anti-aircraft weapons was that this army camp had about 3000 more Japanese soldiers than Iwo Jima and the fact that these airmen were heading into an anti-aircraft area with jets is a suicide mission. When these airmen had flown into Chichi Jima theses 4 soldiers had crashed down and one soldier that was known as the unknown soldier since his body could not be found.
In my opinion the author of Flyboys was trying to tell people about something he knew know one had known and something people would want to know. The author had noticed that everyone knew about Iwo Jima and the four soldiers that had lifted the American Flag in Iwo Jima, one of them the authors father. But he knew know one had known about Chichi Jima and the struggle they had to do to stay alive as prisoners of a full Japanese army camp. Going into this camp was basically suicide and the fact that they had crashed landed on this island and were stuck on a Japanese infested island where they are most likely to die is nerve racking and suspense full. Another reason the author had wrote this was to tell people the truth since the Government had covered up what had happened to these people and had left family's with no answer and especially mothers and fathers who had died not even knowing what had happened to there sons. The author had accomplished his goal of telling us the story he believed that happen through research and evidence. The author used a suspenseful approach towards this nail biting story of five soldier's, stranded and imprisoned on a Japanese island, most likely to die a horrible death or even tortured for the rest of their lives. Unknown of the future ahead of these soldiers.
This novel covers the 1940's period and through the event of World War 2. This book teaches me a lot about how the extremely racial the war had made people through both sides. And how the racial tension was taken out in prisons and by torturing the prisoners of the war. It showed how these soldiers that were prisoned had to stay wrong and hope for the best and try their best to stay alive.
I had enjoyed reading this book a lot as it gave world war 2 a different story to tell tat you wouldn’t really know of. It gave a suspenseful tone of these 5 soldiers and how they tried to survive through the torture they were put in how all they had was each other. It’s a crazy story as if you were there with the soldiers in the prison fighting for your life. I would recommend this book to a lot of people just so they can learn something new, something they had never known had happened in world war 2 and feel like they were there with these soldiers fighting for their lives.
Alexis Zaniewski
ReplyDeleteSummer Assignment
Period 4
The book I read was Columbine by David Cullen. This book described the events of another day that lives in infamy for American history, April 20th 1999 in the small town Littleton, Colorado. On this day two boys did something that most of us would never even imagine could happen. This is the day that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold decide to take the lives of fifteen people; thirteen students, one teacher and themselves. David Cullen dedicates a decade to finding out the truth. He didn’t believe the media and he didn’t believe the stories. Cullen spent time with students who were survivors and got their stories. What David had discovered along with the police reports was that they both had a car with bombs and the bombs didn’t go off like they planned. So both of the boys marched into the school with guns in their hands and went off on the first students they saw. Finding this out, however, did not make Cullen happy because he still wanted to know why. In this book he goes more and more into the sides of the stories of both the boys and answers the questions of what was going on in their minds. He also explains how mental health can play a very big role in acts like this and helps teach his readers how to read the warning signs.
The purpose of writing this book that I found was David Cullen was trying to show both of the boy’s, Dylan and Eric, perspectives. David wanted people to know why they did what they did so people wouldn’t just think of them as psycho paths but as people who need professional help. Hi goal was able to be accomplished because he did a good job of helping us, the readers, understand Dylan and Eric in a way we couldn’t have before.
I personally enjoyed reading this book. The book really opened up my eyes to see that you never know what a person could be dealing with and what they are capable of doling due to what they are going through. I would most definitely recommend this book to most people. I used the word most because this book is about a real life tragedy that could be to close top home to some people. However, in my opinion it is great to know and to have the important resources of events that took place in my country not too long ago. This book not only gives us the facts, but it helps us figure out ways to prevent school shootings, such as columbine, from happening again.
Two quotes that help go along with the time period that this book was written about. “you cant really teach a kid anything: you can only show him the way and motivate him to learn himself” page 127. Another quote I found was, “the world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong at the broken places” page 41. My favorite quote that helped me better understand and relate to the situation described in the book was “Eric dreamed big, but settled for reality”. This is my favorite quote because he was a hurting kid on the inside but this is not what he wanted.
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ReplyDeleteNick Gallicchio
ReplyDeleteSummer Assignment
Mr. Sullivan
In the book If I Die In A Combat Zone Box Me Up and Ship Me Home By Tim O’Brien, O’Brien narrates his life from being in the army in Vietnam and his base in Washington by going back and fourth from then and before he was drafted after college. The beginning of the book starts off with him in the jungle marching behind his buddy Barney while they are under fire. But then, the second chapter of the book goes back to before he was drafted to the army when he was living in Minnesota. It talked about how he used to pick up girls and take them to the drive in movie theatre and the A & W Root Beer stand. In this book, O’Brien expresses his hate towards the war and at the beginning of the book when he first goes out to Seattle, Washington, he co templates escaping to Vancouver, Canada and catching a flight to another country.
