Novelist, Amy Tan, in her excerpt, Fish Cheeks, reminisces over a boy she had a crush on when she was fourteen. Tan's purpose is to entertain and teach a lesson. She espouses a sentimental attitude in order to appeal to her adult readers.…
In Cynthia Rylant’s short story, “Papa's Parrot,” the main character, a 12-year-old boy named Harry Tillian who can't seem to spare the time to visit his papa at the family candy store during the afternoons. I firmly believe that the message in this story is to always appreciate the people around you before it's too late.…
ISR 3 The First Part Last by Angela Johnson is a book about a teenage boy named Bobby Morris a sixteen year old boy who has just found out on his birthday that his girlfriend Nia is pregnant with his child. After finding out this news a lot has changed in not just her life ,but also Bobbys. This isn’t your typical pregnancy story where the dad is not in the child's life it’s actually just the quite opposite.…
In The Rock and the River, by Kekla Magoon, “all it takes for evil to exist is for good people to do nothing” is a prominent theme. An example of this is when Bucky had just been brutally beat and arrested by the police. The police did this in broad daylight in front of everyone including Maxie and Sam. “People on the street began going about their business again. The radio blasted, covering the silence of disbelief, of resignation.” (pg. 68). This quote demonstrates the theme because it shows that if the people watching the violence happen (aka the “good people”) do nothing, then the cop’s racism (aka the evil) would continue existing.…
(RTS) Clearly, in the book Under The Persimmon Tree, Suzanne Fishers correctly shows the treatment of women based of reality and uses those facts to create conflict and develop traits in the two main characters. (BS-4) The two main characters, Nusrat and Najmah, are affected by the laws regarding women and land ownership and thus directed down separate paths at the end. (BS-3) These Taliban laws about women’s land ownership are accurately portrayed in the book compared to reality.…
HOMS Theme Essay Growing up, everyone expects it as this unbelievably spontaneous thing . In Sandra Cisneros book “The house on Mango Street” states that growing up can happen to people variously, in good and bad ways. In the pages 46- 57 there is a lot of growing up in many of the characters especially Esperanza. Esperanza gets her first job, during her break time she mingles with an oriental man; “ He grabs my face with both hands and kisses me hard on the mouth,”(55).…
There are perhaps no days of our childhood we lived so fully as those we spent with a favorite book.” This is a famous quote said by Marcel Proust. Books over the centuries have had an influential impact on the lives of many. Arguably, there are none more influential than children’s books. Children’s books contain important life lessons and teach many children the basic values they will hold for the remainder of their lives. Examples of the best range from the well-known Dr. Seuss books, to the always-popular Winnie the Pooh books. Although those are historically popular, The Rainbow Fish, by Marcus Pfister, is one that should be kept in mind. With it’s enticing illustrations, simple and descriptive context, and lesson it portrays, the children’s book The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister should be considered for a spot on the “Top 100 Children’s Books” list.…
In the essay, Myth of Adolescence, Alex and Brett Harris incorporate their thoughts on what they feel about what teenagers actually go through during their period of `adolescence.` They go on to compare this phase to an elephant. They say that an elephant is a powerful beast that can be restrained even by a piece of twine. According to Alex and Brett, young teens are the elephant and our twine is the concept of adolescence. Unfortunately, these low expectations end up limiting teens for no reason. Teenagers, between the ages of 13-18, are held back by society and aren't able to excel in life. The essay, Myth of Adolescence, states that the socials expectations are becoming obstacles for teens. We as teenagers, need to erase the invisible shackles…
A Child Called “It” is a very tragic book that tells an amazingly true story about a real life little boy in California. Written by Dave Pelzer, the story reveals an extreme case of child abuse, one of the worst ever report in California history. A Child Called “It” tells the unbearable story of a boy who gets beaten day after day by his alcoholic mother. This story is an autobiography communicating very informative information of the severity of child abuse and how important school officials are in spotting this epidemic. Dave came from a typically good family. Dave’s parents loved him deeply, especially on holidays and special trips into town while his father was working a twenty-four hour shift. However, things began to change drastically in a negative way. A Child Called “It” focuses mainly on abuse in…
A Child Called “It” by David Pelzer is his own autobiography of his life as a child being abused by his alcoholic mother, Catherine Roerva Pelzer, who isolates him from the family, then abuses him, and nearly killed him through starvation, poisoning, and once stabbing him. Since Mother starved him for days, he began to steal food in order to survive, and when she finds out he has stolen food, she abuses him with her own “games”. Dave reflects on the “good times” in his childhood, because Mother was once a wonderful, loving mom, but the drinking habit, illness, and Father being gone took over her life, leaving both emotional and physical scars on her child which will haunt him for life. His father, Stephen Joseph Pelzer, a fireman in San Francisco, is a frightened man who as watches Dave is beaten, starved, and humiliated. Mother has stopped calling him by name; instead she would refer him as “the boy” to “it”. He was starved for 10 consecutive days, stabbed, forced to eat his brother’s diaper and a spoonful of ammonia, burned over a gas stove, stayed in the bathroom with ammonia resulting in a near fatal outcome, smashed his face into the mirror while screaming "I'm a bad boy", lying in the bathtub naked with freezing water for hours.…
In the openings of pages 9 and 10 of ‘The Rabbits’, written by John Marsden and illustrated by Shaun Tan, techniques such as colour symbolism, font and salience and reading path are used to create issues involving the mistreatment of the Aborignal people after the ‘Invasion”.…
Most people may have some form of language barrier, no matter what background they came from. Difference are what define the world around us. Whether a soft contrast of two colors or a comparison of nations, the diversity shapes our identities. In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldúa and “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, both have similar subject as they both discussed how different forms of the same language are recognized in society. They emphasize the fact that a person can unconsciously develop different ideas through a language and categorizes an individual by the way they speak. How can identity be molded by language? Language is part of one’s identity.…
Bibliography: Cisneros S, Eleven, Health Communications Inc., Deerfield Beach, FL, January, 1, 1997. (anthology), pp. 150-161.…
So often in relationships we find the smallest idiosyncrasies or characteristics charming at first. However, after the initial “honeymoon phase” these characteristics cannot be overlooked any longer. This is especially evident in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “The Birthmark”. A man named Aylmer is no longer able to overlook the birthmark that was bestowed upon his wife, Georgiana’s, cheek. Even though the mark was small enough to be covered by two fingers, he was not able to allow it to disrupt the utter perfection of the rest of her face.…
In response to “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” by Gloria Anzaldua, she describes her childhood along with the struggles of adjusting to the many different types of languages that her culture provides. She begins her experiences with a dentist appointment she had as a child and how the doctor was struggling to control her tongue while he cleaned her roots. That experience made her curious as to how one actually tames a wild tongue. Growing up in the American public school system, she would often be punished for speaking her native language. Often teachers would tell her to learn English or “go back to Mexico”. The struggles didn’t stop there, Gloria also had a little bit of an attitude towards her mother which included, talking back and having…