Tuesday, November 26, 2013

11/27/13 blog post




   Drums, girls, and dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick, is about a 13 year old boy, named Steven, whose brother Jeffrey get diagnosed with cancer. I think Jeffrey having cancer motivates Steven to help his family out.

  One day Steven, who plays in his schools band, gets his friends to help organize a fundraising concert for his brother Jeffrey's cancer. They made 50,000 dollars, Steven did this because he couldn't stand to see his family struggle financially. Another example is how Steven babysat Jeffrey when his parents where overwhelmed with all of the forms and bills they had to do for Jeffreys cancer. Steven did this because this might be his last yeary with Jeffrey. My last example is when Steven went with Jeffrey to his cancer treatment hospital, he went because Jeffrey felt safe around Steven. He also wanted to see what it was like for Jeffrey being treated for cancer, he wanted to see the pain Jeffrey was going through.

  My claim connects to my personal life a lot. I've never had a sibling with cancer , but my siblings do often get sick which is not like cancer but they still need help recovering. I usually care for them just like how Steven took care of Jeffrey. I would and still babysit my siblings, and help take care of them. If it's stressful for my mom or dad, I would help out just like how Jeffrey did. My siblings being sick motivate me to help them and my parents out, since my family does more then they can handle.

Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Social justice and action

Social justice

Lois Lowrys book, Number the Stars shows the prospective of a 10 year old girl and her friend, who is Jewish and trying to escape the nazis from Denmark and get to Sweden. The book try's to get you to see what it was like trying to escape the nazis in world war 2. Annemarie is the main character and her friend, Ellen, who is Jewish. Ellen's family gets taken away and Annemarie's mother who was friend with Ellen's family takes Annemarie and Ellen and try's to flea to Sweden. This journey was very hard, they went through obstacles like running into nazis and having to travels on boast, trains, cars, etc.. At the end they make it to Sweden and nothing bad happens but the book shows that for a lot of people it didn't end up this way.

Lois Lowry uses some craft moves in her book. Like having the nazis acting and speaking like they were about to commit each crime, this makes the reader anxious to what they will do next. She also has other craft moves like having pauses in scary moments with little details, this makes it so the reader knows the Annemarie is scared and in a bad situation. Lastly she has 2 kids as the main characters so she makes them speak and act in a kid way, now the reader truly gets what it was like to be a kid in world war 2.

This book is an example of social justice because it shows how some people in Europe, like Germans, and others discriminates Jews. This society is harmful to Jews, similar to African Americans in the 1960s. These Jews were killed, put through labor, and had to make sure people knew they were Jewish. This book also had social act, like how some people hid Jews and how America and it's allies went to fight the Germans and once agains have the Jews be free.