Reading Minutes

The City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Claire

10/29/12-196 pages; 2 hours

10/30/12-152 pages; 1.5 hours

10/31/12-194 pages; 2 hours

The Things

This Halloween, my family had a theme.  We have started having themes each year.  Last year, we were Greek gods and goddesses.  I was Artemis.  This year, we were the Things.  I was Thing 1, Richard was Thing 2, and so on.  We had red sweat pants and red shirts with our number on them.  The thing that really brought the whole costume together though was the bright red spikey wigs.  We all looked like giant red sticks.  It was pretty funny.  The wigs were extremely itchy, but eventually we all got used to it.

            After a series of what felt like 10,000,000 pictures, we finally started walking.  First, we went to Mrs. Spaht’s house.  It was really funny because she had been in Mrs. Harper’s classroom earlier that day and she knew my brother and me.  It was kind of embarrassing to see a teacher looking like that.  She seemed to like our costumes though, so it wasn’t that bad.  Then we went to my grandmother’s house.  When we walked up, she called me Richard and Richard Aimee Claire.  It was really funny!!  Then later on when we were walking to another house, my mom said that she couldn’t tell Richie and me apart very easily.  It was really weird that they couldn’t tell us apart, but really funny too. 

            I got a lot of candy that night.  Every house we went to, the candy hander outers could always complement us on our giant family costume.  When we would walk in the streets, every family we passed would say, “Look!!  They’re from Dr. Seuss!” or “Look!! Thing 1,2, and 3!”  It was really weird that that many people noticed our costumes.  It was really cool though.  We all had a lot of fun that night I love Halloween and look forward to our costume themes every year.  

The City of the Lost Souls

In The City of the Lost Souls, Clary Morgenstern’s boyfriend, Jace, is possessed by Jonathan Morgenstern.  Jonathan is part demon part shadowhunter, and is the most wanted person in the shadowhunting world.  Clary wants to save Jace before the rulers of the shadowhunter world can kill him, so she goes to join their cause.  This book is the last in a series by Cassandra Claire. 

Most people love their brother.  They would give their life for their brother and do absolutely anything for him.  Clary is the exact opposite of that.  She HATES her brother.  Jonathan has killed people and laughed about it.  He is out to destroy the world with fire and ice, and leave nobody alive but Clary and Jace, who have sided with him.  Clary wants to kill her brother.  She has only known that she had a brother for a few months, and cares nothing for him.  This shows that just because someone is blood related does not mean you have to love him or her.  The people who are really your family and who really love you are the ones that are always with you supporting you in what you do and not trying to tear you down, or in Clary’s case, destroy the world.  In a more realistic view, sometimes a stepfather or stepmother can be more of a real father or mother than the blood related one.  The parent that is always around and helps you with sports and goes to all the things that parents do are the real parents.  They show their love for you and don’t try to bribe you into loving them.  They bring out the best in a you and always encourage you to do your best.  

Sucker, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, and The Sniper

            I have read An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Sucker, and The Sniper.  Each of these stories talks a lot about death or something life changing and how it affects people in different situations.  This would vary depending on the time period and the situation that people are in. 

            The time period greatly affects the reactions to life changing events and how life-changing events occur.  During the civil war, death and life changing things would happen much more often than in a setting that is not as violent and unpredictable.  In a modern time when there is always the question of who you killed and how they relate to you.  In The Sniper, the young man wonders who he has killed and risks his life just to see who he killed. He ended up finding that he killed his brother, so it may just be in that situation.  In modern areas where there is no war, there is still a way to harm people with words and actions, rather than guns and weapons.  In Sucker, the boy and his cousin were best friends until they got in a fight and they said things that were so hurtful that they damaged the relationship they had forever. 

            The way people accept life changing events and death vary according to the situation that they are in.  In really bad situations where there is war or diseases, death is not as uncommon as it would be in a peaceful community where there is not a lot of fighting or death.  In An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and The Sniper, the main characters that have occurrences with death or near death are both during times of civil war and get caught at the wrong place at the wrong time.  In An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, the man had been tricked and caught by the enemy soldiers during the Civil War.  In The Sniper, the young man is on “guard duty” and was in a one-on-one gunfight with a man on the enemy side.  The man turned out to be his brother.  In both situations, both men accepted death pretty well.  One had a flashback/ fantasy of himself getting away to his wife and children, where as the other just looked down into the face of his brother.  Both were sad events, but taken well.  In Sucker, the boys get into a fight that leaves one of them wanting to kill the other.  When someone you love makes this kind of wound, just saying, “I’ m sorry” doesn’t fix it. 

            The situations and the time periods of life changing events effect the reaction of people that they happened to and the overall community of a family or group of people.  

Reading Minutes

The Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Claire
10/15- 148 pages; 2 hours 15 minutes
10/16- 130 pages; 2 hours
10/17- 143 pages; 2 hours 5 minutes (approx.)
10/18- 85 pages; 1.5 hours

The City of Bones by Cassandra Claire
10/19-176 pages; 2.5 hours
10/20- 208 pages; 3 hours
10/21-140 pages; 2 hours 5 minutes (approx.)

Reading Minutes

The Clockwork Angel, by Cassandra Clare
10/11-155 pages; 2.5 hours
10/12- 192 pages; 3 hours
10/13-102 pages; 2 hours

Characterization

In To Da-duh, in Memoriam, the reader can see a lot of characterization.  The reader quickly learns that the story is told from the 1^st person perspective.  Almost immediately after the introductions of the characters, there is a series of indirect statements describing the grandmother.  The narrator describes the grandmother as having “an ugly rolled-brim brown felt hat, her back was beginning to bend, old-fashioned white dress” etc. All of those descriptions are indirect, showing the appearance of the grandmother when she first saw her.  The narrator then continues to describe the grandmother’s face saying “it was as stark and fleshless as a death mask, ruined skin and deep wells, and her eyes were alive.” These are also indirect statements about the appearance of the grandmother.  The narrator then observes her grandmothers actions towards her and her family.  Her mother was reduced to the narrators status when they grandmother calls her child, showing characterization in an indirect way through the grandmother’s interactions between her and her daughter.  The grandmother then turns and interacts with the granddaughters, saying that she wishes they were white boys.  This is also an indirect characterization through the grandmother’s interactions.  Later on throughout story, the grandmother is constantly interacting with the youngest granddaughter by “competing” with her.  The grandmother challenges the thing is New York and asks the girl if they have anything as tall as or a great as something in the grandmother’s world.  The grandmother continuously shows her curiosity about New York, but at the same time, doesn’t seem to completely believe everything the girl is telling her.  This is indirect characterization because it shows the grandmothers interactions with the granddaughter.  Indirect characterization is important in any story because it helps bring the characters to life, and it lets you have more freedom with how you imagine the characters. Without indirect characterization, books and stories would be badly written and not as flowey.  Characterization is important in any story to help bring the characters to life in the readers mind and mesmerize them with the actions and experiences characters have in books and stories