Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Diary of a Wimpy Kid; The Third Wheel In the book, “Diary of a Wimpy Kid; The Third Wheel” by Jeff Kinney is about a boy named Greg who is trying to get a date for the Valentines day dance. I think there is a theme in the book. I think the theme is that you shouldn’t be desperate to get a girl. Greg wants a date to the dance, he just can’t get one. In his school they have these things that are called “Candy Grams.” Candy Grams are when you send someone a letter and a piece of candy. The letter should say something about how you should take that person to the dance, or if they wanted to go to the dance. Within two weeks, everyone had a date, or a Candy Gram except Greg. He was going crazy. He got so desperate that he started getting himself Candy Grams. In the end, he and his best friend Rowley, ended up asking a girl if they wanted to go as a “group of friends” and then Rowley and her started going out. Hence the name “the third wheel” As you can see, I think a theme in the book is that you shouldn’t be that you can’t be desperate to get a girl. I think that this theme is true. I believe it is true because it got Greg into a lot of trouble and may have taking the chance of him ever going out with a girl again. He got himself into making girls think he is crazy. Because he just seemed so desperate asking out every girl in school. I also think that he was choosing people way above his standards. He doesn’t ask out unpopular girls, only the popular ones. And one time he was going to ask a girl out. The girl was drinking water when he was going to do it. She knew he was going to ask her, so she kept drinking water till the late bell rang. So that is why I think Greg is desperate for girls.

Be More Chill

Aisa Radoncic “Be More Chill” In the book, “Be More Chill,” by Ned Vizzini is about a teenager named Jeremy Heere trying to be the popular kid in school. He can’t do it by just being him, so he buys this supercomputer pill that tells him how to be cool in every situation. The pill has a voice and speaks to him in his mind. The pill called, “squip” tells Jeremy how to get all the things a teenage boy would want most in life. The squip instructs him on everything from what to wear to how to talk and walk. The squip turns Jeremy from a complete geek to the coolest kid in class. I noticed in my book that Jeremy needed the squip in the beginning, but towards the end, when he uses the squip, it gets him in trouble. I think the squip gets Jeremy in trouble. For instance, when Jeremy wanted to have a conversation with his crush, Christine, the squip said, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING? LEAVE CHRISTINE ALONE. CHLOE IS GOING TO LEAD YOU TO A ROOM FOR ECSTASY-LADEN SEXUAL SHENANIGANS! REMEMBER, CHRISTINE WILL COME LATER...” Of course, Jeremy listened to the squip. He followed Chloe to the basement and Chloe’s boyfriend, a football player, ended up chasing Jeremy around the house until he lost him. This shows that what the squip said got Jeremy into trouble. Another way the squip gets Jeremy in trouble is the squip tells Jeremy to interrupt the school play and ask out Christine out. “CHRISTINE LIKES YOU MUCH MORE THAN YOU REALIZE. THAT’S WHY WE’RE DOING THIS. I WOULDN’T BE SENDING YOU OUT ON A LIMB IN FRONT OF ALL THESE PEOPLE IF I DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS GOING TO WORK.” When Jeremy did what the squip told him, he got rejected by Christine and made her furious at him. The final time Jeremy got in trouble from his squip was when the squip started to speak in spanish. Jeremy was in a bit of a pickle at a party that he went to. And when he turned to the squip for help, the squip could only speak spanish. “PATO Y JAB, JEREMY! GOLPEELO CON EL PIE EN LAS BOLAS!” Which means, “Duck and jab, Jeremy! Kick him in the balls!” Jeremy doesn’t speak spanish so he couldn’t understand what the squip was saying, so he almost got beat up for the squip’s mistake. I believe this pattern occurs because Jeremy lets it happen. He listens to whatever the squip tells him to do even if he knows that it’s wrong. I think that this shows that many teenagers of that age have a little voice in their head telling them to do the wrong thing, and they listen. I infer that Jeremy will do worse things in the near future because of the squip. As you can see, I think that the squip helped Jeremy in the past, but is making him get into a lot of trouble.

