Reading Blog #2

I started reading my second American author book during this break. The book that I'm reading is Slam! So far I have read up to page 61 (chapter 6). What I read in the book was that a 17 year old boy named Greg Harris has a deep passion for basketball and the only thing that makes him mad is not being able to play or getting dissed on the court this story takes place in New York. He was going to a school named Carver and he got transfered into a school named Latimer with is a magnet (integrated) school and he goes out for the basketball team. Greg is really good at basketball and all his friends from his neighborhood and old school call him Slam because he like to dunk a lot. In these chapters we also hear about two of his friends from his old school. One of them gets referred to as Ice and he likes to play basketball too and Slam has known him since they were little. His other friend is a girl named Mtisha and he has known her for a long time and he has a huge crush on her. I also read about Slam's family, he has a younger brother named Derek, a mom who's always worried about him and school, a dad who is alright when he has a job, and a grandmother who is very ill because she has a tumor that has spread. The basketball coach gives slam a hard time because he wants Slam to play with the team and not hog the ball and Slam is also getting a hard time from his principal because he is very far behind and since this school is more advanced than his previous one he needs to caught up.
A good topic for this could be passion because Slam is very passionate for basketball and will do anything to continue playing it. I find easy to use this as a topic because throughout the book I will read whether or not this passion for basketball will grow or become less and I will also be able to read what it is he's capable of doing for his passion of basketball. I think another good topic could be difficulties or hardships because from the beginning you read that he's faced with problems and he is most likely going to be faced with more throughout the story and he's going to have to find a way to over come them.

Reading Blog #1

Up to now I have read one of my American author books. The book that I have finished reading is called Monster it was 261 pages long. The book was about a 16 year old boy who was at the wrong place at the wrong time and got sent to jail. He knew some people who were always getting into trouble and one day he went into a store where the people he knew were going to steal some stuff. From their the people who committed the crime said that he was involved and he was suppose to see if there were any cops in the store. During the robbery the owner of the store was shot and killed by his own gun and the boy and a man who admitted to doing the crime were on trial to see if they would get sentenced with felony murder. During the time he is in jail he is describing how awful it's to be there and how so people are lying to themselves just to say that they are innocent and should not e there and the boy is also talking about the way that jail is a totally different world compared to the world outside of jail.The boy is really into films and throughout the process of the trial he is writing down everything as if he were making a movie. In the end he gets out free and without any charges while the other man gets locked up for 15 years to life.
The story is written as a film script in a way. It has directions to how the camera is going to be and who to zoom in to and a lot of dialogue. The story is also written as journal entries but not very many since the book mostly covers the trial. I think that this method is very effective because it show the perspective of the boy when he sees himself involved with the situation and the perspective of the boy when he sees this case as if he had nothing to do with it (as an outsider). The theme to the book is murder and trial cases because that is what keeps being mentioned throughout the book.
In this book I came past many passages that I liked, but the passage that really caught my attention and made me want to keep reading was the opening passage.

The best time to cry is at night, when the lights are out and someone is being beaten up and
screaming for help. That even if you sniffle a little they won't be able to hear you. I anybody knows that you are crying, they'll start talking about it and soon it'll be your turn to get beat up when the lights go out.
There is a mirror over the steel sink in my cell. It's six inches high, and scratched with the names of some guys who were here before me. When I look into the small rectangle, I see a face looking back at me but I don't recognize it. It doesn't look like me. I couldn't have changed that much in a few months. I wonder if I will look like myself when t he trial is over.
This morning at breakfast a guy got hit in the face with a tray. Somebody s aid some little thing and somebody else got mad. There was blood all over the place.
When the guards came over,they made us line up against the wall. The guy who was hit they made sit at the table while they waited for another guard to bring them rubber gloves. When the gloves came, the guards put them on, handcuffed the guy, and then to him to the dispensary. He was still bleeding pretty bad.
They say you get used to being in jail, but I don't see how. Every morning I wake up and I am surprised to be here. If your life outside was real, then everything in here is just the opposite. We sleep with strangers, wake up with strangers, and go to the bathroom in front of strangers.They're strangers but they still find reasons to hurt each other.
Sometimes I feel like I have walked into the middle of a movie. It is a strange movie with no plot and no beginning. The movie is black and white, and grainy. Sometimes the camera moves in so close that you can't tell what is going on and you just listen to the sounds and guess. I have seen movies of prisons but never like this. This is not a movie about bars and locked doors. It is about being alone when you are not really alone and about being scared all the time.
I think to get used to this I will have to give up what I think is real and take up something else. I wish I could make sense of it.
Maybe I could my own movie. I could write it out and play it in my head. I could block scenes like we did in school. The film will be the story of my life. No, not my life, but this experience. I'll write it down in the notebook they let me keep. I'll call it what the lady who is the prosecutor called me.
MONSTER. (1-5)

American Author Proposal

Irene De Leon

Block D

1/22/08

American Author Proposal

For the American author paper I have decided to read novels by Walter Dean Myers. The reason I chose this author was because I remembered that I read his novel Scorpions in 7^th grade. His book was much better than I had imagined and I thought his other novels must be just as good. I have not read any of his other novels but I am looking forward to reading them. What draws me to reading these novels is that the description and detail used within Scorpions was so good that the other novels should be too and unlike other book these don’t seem to be vague. I also feel like reading them because even though they are fiction some of it is still realistic. The last thing that drew me to this author is that he is not that recognized but he writes about true things and me you feel like you’re involved.

Even though Walter Dean Myers is not very recognized I feel that he is an important writer. When I was researching him I found out that he has written a lot of books. A lot of his books have to do with his own personal experiences on how his life was growing up in Harlem and what he went through in Vietnam. In the collection of books he has written there is an autobiography and some biographies of important people like Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, and his brother. When I was researching him I found out some very interesting things like he did not start writing until he came back from Vietnam and continued studying since he dropped out of High School. I feel that he is important because he overcame many challenges and got recognized for being a good writer by winning the ALA award, the Newberry award twice, the Coretta Scott King award five times, he was the first recipient of the Michael L. Printz award, and he was a finalist for the National Book award twice. I also feel he is important because kids can identify with what he is talking about because they have either been in that position or know someone who has gone through something similar.

Walter Dean Myers is an American. He was born in West Virginia and when his mom died he moved with his foster parents to Harlem, New York. I feel that he’s a good author because on the internet some people have commented that his writing has been thought of controversial because he revealed way to much detail about what happened in Vietnam in his novel Fallen Angels and that is something that is very appealing because it means that he does not care what people think and that he cares about the truth.

For this assignment I believe that I will read Monster (281pgs-trials/muder), The Outside Shot (185pgs-Juvenille Fiction), and Bloody Scotland (32pgs-poetry). The reason I chose different types of books by this author is because I would like to compare them to one another and be able to tell their differences. Besides these totally different books I will read his autobiography called Bad Boy: A Memoir (224pgs-Juvenille Nonfiction). I’m not definite about these books but I feel strongly about reading them because from reading their summaries they sound very interesting and I feel like I will enjoy them a lot. Right now I’m not very sure how this author will help me with my literary, thesis-based argument but I know that the differences in genre will help a lot. If I do end up reading these novels I plan to work my way through them from longest to shortest because the shorter books can be read quicker.