Bridge to Terabithia” is set in rural Virginia in the mid-1970's. The story revolves around characters; the Aarons, the Burkes, the students and faculty in the elementary school. Jess Aaron, is one of the central characters. He has four sisters, two older and two younger leaving him in the middle. Brenda and Ellie are the older teenage sisters that have a strong bond with their mother and don’t pay much mind to Jess. Joyce Ann and May Belle are his little sisters that look up to Jess. Mr. Aarons is always away from home working in a city nearby leaving Mrs. Aarons to hold many of the responsibilities. Since she believes in the men taking care of the men jobs Jess always has work to do in place of his father. The girls never seem to have to do any work and Jess feels he is unappreciated and the black sheep of the family.
The Burkes move from Washington D. C to rural Virginia. They are well off and move to the area to re-evaluate their family values. Leslie is the other main character who is looking for a sense of belonging and friendship. Bill and Judy are here parents that are writers. They are consumed with their work and don’t pay much attention until their book is completed. Jess and Leslie attend the same Elementary school where they become friends resulting from a race that Leslie won. The two become inseparable and have a special place in the woods called “Terabithia.” To get to their perfect imaginary world you must swing across the creek on a rope. The lake becomes flooded from the constant rainfall and starts to concern Jess. He continues to be quite and swing across the dangerous water since Leslie is so fearless and he doesn’t want to look like he is afraid of anything.
Later, Jess’s music teacher invites him to spend a day in Washington D.C. while Leslie travels to Terabithia without him and the rope breaks and she drowns. Jess returns home that night to find out that his best friend Leslie is dead. Jess goes through the emotions of grieving, angry, to upset, from this incident. A few days later he returns to Terabithia so he can place a funeral wreath for Leslie. Without Jess knowing May Belle has followed him but cries for help since she was stuck in the creek.
Both Alex and Clinton struggle with problems of their family and others. Alex feels as if he is treated different when hes is, but thats not what he wants everyone to treat him as,by his family, Jennifer, and other people. Clinton is treated as an outcast, his friends don’t want to hang out with him no more and his little sister treats him as a monster. He begins to realized what he ha...
The story is told in first person through Tangy Mae Quinn, the darkest child of Rozelle Quinn. Rozelle is a light-skinned woman with ten children by ten different fathers, who separates her children based on skin color. She shows favoritism to her lighter skinned children and hatred to her darker skinned children. This is important because the story takes place in Parksfield, Georgia in the late 1950’s, right before the civil rights movement. It starts off with Rozelle Quinn teaching Tangy Mae how to clean her employer’s house because she believes she is going to die over the weekend. News of Rozelle “dying” spreads throughout the town and even beyond which brings her oldest child, Mushy, back into town. It is later revealed that Rozelle is only acting as if she is dying because she is pregnant. While in town, Mushy promises her siblings that she is going to save them from the abuse of Rozelle, but says Tarabelle has to be first due to Tarabelle’s exposure to prostitution. Months after giving birth to her child, Judy, Rozelle kills her by throwing her off the stairs. After this incident, the children slowly start to leave her although Tangy Mae and Laura stay by her side. After majority of her children have left, Rozelle is diagnosed with insanity and is forced to move in with Mushy. By the end of the story, Tarabelle is killed by a fire started purposely by her mother; Tangy Mae has graduated high school and taken Laura with her to cross the Georgia border.
The book basically talks about two young boys both with the name Wes Moore, who grew up in Baltimore and in the same neighborhood but never knew of each others existence. This is until the author Wes Moore, the one who escaped his rough childhood in Baltimore and the Bronx, began meeting with the other Wes Moore and questioning him who is spending his life in prison because of attempted murder. The author Wes Moore who managed to escape his situation growing up had a much more supportive mother who moved him away from Baltimore and continued to push him to get an education. He lived in the Bronx for sometime with his grandparents and mother, and attended a well renowned school in the Bronx. His mother worked several jobs in order for him to
Hollis Woods, the main character, has had her fair share of ups and downs, but when she met the Regans, the one family who offers her a home, things started to change. Hollis felt like she would finally be part of a stable family. The one problem was the fighting between the Old Man and Steven, the Old Man's son. They were constantly fighting with each other. Most of the time they fought about the most diminutive things like leaving the shed open overnight.
...but scared children who are alone and lost in the world, the kids who fought battle in Vietnam went to war thinking they knew all of the answers and somewhere in the middle of it all they realized that they are scared kids who don’t understand what is going on the world around them. They wish only to be in the safety of their mothers home. Everything in the story symbolizes and relates to the truth in war, attitude and actions that cause war are the same that take place with the characters inGreasy lake. The changes that the narrator goes through at Greasy lake are similar changes that happened in young kids who fought in the Vietnam War.
Wes Moore, the author, was the second oldest child in his family; he had an older sister named Nikki, and a younger sister named Shani, with parents Joy and Westley. When Wes was younger there father died of being sick, leaving him and his siblings, with their grieving mother. A few weeks after their father died there mother chose to move in with her parents into Baltimore. Wes and Shani then had to attend a private school because there mother knew that would be a better school for them to go to. Joy’s parents helped a lot with Wes and Shani taking them to the train station so they could go to school every day. With Wes going to a different school he made new friends like Justin. After a few days hanging with his new friends and Justin he got into a bit of trouble choosing to do bad things.