In this book, O’Brien’s purpose was to put you in his shoes and help you to feel what he felt during the war. That is why this book is written as a memoir, so he can tell you about his experience of the war. I truly believe that this was the purpose of the book because Tim O’Brien does a good job of narrating his experiences and expressing his feelings. The Vietnam War, in which this book takes place, was a hard time and the war was very brutal. Tim shows us this by talking about how there were hand grenades always going off, minefields to worry about, and being under fire multiple times. With over a million casualties, he’s lucky to have made it out alive. If Tim O’Brien were writing a non-fiction book about the Vietnam War, then there would be facts about how many deaths there were, why the war had started and other interesting facts. But since the book is written as a memoir, there aren’t really any facts about the war, just mostly his experience.
The book If I Die In Combat Box Me Up and Ship Me Home was an okay read. I really didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. Even though there was some action parts where he was under fire and bombs were blowing up nearby, there wasn’t as much as I would’ve liked there to be. It seemed to drag on and the majority of the book was walking and talking in the woods or the bunkers. But, I did think Tim used good symbolism but showing the forest was the symbol of his fear because it could swallow him up at any time or he could get lost. Also, the quote “It’s sad when you learn you’re not much of a hero, (Pg. 125, O’Brien) really spoke to me because Tim talks about how all of his friends were heroes and he had no reasons to think of himself as one, so this really made me feel sorry for him. If he were a hero, I feel like he would’ve made so much more out of his experience in the war. Besides the fact of his good symbolism and word use, I would not recommend this book to someone to read unless they like feeling filled memoirs. Even though it was a quick read of only about 180 pages, I feel like you could get more out of a shorter book that is more well written.
Edgar Polanco
ReplyDeleteA Night to Remember Essay
By: Walter Lord
The book i chose to read for the U.S. essay is A Night to Remember. This book was about the horrifying experience on the Titanic. Knowing this, my book goes over the Historical event of the Titanic sinking. On April 14, 1912 at 11:40 p.m. The Titanic hit an iceberg then sunk at 2:20 am on April 15, 1912. “The statistics suggest who they were- the Titanic’s casualty list included four of 143 First Class women (three by choice)… 15 of 93 Second Class women…and 81 of 179 Third Class Women. Not to mention the children. Except for Lorraine Allison, all 29 First and Second Class children were saved, but only 23 out of 76 steerage children.” This quote was found on page 88 and 89. This taught me a lot from this event. This showed me how during this time period those in higher class were obviously the first priority to be saved on the Titanic because of there importances and the statistics in that quote show this. On page 139, this quote taught me about this event. “We place absolute confidence in the Titanic. We believe that the boat is unsinkable.” This quote explained to me me how sure everybody was about the boat being unsinkable. When the ship hit the iceberg nobody freaked out because of this reason, and throughout the story they mention the ship being “unsinkable” many times.
In my personal opinion the author’s purpose in writing this book was to enlighten the readers about the historical event of the Titanic sinking. The author did accomplish this. I learned a lot about this historical event from reading this book. Before reading this book all I knew about the Titanic were the basics, the fact that the ship hit an ice berg and sank. After reading this book I learned that most of the people that died during this tragic incident were those of lower class. I also learned that everybody was so certain of the ship being “unsinkable” that nobody realized how bad this was going to affect those on the ship. Also, I learned that other ships came to save people on the ship like the Parisian and the Carpathia.
The best quote, also known as my favorite was on page 36, saying. “God himself could not sink this ship.” This was my favorite quote because it showed how certain they were of this ship not sinking, and then at the end the ship ended up sinking. This showed me that no matter how certain you are of somebody or something, anything can happen to anything no matte how big and how big the expectations. Those who built the ship thought this was the best way a ship could be built, and it just goes to show you how things change. In the days we live in we have huge cruise ships twice the size of the Titanic and back then nobody would have ever imagined anything like this to be built.
By the end of this book, I did enjoy reading, A Night to Remember, because it taught me a lot about the historical event of the sinking of the Titanic. I was surprised to know how much I learned from the book. I would recommend this book for others doing this assignment because it was a quick and normal pace read that had a lot of information. In my luck it was actually very pleasing to read.