The Letter Q

Aisa Radoncic 813 “The Letter Q” In the book, “The Letter Q,” written by many different writers but edited by Sarah Moon and James Lecesne, I noticed a pattern. The pattern that I noticed is in the book, everyone (so far) gets bullied as a child, and as they get older, there life gets better and better. Here are Martin Moran, Erik Orrantia, and Arthur Levine’s stories. As a child, Martin Moran was having sexual relationships with another boy for three years until he was 15. He hated the life that he was living, he felt as if he was doing something wrong, so he tried to kill himself. He tried to do it with his mothers pills, which didn’t work, all he ended up doing was throwing up all over his bedroom floor. So he decided to take his father’s gun. He was shaking with anger as he put the gun up to his head. As he was pulling the trigger, his inner self who knew that he still wanted life must have caused the gun to shift away from his head and he just missed the bullet. He put the gun down, and started to live his life. He became a writer and moved to N.Y.C to begin his great life. When Erik Orrantia was a child, he was called really mean. He had a rough time going through his childhood, He wasn’t sure about what he was going through, he thought that there was something wrong with him. He was different than everyone else. But as he got older, he started to embrace the names that they called him. He enjoyed being gay, it was him, not something he was trying to be. Finally, when Arthur Levine was young, his parents could tell that he was gay. He was playing with dolls, and 98% of his friends were girls. His parents took this as if there was something wrong with him. They made a rule that Arthur can only hang out with girls for 2 days in a row, then he had to hang out with guys. His parents didn’t know how to handle this so they gave him little hints such as, “Is anything BOTHERING you? We will gladly pay for you to see a psychologist.” But as he got older, all that tension seemed to slowly knot away until it was completely gone. He got married to a wonderful man, and has a family. As you can see, I found a pattern in my book, which is that the writers in my book got bullied as children, but their life got better as they got older. I think this pattern occurs because people find that being gay is a bad thing and that it shouldn’t happen, so they make fun of it. I think the writer’s messages are that you shouldn’t make fun of someone just for the person that they are attracted to. I think this pattern tells us that there are so many people getting made fun of by something they cannot control, and that there are many people that have a story to tell about it.

Ms. Berner

Essay Dear Ms.Berner, A question is being asked in schools everywhere. Should young adult books be banned in the sixth grade library? Banning books take away a young adult’s connection to something that relates to their problems that they suffer through and may not have anyone to talk to. Young adult books are needed to teach young adults about real life situations because many parents don’t like to talk about “darker” subjects with their children. Since many parents don’t like to talk about uncomfortable subjects with their children, they push back “the talk” and their kids have already been exposed to this through, television, online activities, or personal experience. Going through something on your own, without any prior knowledge can end up really badly, if parents aren’t going to discuss these topics with their kid’s they’re going to learn it somewhere. Whether they learn about real life situations from a friend or video, it might not be correct information, so why not let them learn from a book which are always written with prior research and based off facts. If you’re not going to talk about it with your kids, let them learn it from a young adult book, good and factual enough to get published. Young adult books are needed to teach young adults about real life situations because parents don’t feel comfortable doing that. Young adult books are needed to teach young adults about real life situations because young adult books are written to portray the time period it was written in, whether it be now or 40 years ago. Many writers, including Meghan Cox Gurdon bring up “Judy Blume” and “Lauren Myracle,” two different young adult books about similar topics. “Judy Blume” was written in the 1970’s and talks about teenagers losing their virginities, an event that took place in teenager’s lives in the 70’s, people lost their virginities, so there was a young adult book about it. Now there’s the book “Shine” a book about a 16 year old girl trying to recover from a sexual assault, because that’s more common now-a-days, whereas in the 70’s, it wasn’t as likely to happen. We need young adult books to teach us about real life situations in the time period we’re in or grew up in or else they’re not young adult books, they’re young adult books for our parents. They wouldn’t teach us about our current life. Young adult books are needed to teach young adults about real life situations because if the “gatekeepers” of young adult books are adults, they don’t know what your life is like, and what you need to know. Article writers like Meghan Cox Gurdon write about how the “gatekeepers” of young adult fiction should be adults. But Meghan Cox Gurdon isn’t a teenager nor a parents, so who is she too decide who can read young adult fiction? Parents know what they want their kids to know. Journalists and librarians don’t come into the equation. Young adult books teach us about real life situations we can be in, but if we can’t decide which books we read, it doesn’t help us with our situations, it leaves us trapped in the dark. Young adult books are needed to teach us about real life situations. As you can see, Banning books take away a young adult’s connection to something that relates to their problems that they suffer through and may not have anyone to talk to. So Ms. Berner, you decide. Do you want to take away a young adults right to be knowledgeful of the real world and all it’s problems and prepare them for the rest of their lives, or block them from that knowledge and let them grow up as immature adults?

