I'm Eating an Apple

       S o for my last blog post, I reread Hatchet. Quite a few years ago I read this book and really enjoyed it, so finding it on my bookshelf I thought to give it another shot. Hatchet follows a young 13 years old, Brain Robeson when suddenly his small little plane going from New York to Canada to visit his father crashes in the middle of the Canadian Forest. The rest of the plot revolves around Brain and his ways of surviving by creating self-sufficient food gathering methods, and just by not being eaten alive by bears or the other ways you could end up dying, either by other animals, plants, or even the weather. Then, eventually how he could be rescued.       Reading this novel from the perspective of someone in Scouts, its very accurate and a real way someone could survive stranded in the woods. Reading more on the author, I found that Gary Paulsen himself was very into the wilderness and lived similarly to Brain in Hatchet. Cooking his own m...

     This month I am reading The Downstairs Girl by Stacey Lee. This book is about a Chinese American girl named Jo living in Atlanta in the 1890s. Jo and Old Gin, the man who has been taking care of her, secretly live underneath the home of the family that owns the Focus, one of the Atlanta newspapers. Old Gin works with horses at the mansion of the richest family in Atlanta, the Paynes. Jo has had multiple jobs. When she was younger, she worked for the Paynes as well until Mrs. Payne fired her for no reason. Then she had a job as an apprentice in a hat shop but at the beginning of the book, she is fired from that job for making the customers “uncomfortable”. Her new job is for the Paynes again. She works as a maid for the daughter, Caroline Payne, who has played cruel tricks on her since they were children.  Meanwhile, the Focus is in trouble. The Focus is unable to get as many subscribers as the other newspapers and might have to shut down as a result. Their stori...

By Miranda Burgos Growing up, kids often look for role models in the media they consume, whether that is movies, books, or television. As a kid one of the role models I had was Princess Tiana. I loved her because she was a hard worker and it was her who defeated the villain in the end, not the prince. Another inspirational character was Miles Morales. He was the first time I saw someone that was Puerto Rican like me as an animated character. I had always wished to see a Puerto Rican Disney princess or at least a Latina one on the big screen that I could identify with. While Miles wasn’t Disney or a princess, he helped fill part of that longing for a Puerto Rican hero. I also love the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While I enjoy all the Marvel movies, my favorite is Black Panther . The movie took place in Wakanda, an Afro-futuristic nation. Wakanda was a refreshing portrayal that I had not seen before. One of the things I love about the movie is how many powerful black female characters the...

With the semester wrapping up, I want to end in a bang. This is now my favorite series of all time, and also the most diverse I’ve encountered. The Honors series is by Rachel Caine and Ann Aguirre and consists of three books: Honor Among Thieves, Honor Bound, and Honor Lost. It takes place in 2142. Society has discovered aliens called Leviathan--giant living spaceships that have given humankind technology to prevent society from destroying itself. Every year, 100 people are selected for the Honors program to go on a year-long journey with the Leviathan. Zara Cole, a girl living on the fringes of society, doing what she has to to get by, is chosen for the Honors program. She accepts because people on Earth are hunting her, as she stole something very important--she’s not sure what. She bonds deeply with her Leviathan, Nadim, as well as her human companion, Beatriz, and what follows is a blinding series of space fights, literal aliens, and self-discovery. The Honors series normalizes set...

  After reading a whole bunch of books and shows, I’ve realized there are a few common character types in the wilderness of media-land. Whether it be inexplicably hot murder hobos or wannabe Voldemort fanboys, you’ll probably see one or two of these folks in the media you peruse from day to day. The tropes I’m writing about today aren’t the only ones that exist, but the ones that I keep note of whenever I see them.  Anger Issues ™ Type: 🔥 Always annoyed, irritated, and/or angry. Their anger makes up about 80% of their personality, and they always have an exasperated expression on their face. Most of the time, this trope will be on the hero’s team, though some of the supporting characters might object or find them annoying. This character is often used for comic relief or to make dynamics with other characters more entertaining, but they can also be used for more serious matters as well.  One of my favorite things about this personality is that you can combine it with a b...