Dominik Puka
ReplyDeleteThe book I read about was called Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand. This book was mainly about this guy named Louis Zamperini. He at first moved into this place called Torrance in 1919. Louis was basically known for robbing and starting fights with people to make money. He was a troublemaker and he pulled a stunt at school, and that finally made his brother, Pete stand up for him. Pete would coach him to do track. As he grew older and older, he got less violent, but he started doing much better at track; he would win UCLA meets and such. Eventually, he was competing for the Olympic Games in 1938 in Berlin. He set a record for the next fifteen years. He really achieved his goal. Even Adolf Hitler wanted to shake his hand. Later on, he joined the Air corp to not get drafted into the army. He went through tons of training and missions. The missons that he went through were mind-traumitizing and everything, seeing people die, injuries, everything, also Pearl Harbor. Further in the story, Louis gets stranded on a island and hides in a bomb shelter. An extraction team is suppose to get him, but the plane or 'Green Hornet' crashed. Luckily, there were rafts there, so he got away. He fought through the cold getting back to his home, swimming, walking, anything. It was a cruel trip. In the end, he went back to the prison where his other teammates were. The point is that Louis witnessed all of his teammates becoming his friends were dying, prison-ed, crashing. He never broke through from all of that, and he made it through, he survived.The authors purpose for writing this book was to show that Louis could stay Unbroken. The author did accomplish her goal writing this story because that was the main goal in the story. The time period this book covers is about in the 1900's, mostly 1920s to 1940's. It was based on World War 2 mostly. This book taught me about the time period about how dangerous it was back then, because of the war and everything.You couldn't be too careful. My first favorite quote from the book was "Louie and his father rode together to the train station. The platform was crowded with uniformed young men and crying parents, clinging to one another, saying good-bye. When Louie embraced his father, he could feel him shaking." (Chapter 6,page 54) The second one is "When the school track season began in February, Louie set out to see what training had done for him. His transformation was stunning." (Chapter 2, page 17) Both of these are my favorite quotes because they taught me about how back then it was much harder to work and you had to earn for it. Life was not easy. I think I enjoyed reading this book overall because it was full of adventure and suspense. I would recommend this book to others because it definitely was a great book to read. Lastly, my favorite quote was "Everything he saw in his direction was water." That was my favorite because it foreshadowed the story in the beginning.
Courtney Kamansky
ReplyDeletePeriod 4
Wheels of Change
By: Sue Macy
In the book Wheels of Change by: Sue Macy, she explains how women rode the bicycle to freedom. In the nagging of this book Macy writes about how the bicycle was invented, the first model was created by Baron Karl von Drains. It was called the laufmaschine (running machine) that was propelled by the rider’s feet. After the first bicycle was invented men and women throughout the United States had drawn an interest in the bicycles and all made their own designs for new types of bicycles. The women were starting to fight for their freedom, want to be able to vote in all elections and be able to get an education to find a job to provide themselves with the necessities in life. They wanted to be treated equally to men and because of the bicycle they were they accomplished their goal of gaining the right to vote and many more things. In my opinion I believe that the author has wrote this book to show that because of the bicycle people had started to treat women the same as men. For example, in 1807, New Jersey lawmakers take away the right for women to vote. No women in the United States were allowed to vote until 1890. Wyoming state and its constitution granted women the right to vote in all elections since the 1800s. I believe Sue Macy had accomplished her goal of explaining how women rode the bicycle to freedom. The book Wheels of Change spans over the time period of the 1800s until the early 1900s. This book taught me how the women started to be treated equivalent to men. Here are two quotes that I thought had taught me the most about this time period. The first was, “I began to feel that myself plus the bicycle equaled myself plus the world, upon whose spinning wheel we must all learn to ride. He who succeeds in gaining the mastery of [a bicycle], will gain the mastery of life.” This quote taught me that because of the bicycle women started to fight for freedom and those who fight for what they believe in will be successful in life. Another quote that had helped me understand this time period is, “These ladies assert their claim to rights, which we of bifurcated raiment are charged with usurping, they design to evict us. They will enter per force of fame, and honor, and wealth, we now occupy, to compete with us and strip us of our present monopoly” This quote explains that the women will not back down from their fight and won’t stop fighting for what they believe in until they have achieved freedom for women. I enjoyed reading this book because it showed me how women started to be treated as equivalents. I would recommend this book to others so they can learn how the bicycle brought women to freedom. My favorite quote from the book Wheels of Change is, “To men, the bicycle in the beginning was merely a new toy, another machine to the long list of devices they knew in their work and play. To women, it was a steed upon which they rode into a new world.” This is my favorite quote because it perfectly explains how men took for granted what they received, however the women had saw this as an opportunity to be treated equally. The book Wheels of Change is what I had chosen to read throughout the summer because I had found it very interesting in “how the women rode the bicycle to freedom with a few flat tires along the way.”