The Sisters Grimm

The Sisters Grimm

The book, “The Sisters Grimm;The Unusual Suspects” by Michael Buckley, it is about a girl named Sabrina and her little sister Daphne whose parents got kidnapped when they were very young. They lived in an orphanage and got adopted (and escaped) many times. Finally they found a relative of the girls, their grandma. They were sent to Granny Relda’s house to live with her, her roommate Mr. Canis, and her dog. They never met their grandma and weren’t convinced when she told them she had magical powers. While the parents were still kidnapped, the girls were trying to sink in all of the things her grandma was telling them. One thing that stood out for Sabrina was that the grandma, Granny Relda, was a detective. That stood out to the girl because she figured that Granny Relda could help find her parents. Little did she know that the Granny Relda was already looking and it wasn’t going to be easy. I believe that the one theme in my book could be that you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover.

You shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover. An example of that was on page 14, when the girls first moved in, a man who was tall. skinny, and very quite took their bags to their rooms. Sabrina thought this man looked pretty innocent. Later, after getting to know Mr. Canis better, she found out that the man was the Big Bad Wolf. As you can see, they based his personality after the way that he looked but later found out he was an angry and somewhat mean old man. “Three weeks earlier, Granny’s constant companion and houseguest, Mr. Canis, had been transformed into the savage creature known as the Big Bad Wolf.” This shows that Sabrina and Daphne thought that Mr. Canis was a sweet old man that was a constant guest at their grandmother’s house turned into a evil and vicious Big Bad Wolf.

You shouldn’t judge something before you get to know it. For instance, Sabrina’s little sister, Daphne, seems like a cute little girl that is very girly turns out to be pretty harsh. A case worker came to Granny Relda’s house to take the girls back and Daphne said, “We’ll just let you and *Elvis work out your problems on your own, I guess you could probably make a run for it, but you won’t get far. Elvis can smell evil.” This shows that Daphne was threatening the case worker to have her dog chase and eat her.

Finally, you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover. For example, the kids found a huge spider and were incredibly scared of it, shortly Granny Relda pet the spider and it just sat there doing nothing. This surprised the kids. “Oh children, it’s just a spider said as she crossed the room and picked the creepy-crawly thing thing up with her bare hands.” This shows that you shouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover because they expected the spider to hurt them in some way, but really it was sweet.

As you can see, many of the people in my book judged people or things before they got to know them and they turned out to be different they they expected. You shouldn’t judge someone or thing before you get to know them. Many people judge other people before they even get to meet the person, and what they might think could be totally different than who they really are.

Aisa Radoncic

813

MATCHED

In the book Matched by Ally Condle, Cassia is matched with her best friend, Xander. She looks at her micro-chip and finds a boy named Ky Markham on it, along with Xander. Confused, she gets news from an official that it was just a prank from someone unknown. When she gets the news she starts to pay more attention to Ky. As she pays more attention to Ky she starts to like him. And the more she likes him, she likes him even more. She started to not like Xander anymore. This whole thing was against the whole society, and Ky got arrested. I believe that the book sends a message that they want you to get. The message is that Just because something seems so perfect, doesn’t mean it is.

Just because something seems so perfect, doesn’t mean it is. For example, Cassia gets matched with her best friend, Xander. Now this may seem like the most perfect thing, but if you think about it, is it? I mean, part of the fun of dating someone is that you get to know them better and get to find out interesting things about their lives. But for Xander and Cassia, they already know everything about each other so theres no fun in finding out about each others lives. Also, it will be very awkward because imagine if you had a best friend and you guys were very friendly, and out of nowhere, you have to be romantic to each other.

Another example is that in the book, society decides that everyone dies at age 80 so that they could have lived a long life, but not too long that they get sick easily, or are too weak to stand. I understand this idea, but imagine if you were a perfectly fine old man/woman and it was your 80th birthday and you were healthy and loved by many people, but you had to die because society made it that way. Many people had to pass away like that. The book said that people were hysterically screaming and crying and yelling that they will not die like that.

