Non Required Reading

This book is geared toward high school kids who are bored with reading. I can see why this book would be used as an aid to get these people to read more, the book is light hearted, not too serious and quite entertaining to read. Most books that we are required to read in high school are drawn out and boring. They are to teach us about the history that literature has and the way that our society has progressed it our writings. But most of what we are required to read is nothing short of boring. We, as high school students, do not really care to decipher the meaning behind Romeo and Juliet or even try to understand the nothing short of eccentric language. They seek freedom and the right to figure out things as they see not as someone tells them that they should see it. High school students are force fed so much information that eventually they shut off to the idea that they have an opinion on what they are learning. If they fall behind the norm it is their job to catch up and stay on track with the rest of the students. This book allows students to reach out and develop their own thoughts and minds. I believe that it would make them more well rounded students to formulate their own opinions and have the ability to discuss them with their teachers to gain a better understanding of the book. If I would have been able to sit in class and have the ability to discuss all the interesting readings we had to do it would have helped me find a true meaning to the book and would have helped me understand how to recognize that what is hidden within the book is not necessarly whats just on the surface. I say "Go, Non Required Reading!"

Water for Elephants

I absolutely adored this book. The story of Jacob and all of the adventures he was a part of made you dive into the book and read as much as you could as quickly as you could. This is a story of finding oneself after a tragic incident takes the lives of Jacob's parents. He is in his final semester attending a very prestigeous university to become a vet just like his father and due to the car wreck both his parents are in he cannot handle being in college anymore so he leaves. What breaks this for him is that his parents have financed everything they own to keep him in college and his father had been taking payments of foods or caned goods for taking care of their animals which were in need of veterinary care. Jacob blames himself for what has happened and so he runs away. This is the beginning of one of the greatest adventures of all time. He ends up joining the circus and is treated very badly, he does all the grunt work and is not apprecaited by anyone at this point. But he soon finds his niche as someone finds out that he is actually a vet but has yet to complete his final exam. He becomes the head of care for the animals and when they acquire an elephant Jacob is very happy. He can see the love and intelligence in the elephants eyes but Rosie is mistreated by August the leader of the show. They soon find out that she understands a foreign language and that is how they communicate throughout the remainder of the book. This book is an excelent book and it shows how through trials and hardships how some things, even small, can come of it, good things in light of all the bad. It was such an excellent book that I've had my mom and sister both read it and several others as well!

My Year of Meats

My Year of Meats. This is definatley a bookt aht I would not have chosen on my own to read. However boring and depressing I found it in the beginning I found that I really enjoyed it as the book progressed toward the end. The book is filled with an array of controversies that we face on a daily basis. We have to battle with the pressures of work, try to ballence as we see fit between what our boss says and how we are going to mamage to get the job done. We also have to maintain a social life dealing with the pressures of a relationship and trying to stay in controll of our own lives. I find that Akiko has lost all sense of self in the beginning of the novel being consumed by her culture and the marriage to her husband. It has also been overtaken by her and "John's" yearning for a child and his hateful and abusive ways. The more he is abusive the greater need she finds to change her life. In the end of the novel she becomes a strong woman, leaving behind the traditions and the customs that she know for a life she wishes for. It might not be the most ideal or perfect life but it is more ideal than the one she is living. Also, Jane is a woman who is lost in herself and does not have an identity. She wants to be one of the guys but also keep a separate identity to define herself. she wants to have a child but is unable. she researches the production of meet and find that they are pumping it full of antibiotics and drugs that are fatal to humans and makes children mature at a very young age due to the hormones being pumped into the meet. The end of the novel was great because there was resolve to each situation. Not necessarly a happy or perfect ending but we were given an answer to the question of who these people were and set their lifes back on track. It was a very intreguing book.