The Island by Gary Paulsen
The book I read was The Island by Gary Paulsen. It is about a 15 year
old boy named Wil Neuton who moves with his family to northern Wisconsin.
There he finds an island on Sucker Lake where he stays to learn about
himself.
Wil likes riding his bike early in the morning. He also likes watching
nature. He is very tall for his age-6 feet 2-but well-built and strong. He
is honest,cares about others and prefers to talk things through than
resort to violence.
The title is good because the book is very much about the island and
about Wil finding himself on this island. The island also becomes a very
prominent point in Wil's life. By comparison and observation, he learns
that all things are connected.
An interesting minor character is Emil Aucht. On the morning of his
first day in Pinewood Wil wakes up to find Emil staring at him through the
window. Emil is an old man with one tooth, no hair and ears that stick out.
He chews tobacco and spits brown gunk all over the place. He first appears
in the story to request that Wil help him get his car out of the mud. Then
Emil reappears to fix the plumbing,wrecking Wil's parents' nerves in the
process.
The atmosphere in the story is that of a small hick town in northern
Wisconsin:open,friendly,relaxed and very laid-back. It strikes me as being
very much like "cottage country" in northern
Ontario:lakes,forest,fishing,small town life. The time is the late 1980's.
The novel ends with Wil seeing that his father is watching him from
shore. Wil rows over and finds that his father is tired and sad,his eyes
rimmed with red from crying. Wil invites his father over to the island and
realizes that this saga will only end when Wil finds an island big enough
for his whole family so they can learn what he has learned.
Darryl’s life is worth fighting for. “You can’t buy what I’ve got.” ‘The Castle’ directed by Rob Sitch, about one man, his family and neighbours on the verge of being homeless. Darryl Kerrigan, the “backbone of the family” won’t stand for that. Of course no one can buy what he has. He’s spent almost his entire lifetime building what he has, why should he give it up? Darryl’s way of life is simple yet filled with family values. 3 Highview Crescent is the home to Darryl, his wife Sal and their 3 children: Wayne, Steve, Tracy and Dale. (Wayne currently being in jail.) The house is made up of love, and simple family values. Darryl’s also added bits and pieces to it. He’s added on so much to the house, his own personal touch. His neighbours, also in the same bout are almost family to the Kerrigans. Jack and Farouk are another reason why Darryl’s ready to take matters into his own hands.
Alexander Stowe is a twin, his brother is Aaron Stowe. Alex is an Unwanted, Aaron is a Wanted, and their parents are Necessaries. Alex is creative in a world where you can’t even see the entire sky, and military is the dream job for everyone and anyone. He should have been eliminated, just like all the unwanteds should have been. He instead comes upon Artimè, where he trains as a magical warrior- after a while. When he was still in basic training, and his friends were not, he got upset, he wants to be the leader, the one everyone looks up to.
In short, both Vanity Fair and A Room of One’s Own withhold many cultural values that are represented in a diverse manner due to the stark contrast of their styles and the time in which they were written. However, both composers make comments on societal and cultural values that reveal truths in association to the dynamic of the current time period. They both choose to illustrate these values through the ways of thinking that are evident in their compositions and make note of important significances which, in themselves, are a development of our universal culture that we live amongst today.
Video games bring a sense of the reality to most people, especially if you are a hardcore gamer. They bring reality by essentially creating a virtual world that feels as if you are living in the real world. Lucky Wander Boy by D.B. Weiss is transmitting a certain message to a certain audience. The novel is intended to enthrall an audience consisted of video game enthusiasts around their late twenties and thirties. Lucky Wander Boy is sending a message to the audience, the message is experiencing living the real life through a video game; just like they may have experienced before. The book is fundamentally illustrating the thoughts and experiences this group of people might have gone through during the golden age of video game. The book does this by showing us the narrative of Adam Pennyman, the protagonist of the book coping with his struggles through a video game. Video games revive Adams actual life to some extent; without the game he would not find any point in his life because of all the struggles and negativity he has been through. The book Lucky Wander Boy by W.B. Weiss is about a man named Adam Pennyman during the golden age of video games trying to find the perfect game. Throughout the book Adam Pennyman is creating an encyclopedia of every game he has created. The encyclopedia is called Catalogue of Obsolete Entertainments and in it he has referenced video games such as Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Frogger, and many others. The encyclopedia ends up becoming more personal instead of reviewing the games. Later in the novel Adam begins to lose interest in the encyclopedia because he wants to find out how the game, Lucky Wander Boy, that he played for hours on end as a kid ended. Adam eventually ends up getting a job as a copywrite...