The Jump-Off Creek introduces the reader to the unforgiving Blue Mountains and the harsh pioneer lifestyle with the tale of Lydia Sanderson, a widow who moves west from Pennsylvania to take up residence in a rundown homestead. She and other characters battle nature, finances, and even each other on occasion in a fight for survival in the harsh Oregon wilderness. Although the story is vividly expressed through the use of precise detail and 1800s slang, it failed to give me a reason to care because the characters are depicted as emotionally inhibited.
The Curtis family is a very poor family ‘on the other side of town’ as a result of their father never having finished fifth grade and never being able to hold a job for more than a month at a time. The father, Ed, is a scruffy looking man, overbearing and built, and whose son, Darry,
In the first section of the book it starts off with a little girl named Tasha. Tasha is in the Fifth grade, and doesn’t really have many friends. It describes her dilemma with trying to fit in with all the other girls, and being “popular”, and trying to deal with a “Kid Snatcher”. The summer before school started she practiced at all the games the kid’s play, so she could be good, and be able to get them to like her. The girls at school are not very nice to her at all. Her struggle with being popular meets her up with Jashante, a held back Fifth ...
Narrated by the mother of two daughters, the story opens with an examination of one daughter's favoring of appearances over substance, and the effect this has on her relatives. The mother and her younger daughter, Maggie, live in an impoverished rural area. They anticipate the arrival of the elder daughter, Dee, who left home for college and is bringing her new husband with her for a visit. The mother recalls how, as a child, Dee hated the house in which she was raised. It was destroyed in a fire, and as it was burning, Dee "(stood) off under the sweet gum tree... a look of concentration on her face", tempting her mother to ask, "'why don't you do a dance around the ashes?'" (Walker 91) She expects Dee will hate their current house, also. The small, three-room house sits in a pasture, with "no real windows, just some holes cut in the sides" (Walker 92), and although, as Dee asserts, they "choose to live" in such a place, Dee keeps her promise to visit them (Walker 92). Her distaste for her origins is felt by her mother and Maggie, who, in anticipation of Dee's arrival, internalize her attitudes. They feel to some extent their own unworthiness. The mother envisions a reunion in which her educated, urbane daughter would be proud of her. In reality, she describes her...
The story begins with the establishment of the setting. To begin, Shirley Jackson tells the reader what time of day and what time of year the story takes place. This is important to get the reader to focus on what a typical day it is in this small town. The time of day is set in the morning and the time of year is early summer. She also describes that school has just recently let out for summer break, letting the reader infer that the time of year is early summer. Shirley Jackson also seems to stress on the beauty of the day and the brilliance of nature. This provides the positive outlook and lets the reader relax into what seems to be a comfortable setting for the story.
Marietta was raised in a small town in Kentucky. When she became an adult, she decided she needed a change. She wanted a different name and a different place to call home. She got in her Volkswagon, started driving, and on this journey she changed her name to Taylor. A stranger gave her a three year old Indian child to take care of, who she names Turtle. The two finally settle down in Tucson, where they live with a single mom who is also from a small town in Kentucky. Taylor works for a woman who hides political refugees in her home, and Taylor becomes good friends with two of them. These two refugees act as Turtle's parents and sign over custody to Taylor, so that Turtle could become her daughter legally. Taylor was very unsure about whether or not she would be a good mom, but in the end she realizes that Turtle belongs with her, and that Tucson is home.
In Crow Lake, Mary Lawson portrays a family who experience a great tragedy when Mr. and Mrs. Morrison are killed in a car accident. This tragedy changes the lifestyles of the seven years old protagonist Kate Morrison and her siblings Matt, Luke and Bo. The settings are very important in this novel. Though there are limited numbers of settings, the settings used are highly effective. Without effective use of themes in this novel, the reader would not have been able to connect with the characters and be sympathetic. Lawson uses an exceptionally high degree of literary devices to develop each character in this novel.
The story follows three girls- Jeanette, the oldest in the pack, Claudette, the narrator and middle child, and the youngest, Mirabella- as they go through the various stages of becoming civilized people. Each girl is an example of the different reactions to being placed in an unfamiliar environment and retrained. Jeanette adapts quickly, becoming the first in the pack to assimilate to the new way of life. She accepts her education and rejects her previous life with few relapses. Claudette understands the education being presented to her but resists adapting fully, her hatred turning into apathy as she quietly accepts her fate. Mirabella either does not comprehend her education, or fully ignores it, as she continually breaks the rules and boundaries set around her, eventually resulting in her removal from the school.
The more the Robinsons explored the woods, the more they found things that would make life easier. They soon discovered some kind of wax berries which they melted and made into candles. They even found a huge salt cavern! The cavern was big enough for them and their supplies, so they moved in, for the rainy season was coming fast. They built stables for their animals, a canoe, and a loom for Mother. The Robinsons were very creative. They made the worst situation into something good and before they knew it, they had spent ten years living on that deserted island! They knew the island like the back of their own hands and Father and Mother watched their sons grow into manhood, as they too got older.