Readers Response: The Kid by Sapphire 2nd Blog

In the last half of the book, Abdul shows significant changes as he grows up into a young adult. One incredibly noticeable change is how Abdul thinks of his mother. When Abdul's mother died, he repeatedly ignored the fact that his mother was dead and acted like she wasn't. When he grows up, he barely mentions anything about his mother at all; only once throughout.

Abdul's conflict is also found all over the world. Like most little kids, Abdul cannot bear the fact that his mother is dead until he grows up. When he's older, it has sunken in to an extent, and doesn't seem to affect the him as much. This is one of the most important lessons in coming of age, to which it shows how much someone has grown up.

Readers Response: The Kid by Sapphire

The Kid is a very interesting book to me, because the story seems to be affected on how his youth was like. Abdul Jones, the main character of the story, is at his mother's birthday in the beginning of the book. A strange woman gives Abdul's mother a present, which has a bomb in it. After this, Abdul grows up in a foster home. While Abdul is in a foster home, his mind and senses seems crazed and unstable. He suddenly will get headaches, his ear will hurt, and Abdul would continuously crave to see his mother again.

 Soon throughout, Abdul seems to do things that lead him to trouble, and everything that happens to him had to do with the loss of his mother. Abdul seems to be very amnesia-like. When he would do something mischievous or intimate, he always thinks to himself that he never did it, when he clearly states it earlier. Abdul Jones is a unique and special character, not changing at all through the book, besides growing up.

Blog on Plagiarism

 What the student did wrong was that he/she exactly copied what the original writer stated, making it as if it was his own writing and that he made it up. He/She could have quoted and named the source in his/her bibliography.


"There is a peaceful essence flowing from the structures. Perhaps the cool dark colors and the fiery windows spark memories of our own warm childhood years filled with imagination of what exists in the night and dark starry skies. The center point of the town is the tall steeple of the church, reigning largely over the smaller buildings. This steeple casts down a sense of stability onto the town, and also creates a sense of size and seclusion."  (Vincent Van Gough; Starry Night)

One way to avoid plagiarism is to put a sentence or statement in a quote and name the source/site. Another way is to paraphrase and cite all sources with the name of the source and the page #, line, ect. An example is the quote above, referencing the starry night painting. A third way is to put something in your own words, but citing information in a bibliography.

My Favorite Two Blog Posts

My favorite two blog posts were Sofia's and Guadalupe's. Sofia's blog had a lot of interesting details and gave an overall description of Pablo Picasso and his life instead of the entire blog being about the book. I like Guadalupe's post because her blogs are short and are quick to the point. She connects one main idea to three books in the same series.

One way I can improve my blogs is to find and put more details in my body paragraphs. This would help me explain in detail my thesis and help develop a conclusion. Another way is to focus more on my main idea. This would help make my blogs smoother and less choppy. One more thing I could do is to put more evidence and reason into my blog posts to help me understand the book better.

A Guide To the What?

Lately, I'm reading "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams. Its mostly about a human as the last survivor of the destruction of earth on a wacky and confusing adventure with three aliens and an emotionally depressed robot.
What a most WEIRD series. Its one of those books where you aren't supposed to understand whats going on! For example, they have a kind of wine called a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster. Guess what that could be. Can't, right? Exactly.
Then, they have a ship called the Heart of Gold which has something called the Improbability Drive. It can be exactly what you think it does, it goes around every corner of the universe, and could improbably rescue someone from a black hole or the dead cold space.
Of all, this is quite an interesting and recommended short read.

Readers Response: Watership Down

So far in this book, the story has been pretty slow. Its not fast paced or full of action, its mostly based on actual thought. Though the name might not state it, "Watership Down" is about a group of rabbits who leave their warren due to a warning from danger from a rabbit named Fiver. These groups of rabbits search for a new warren until an unknown rabbit welcomes them to his.

Throughout the book, I noticed how Fiver can be very skeptical, but sometimes he may be telling the truth. In the beginning of the book, Fiver and his older brother Hazel go to the chief rabbit to warn him about a "great danger coming to the warren". The chief rabbit takes this into consideration, but did not believe Fiver. Fiver became so skeptical, he gathered an entire group of rabbits and they all left the warren.

While this group of rabbits are traveling, some of the rabbits start to get tired and weary of traveling; they start to think that Fiver was wrong, and want to go back to the warren. But Fiver claims that there are a bunch of hills ahead and that there are a nice big plain for them to live. When they finally reach there, they realize that Fiver was right and they were wrong to doubt him.

When an unknown rabbit invited them to their warren, Fiver was suspicious of why they let them join their warren. He was also confused on why the warren was very large, yet there were not that many rabbits. He also noticed how the rabbits sort of acted like man. He thought there was evil somewhere around, and want to leave the warren as soon as possible.

Fiver shows how curiosity isn't an issue and it's better safe then sorry. Who knows what happened to their original warren; it could have flooded or cleared by man. I may have not gotten far in the book yet, but I can say Fiver is starting to persuade me too!

Animal Farm: Not What You Think It's About

I am reading the book "Animal Farm" by George Orwell. At first i was very suspicious about this book; I heard that it was about communism, which I knew very little about. I first thought I wasn't going to be able to read it due to my lack of knowledge. I was wrong. The book was a fairy tale about animals that were rebelling being in custody of humans and controlled by humans. When they finally achieved this and made their own "government" it soon started to go wrong. At first they made seven commandments that were supposed to be unchanged. Then the plot twist occurred. The leader, Snowball, was run out of Animal Farm by Napoleon, and Napoleon took charge of Animal Farm. Under Napoleon's command, the pigs and dogs were treated the best of all animals, when one of the commandments stated "all animals are equal". Some animals were treated different than other animals, and soon Animal Farm was the exact opposite of what they were originally aiming for.
At the end, the last sentence was about how the pigs and humans were arguing about something. the sentence said: "the other animals looked man to pig, pig to man, and man to pig again, but it was already impossible to tell which was which". This was saying that the pigs had actually became man, when the original goals of Animal Farm was to do anything but what man does so they would not become like man.
This relationship to communism was very interesting and amazing, and I was so perplexed when I figured it out.