This book is told from the diary of the main character, Sam Gribley. Sam is a boy full of determination. He didn’t give up and go home like everyone thought he would. He is strong of mind. After the first night in the freezing rain, with no fire and no food, he still went on. He is a born survivor. He lasted the winter, through storms, hunger, and loneliness, and came out on top even when everyone expected him to fail. “The land is no place for a Gribley” p. 9
Allegra Goodman was born in Brooklyn New York in 1967, but she grew up in Honolulu, where her parents moved and taught at the University of Hawaii in 1969. She received a Ph.D. in English Literature from Stanford University. Ms. Goodman began writing short stories in high school, and the summer after she graduated in 1985. Now, she has published two short story collections and six novels. The Other Side of the Island, which was published in 2008, describes how the world was controlled by Earth Mother after eight years of the Flood, and what the Greenspoons, especially Honor, did while they were living in the Colonies on Island 365 in the Tranquil Sea. On one hand, Earth Mother and the Corporation were protecting and providing citizens with the new weather, the Enclosure; on the other hand, they were trying to control everybody from Unpredictable and defeat the Forecaster and his partisans. Ms. Goodman wrote the book while she suffered from the heat wave in Boston. She realized that everywhere around her things are attached air conditioners: her house, her car, and shops. People didn’t live in the real world anymore; she even wished there were air conditioned streets as well. Therefore, she started with that concept: “All this happened many years ago, before the streets were air conditioned. Children played outside, and in many places, the sky was still naturally blue.”
In “A Small Place” by Jamaica Kincaid, Kincaid criticizes tourists for being heartless and ignorant to the problems that the people of Antigua had and the sacrifices that had to be made to make Antigua a tremendous tourist/vacation spot. While Kincaid makes a strong argument, her argument suggests that she doesn't realize what tourism is for the tourists. In other words, tourism is an escape for those who are going on vacation and the tourists are well within their rights to be “ignorant”, especially because no one is telling them what is wrong with Antigua.
2. Pamela Scott and Antoinette Lee, Buildings of the District of Columbia. New York, NY:
“The Charmer” by Budge Wilson is a short story about a Canadian family that finds misfortune and conflict within their lives. Conflict being the predominant theme which directly affects all the participants in the family. The story is written in third person and narrated from the young girl Winifred’s point of view. Budge Wilson uses Zack’s smothered childhood, charming personality and irresponsible behaviour to create emotional conflict between members of the family.
The Swoosh logo was created by Caroline Davidson in 1971. Davidson was asked by Phil Knight, co-founder of Nike, to create a logo that could be placed on the side of the shoe. She gave him the Swoosh, and he in return gave her $35.00. When the Swoosh is inverted and placed next to the wing of The Nike of Samoth...
Games similar to soccer were played in China as early as 400 BC. In about 200 AD the Romans played a game in which two teams tried to score by advancing a ball across a line on the field. The Romans passed the ball to one another but they never kicked it. London children in about 1100 played a form of soccer in the streets. During the 1800’s the people of England played a game similar to soccer. Many rules changed and each person interpreted the rules differently. In 1848 a group of school representatives met at Trinity College in Cambridge and drew up the first of soccer rules. In 1863 English soccer clubs founded the Football Association. By the late 1800’s soccer began to spread to the rest of the world. The Canadian Soccer Association was established in 1912 while the United States Soccer Federation was set up in 1913.
The book, Into the wild, takes us into the world of a young man named Christopher Johnson McCandless. He travelled across the western United States from 1990 to 1992, and on April 28, 1992, he started his last adventure and walked into the wilds of Alaska. About 112 days later, he died of starvation. Unsurprisingly, public opinion polarized on his behavior. Some may admire his courage and noble ideals, though some regard him as an idiotic and arrogant narcissist. Although he died on his way to find the truth and back to nature, I believe that Chris McCandless should be considered as a hero, but I cannot completely approve of all his behaviors.
Trifles by Susan Glaspell is a one-act play centered around a woman, Mrs. Wright, who allegedly murdered her husband, Mr. Wright, in the night. There are no witnesses of his death; only unofficial confessions and he-said she-said talk. Without viable evidence and information (and the absence of Mrs. Wright altogether), the play soon focuses on a group of people who gather at the Wrights’ home the day after the murder. These characters include a male sheriff, county attorney, and neighboring farmer and their two wives. It is their job to determine what truly happened to Mr. Wright and piece together any evidence that would enable the conviction of Mrs. Wright. It is with the plot, setting, and overall use of symbolism that Glaspell communicates her message and themes. These messages and themes, which are the glue to the play, allow the audience to understand how unhappy of a life Mrs. Wright lived and how men viewed women’s roles as unimportant.
In my book the Perks of Being a Wallflower, there are four main characters. Charlie, Sam, Patrick, and Mary Elizabeth. The way that the Author describes charlie is kind of like a sensitive young man who is trying to figure out what to do with his life. He doesn’t really have any friends because last year, his best friend died and his Aunt died in a car crash. Sam seems like a really energetic young woman who loves hanging out with her friends and listening to classic rock. I think that the Author made her character perfectly because every word she says, seems like she is happy on the outside but a little lost in the inside. Patrick is a jokester who is depressed sometimes because he is gay and his boyfriend has to pretend that he doesn’t love him. He is Sam’s step brother and they seem to be great friends. He loves music as well. Mary Elizabeth is a mix between a buddhist, and a punk. She shaved half of her head and on the weekends she has a show called “punk rocky” which is supposed to be a re-make of this show called the rocky horror picture show. She dates Charlie for a while but is controlling, and Charlie doesn’t really like her because he likes sam, a lot.
Monuments are a symbol of a significant time in history. Monuments represent life, death, success, and struggle just to name a few. They have become as important to society as the events they represent. They bring history alive to new generations and memories to those who experience them firsthand. Monuments create a bridge between generations. Many parents feel a certain indescribable joyfulness when they see the look in their child’s eyes they had went they viewed the same monument.