Lastly, in the book. society is supposed to make everything perfect for everyone, for instance everything is already done for them, such as getting matched, choosing when they die, and even choosing which job they get. But those things backfire like it did for Cassia. Cassia got matched with her best friend, which backfired because she started to like another guy and she started to fall for him, but she had to have Xander.

As you can see, the book “Matched” by Ally Condle is about a girl named Cassia who lives in a world where society controls everything, which may seem like a good thng, but it might not really be that great. This connects to the real world because something can never really be that perfect. Almost everything has flaws to them.

Aisa Radoncic

813

Faithful Elephants: A True Story of Animals, People, and War

By: Yukio Tsuchiya

In the story “Faithful Elephants” by Yukio Tsuchiya, is about having to make sacrifices. For example, the zookeepers had to make a sacrifice of the sweetest elephants, John, Tonky, and Wanly, to protect the people of the city. Also, the trainer made a sacrifice to risk his job and possibly go to jail just for these elephants that he considers children. Lastly, the zookeepers had to make a sacrifice taking the easy way out, such as shooting them, because the elephants skin were too rough.

The zookeepers had to make a sacrifice of the elephants to save the people of the city. They did this because the army demanded them that all the animals be put down.  They had to do this because the war was going on between America & Japan and they were afraid that if America would drop a bomb on them and the cages would open and the animals would roam through the streets, which is very dangerous. “What would happen if the bombs hit the zoo?” Said a zookeeper.

The trainer had to almost sacrifice his job and possibly going to jail just to give Tonky and Wanly food and water, who he considers his children.

He did this one day while the elephants were starving and could barely hold themselves up. They looked at their trainer with loving eyes as they attempted to stand up with their shaking bodies and do their Banzai trick, the one where the trainer usually gave them food for before the war. The trainer ran to the food and water shed and threw it into their cages screaming, “Here! Eat your food! Please drink. Drink your water!” Luckily, his manager and co-workers also had a strong love for these elephants also, so while the trainer did this, they pretended not to watch. They all had hope that the war could just end and the elephants could live.

Finally, the zookeepers had to make a sacrifice of not getting to take the easy way out of killing them like shooting them or simply poisoning them because their skin was too rough. For example, they tried to poison them with a large syringe but “the needles broke off with a loud snap, one after another.” So the zookeepers had no other choice but to starve them to death.

As you can see, “Faithful Elephants” is a short story about having to make sacrifices of the elephants ith the examples of having to kill the sweet, innocent elephants for war, sacrificing your job and possibly jail, and lastly, not getting the easy way out and having to watch them starve to death. This short story reminds me of the quote, All the arms we need are for hugging.  ~Author Unknown. It reminds me of this story because it shows that there is no need for war and that we should have peace.

Does My Head Look Big in This?

Does My Head Look Big in This?

In the book, “Does My Head Look Big in This” by Randa

Abdel-Fattah, The main character, Amal is very contradictory 

about wearing the hijab. First because she doesn’t want to wear

it to school, second because she wants to wear it to school, and 

lastly, because she doesn’t know which to choose, so she asks her 

friends.


First, she didn’t want to wear it to school because 

she was afraid of people making fun of her. For instance, she was 

afraid that people would call her “towel-head” and “a teletubby.” 

Lastly, she was afraid of Adam, a boy she has a crush on, not 

liking it.


Second, she did want to put it on because she feels that she 

would be closer to god if she put it on. She also does want to 

wear it because she wants to experiment with it and see how it 

feels. Lastly, she wants to show her modesty through the hijab.


Lastly, she doesn’t know what to choose, so she asks 

her friends. For instance in her conversation with Leila, she was 

encouraging her to wear the hijab by saying things like “that’s 

so cool! We will both be wearing it now!” Lastly, when she was 

talking to Yasmeen, she was telling her that she shouldn’t wear 

the hijab by saying things like “How can you even think of 

wearing it?”

As you can see, Amal is very contradictory about wearing the 

hijab. First because she doesn’t want to wear it to school, 

second because she wants to wear it to school, and lastly, 

because she doesn’t know which to choose, so she asks her 

friends.