  One of my all time favorite novels is One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams Garcia. The story follows sisters Delphine, Vonetta, and Fern in the summer of 1968 as they visit their estranged mother in Oakland, California. Throughout the novel the girls have to deal with racism and learn about the Black Panther movement. I was never taught about the Black Panther party in school, so not only was the book enjoyable, but it was educational too. The novel makes for a quick read and I would highly recommend it. This book was different for Garcia. While she often wrote books about characters that were black, she hadn’t written one yet that dealt so much with racism. In an interview, she explained, “It’s [racism] not how people live. Not to say racism doesn’t exist, but it’s not this moment to moment consciousness. I like to include the domestic, intimate things about race and identity that never really make it into books or media—you mainly get big or dramatic events of racism, viole...

11/22/63 by Stephen King is my first experience with Stephen King. I was recommended this book by one of my friends back at my old school. Although the length of the novel is quite long, the book kept making me want to read more and more. The plot revolves around a high school teacher named Jake. One day Jake goes to his favorite diner and the owner, Al, walks to the back and mystically turns into a much older and sicker self. Al then gives the rundown of how in the back of this restaurant there is a portal to 1958, explaining how he suddenly got way older and sicker. Al's goal with the time portal thingy is to go back and stop the assassination of JFK on 11/22/63. Because of Al's condition, he can not continue and trusts Jake to stop the assassination for him. The rest of the novel follows Jake and his travels through the 50s and 60s and his determination to stop the JFK assassination.      With my first novel into Stephen King, I'm not disappointed. The plot is very uni...

  This month, I read The Red-Headed League, a Sherlock Holmes short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The story starts with a man named Mr. Jabez Wilson telling Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. Watson about the strange events that recently happened to him. Mr. Wilson saw an announcement in the newspaper for a position in the Red-Headed-League, a society formed by a rich red-headed man to help support other red-headed people. Mr. Wilson, who is also red headed, applied for the position and got a job  copying the Encyclopedia Britannica. He was very pleased with the work and the extra money he was making until one day without warning, the office of the red-headed league closed and a bewildered Mr. Wilson came to seek advice from Sherlock Holmes about what possibly could have happened. The rest of the story is about how Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson solved the mystery. I really enjoyed this story. I have enjoyed reading other Sherlock Holmes stories in the past and I thought...

The Catcher in the Rye is a type of book that I’ve heard about all the time. I had known that it was a well-known classic, however, I never actually knew what the book was about. At least for something like Moby Dick, I knew there was a whale in it somewhere. However, after all those years of wondering what the Catcher was and why it was in the Rye, I finally picked it up from my local library. The book was published in 1951, written by J. D. Salinger. The summary of the book is very straightforward: Holden Caulfield, a troubled boy, was kicked out of Pencey Preparatory School and wanders around New York. That is basically it. But what else happens? Well, nothing really. You see, The Catcher in the Rye is a strange story. Not in the sense where strange things happen, but nothing strange happens. Holden is literally going to New York and wandering about, phoning up a past girlfriend because he feels like it, then saying that he’s going to move to the West because he feels like it, and t...

Dear reader, I Have Lost My Way by Gayle Forman is one of the best books I have ever read.  If you remember my last post, I discussed a good example of constant perspective switching. This book does it even better. Even with one sentence, the reader can always tell who the book has switched to, with no indication. Each character’s voice is apparent in the way they think, their phrasing, word choice, use of italics, everything. Some perspective switches only last one sentence before it changes again, and yet, for that one sentence, it is obvious who is thinking. It’s also nice from a visual aspect: three centered dashes indicate a change, and they are thin enough so as not to draw attention and break the flow of reading. The book also switches between first and third person. Simply put, the actions that take place in the present are told in limited third person with frequent switches, while flashbacks, memories, and other character backstories are told in first person with few swit...

