“Where the Map Ends,” by Ron Rash, was published March of 2014 in the Atlantic. It is the story of two African American slaves; one named Viticus, who is older, and a younger one with no name. When fleeing from their owners, they find themselves at a nearby farm for the night. The next day they accidentally come in contact with the owner of the farm. The younger slave immediately runs away when Viticus tells him he has a suspicion that the farmer went inside to grab his gun.…
In The Water is Wide, Pat Conroy and Mrs. Brown have very different points of view in their teaching. They both use different approaches in their way of teaching and disciplinary actions to their students. Pat Conroy is very surprised to find out how little these poor young black children actually know. The Water is Wide excerpt showed many cultural models that displayed the differences in Pat Conroy and Mrs. Brown.…
The passengers aboard the RMS Titanic were about 2,223 people who sailed on the maiden voyage. They sailed from Southampton to New York City. With many great deaths that occurred on this “unsinkable ship”, many authors used this event as a background for a great story, but were the details of the event accurately portrayed? When writing Dangerous Waters, it is clear that Gregory Mone did his research and showed the event accurately. The book Dangerous Waters by Gregory Mone was a heart pounding book.…
In The Divide, Matt Taibbi conveys to the reader the different, and often overlooked, side of policing. Taibbi argues that large cities started arresting anyone who looked suspicious or may have committed a crime. Even though violent crimes and felonies had decrease, New York's mayor Rudy Giuliani created a policing system where anyone could be stopped without probable cause. Taibbi states that police began to "fan out into neighborhoods like commercial fisherman, throwing nets over whole city blocks and making as many arrests as they could.…
“Shells” by Cynthia Rylant is a realistic fiction short story about a fourteen-year-old boy who learns to live with his aunt after his parents deaths. In the beginning, Michael’s parents died. His Aunt Esther decided he could live with her. Esther was the only one who offered to take him in. Michael's other relatives didn’t want to deal with a fourteen-year-old- boy.…
James McBride’s “The Color of Water” is an autobiography coupled with a memoir to McBride’s mother Ruth. Through the interviews of Ruth as well as James’ personal stories, we get a glimpse into the upbringings and experiences of two generations of McBride. The experiences from McBride’s childhood express how he came to be the man he is today. Hunter Jordan was the only father James had ever known. His birth father, Andrew Dennis McBride, had died before James’ birth.…
During childhood, children are constantly telling themselves that they are inferior to adults. The conflict of adulthood versus childhood happens to be one of the main themes in The Ocean at the End of The Lane by Neil Gaiman. Throughout the story, the Hempstocks teach the narrator important lessons regarding grown ups and adults. Among these lessons include how adults don't always win against children and how adults are just children trapped inside intimidating adult bodies. These lessons give the narrator more confidence throughout the story and he begins to stand up to his fears.…
In the book “The Work: My search for a life that matters" by Wes Moore, he interviews many people who have found a balance between doing something that matters to them and doing something to help others. One of these stories is about a woman by the name of Esther Benjamin. Esther was born in a small village of Sri Lanka in May 1969. Her dad was a Methodist minister and Old Testament theologian and her mother had a college education and was a very talented athlete.…
Do you really know what is in the meat that we eat? Eric Schlosser has written a book on the process of meat packing plants that begs the question (Fast Food Nation). His work bears a remarkable similarity to Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle written almost one hundred years ago. Schlosser wrote his book from a different approach but contains shocking information of how our meat is still processed today.…
In the excerpt from Ed Yong’s book I Contain Multitudes, he artistically argues the importance of studying microbiomes, in relation to other scientific disciplines. To craft his argument, he uses analogies to show the likeness between the Earth’s ecosystems and human internal body functions, personifies small organisms to evoke compassion from the reader, and utilizes the personal pronoun “we” to create a sense of social cohesion. The study of microbes is often neglected due to the apparent minuscule effect it has on humans, but Ed Yong persistently drew comparisons between the small microbes and the grandness of Earth’s ecosystems. He lists the various ecosystems in the world, ranging from rainforests to salt marshes, and directly after uses a parallel sentence structure to list the “ecosystems” in the human body.…
Women’s March commenced at as early as seven in the morning and continued until two in the afternoon. It was a very tranquil protest, police reported the next day that there was no incidents in where people had to be arrested, “Washington didn’t yield a single arrest” ,However, the protest was really outgrowing in where they had no choice, but to cancel the follow up march for safety. Police were aware that the message had to be sent accross that they were willing to cooperate. A group of about thirty trump supporters came together, but were forbidden to mix up with the anti trump. “A separate group of about 30 Trump supporters held a rally in Sydney.…
The war in south Sudan led to many lost boys and girls. What led to this war. People in south Sudan wanted peace and other people did not it was on and off war for many years and it is still like that now. The war led to many children and people leaving their home and separating. It would be years before people saw their families.…
Did you know that in 2005, 118,128 kilograms of cocaine were illegally transported into the U.S? This astonishing amount has greatly decreased in the past years, declining to 24,103, in 2013. However, even with this cut, a related phenomenon is occurring on our borders, one known as illegal immigration which has maintained its popularity throughout the years. Both are so closely related that iconic figures such as Donald Trump stereotype Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug dealers. Because of success being the common goal in both cases, it is easy for one to portray the wrong image of an immigrant who has come here because of the drugs, crime, and corruption that have invaded and manipulated their country, sometimes the best option is to leave your country.…
Have you ever wondered what it would be like losing both of your parents, and have the one important thing in your life go missing? Well, this horrible scenario happened to Mickey Bolitar in the book Shelter, by Harlan Coben. In this book Mickey has moved from town to town all his life, but his parents have decided to settle in a small town in New Jersey, to finish out high school. At the activity for new students Mickey meets a girl named Ashley and soon gains lots of feelings for her and cares about her to a great extent, but soon after Mickeys dad had an awful fate in a car accident and his mom was taken to rehab, Ashley disappears. Mickey acquired a couple new amazing and permanent friends on their adventure, as they put many clues together,…
At the opening of the novel, protagonist Haroun Khalifa is living with his father, Rashid, a renowned storyteller, and his mother Soraya. Soraya becomes enticed with neighbor Mr. Sengupta, and they choose to run away together. Thenceforth Rashid is hired to tell stories on behalf of local politicians, but fails to complete this task, instead only managing to say, “Ark”. The father and son then travel to the Valley of K by a messenger, Mr. Butt. They are traveling to the Valley of K to speak for another politician, Snooty Buttoo.…