Throughout the year, we have seen a variety of blog posts grace the pages of the Mitchell class blogs. However, there are certain types that people tend to gravitate towards more. Almost all posts can fit into at least one of these categories. Let’s take a look at five common types of blog posts I have noticed. The Book Review Easily the most common of the types of blog posts, book reviews are pretty straight forward. Reviews simply summarize the story (which may or may not include spoilers) and offer their recommendation and opinion at the end. Most of the book reviews I’ve read on our blogs have skewed positive, though I do see the occasional one where the author did not enjoy the book. Whether they have a positive or negative opinion, the author usually recommends it to people with certain interests at the end anyway. The Book versus Movie Comparison Another common blog post is the book versus movie comparison, a post I have done a couple of times myself. It feeds into the age-old...

 Michael Vey The Prisoner of Cell 25 by Richard Paul Evans revolves around this high schooler who gets bullied for his Tourettes but little do they know he has superpowers from a hospital experiment from when he was a kid. He keeps this a secret from everyone except his closest friend and his mother. And of course, this looner highschooler has to have a crush on only the most popular cheerleader, Taylor. Michael one day gets pushed too far by his bullies and shocks them to his fullest right in front of, you guessed it Taylor his crush. But then Taylor reveals she is also an electricity power superhero so she suddenly becomes interested in Michael and they hang out. The two along with Michael's closest friend Ostin they discover they are being hunted. As if someone was watching them Michael and Taylor receive scholarships to Elgin Acadamy, but Michaels's mothers panic, and at the same time get kidnapped, very fun times. I'll end my brief summary of the book there as the plot...

  This month, I read Caraval by Stephanie Garber. The book is named after a magical game called Caraval where players race to do tasks and find clues in a magical world, trying to be the first to achieve a goal and win a wish from the mastermind behind the game, Caraval Master Legend. The book is about Scarlet and Tella Dragna, two sisters who have grown up hearing stories about Caraval from their grandmother and dreaming of its magic. One year, Scarlet and Tella escape their cruel father to attend Caraval, only to be separated when arriving. The book is told from Scarlet’s perspective and it describes her adventures and magical experiences as she plays the game and tries to find her sister. I really liked this book. I have not read anything like it before and I think the concept of Caraval was very unique. I particularly loved the descriptions of the game Caraval which made it feel magical. For example, Caraval is set in a small town on an island with a beach covered in snow, al...

Trigger warning: Mentions of death, kidnapping, shooting, general violence What’s this? A simple book recommendation? Not an over-the-top analysis of one aspect of a book or a dictionary of fandom terms? From Emily? No, of course not. Run, Hide, Fight Back is one of April Henry’s most recent books, published in 2019. I’ve been reading Henry’s books since I was in sixth grade, but haven’t read one in about a year, so to read this was like being transported to my middle school self. It follows a similar narrative to all of Henry’s books, with teenagers trapped in terrifying situations that most of us have only entertained, such as being kidnapped, finding your best friend dead, or in this case, being trapped in a mall during a shooting. This book is a simple one--fast-paced, teen heroes, more of a turn-off-your-brain and get invested, one sitting read if anything. However, one thing stands out about this book, and that is its remarkable ability to perspective-switch without breaking flo...

  Many people have probably seen or heard of gay couples appearing in Japanese media. While  Japan is renowned for its “Yaoi” and “Yuri” manga and anime, pieces of media that portray gay male or female partners, these genres are actually marketed toward straight men and women, often telling a story of  unrealistic scenarios and relationships. Japan’s tolerance for gay individuals is actually not as inviting as the mangas make you think. On occasion, however, a manga will be published specifically for the LGBT community. Enter Shimanami Tasogare .  Shimanami Tasogare , also known as Our Dreams at Dusk , is written and illustrated by Yuhki Kamatani. They are openly x-gendered, which translates to nonbinary, and uses they/them pronouns. In the story, main character Tasuku Kaname didn’t clear his phone’s search history and some of his “friends” found some evidence that he might not be straight. He attempts suicide, thinking that his life was over, but got interrupted by...