Book Report

Brian, Kate. Private. New York, NY. Simon Pulse:2006.

Reason, Type and setting: I chose this book; because it was recommended to me by my cousin which she let me borrow it. This book is a teen novel, and takes place in our current time and age. This book actually is like very relative and modern because a lot of the things they say and could occur in a teenage girl of today. To be more specific the setting of the book takes place at Easton Academy one of the top-ranked schools in the country (Easton, Connecticut).

Plot: During this story of the new girl “Reed Brennan’s” arrival to Easton Academy, she faces a lot of difficulties. First of all she was almost forced to go there for her on will, because how and where she used to live wasn’t really a big deal. No one big and famous came out of her little town she didn’t want to be like everyone else that lived there. And plus living with her mother was like if she was living with the evil step mother in Cinderella, her mom despised Reed and didn’t enjoy her presence, the only person she really loved was her dad. As soon as she started getting used to the school, she knew her best chance was to be part of the Billings girls they were also given greater preference to colleges and had become great people. During the whole beginning she tried really hard to impress the Billings Girls, but the school had a grade policy either you tried your hardest and got excellent grades, or you didn’t and were given a last chance of attending Easton. When she had that first meeting is when she thought her life was going to be over, because she was just getting to know the Billings Girls and they were getting to know her, and there was also this cute senior she was very interested in which had also made signs to her that he had liked her. So she couldn’t let Easton go, when she had everything going for her.
Then after a while, she was soon sitting at the Billings table and was going out with “Thomas Pearson” which was that senior cute guy. When she finds out that he is the schools drug dealer and has been keeping that a secret the whole time, she didn’t even want to talk to him, he begged her for three straight days, and said that he would change just for her. She is madder at the fact that supposedly he “loved her, and wouldn’t lie to her” and she lost her virginity to him. But the Billings girls weren’t the sweetest girls on campus either especially the main one “Noelle”, they made her sneak in the classes in the middle of the night to steal tests, humiliate some guys, and be pushed around by them. In the end when she thought everything was all good with Thomas, she got accepted into the Billings Girls Dorm, and was now part of them. But right after she woke and they told her that she had make the beds, vacuum the halls, and dust the house before they came back for breakfast.

Character:The character I chose is Reed Brennan she is one of the main characters of the book, and in the novel she was the new girl because the rest had already been there she was a sophomore. Reed is a pretty girl, but is a casual dressed girl, very laid-back style. At least compared to most of the girls at Easton, most of the people who went there paid a certain amount, but since Reed had always wanted to go there and was a strait A student at her old high school she had gotten a full-paid scholarship to attend the school. A quality she brought coming to the new school was that she was the “new girl” to them so she tried really hard just to fit in, and made her self look sometimes too vulnerable and desperate to be with the most known kids from the school. She did real rough and bad things just to be and get accepted to the “Billings Girls” which the prettiest, smartest, and highly considered girls from that school who went out with the hottest guys in school. I chose this character because it was the most interesting character throughout the book, and showed most the emotions and ups& downs when she went through them just to try to fit in with everybody else. In the end, she shows everyone who she truly is not just a suck-up and defends her own pride and doesn’t let herself get used by other people and people start to respect her back too.

Evaluation: This book was very interesting to me, because the many things the main character had gone I felt that I could connect with her. During some parts in the novel were she went through I enjoyed reading because I went through the same feeling or had done the same actions as she did. Most of the reason it kept me wanting to read more was that the story was about students and teenagers my age with real life events. One thing that people could learn from this book is that trying your hardest for anything will get you far, and you could anything you as long as you really want, but just because it seems to be what you want or what you see doesn’t mean it is going to come as what you expected. I would most definitely recommend this book to my friends, or maybe even teacher since they witness most these things. But I think older adults may not be too interested in it, because it’s about teens and young adult situations.

Author, Context and Trivia: This book is the first of a series it has a total of five books by “Kate Brian”. As a matter a fact the book ends mind bottling, and leaves wanting to read the next book, because it gives you at the end of the book the first couple pages of the second next book, I have already gone to look for it but, I only seem to find the third and fourth book. But I’m itching to find the second book, the first pages sounded really good, which means the book must really good too.

One day this poor little boy in Russia was living his day by day life by eating off of trashcans. This was the story of a four year old named Joseph, his mother died when he was three and gave all she could to him. They both lived on the streets, but would then get money by prostituting herself to get money. All the money she would get, she would buy food for her son, and blankets and medicine. You see little Joseph was premature and always and had lung problems since he was, and since Russia was a very cold place to live. He always either had a cold, bronchitis, or coughed too much because too much cold air was going in to his lungs.

FBi PROJECT: jOHN JAY

jOHN JAY: >>













bIRTH/PLACE: December 12, 1745 in New York City, New York, United States.
dIED: 1829 in New York, New York, United States(age 83).
OCCUPATiON: Diplomat, Politician, Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and Author.
bEST KNOWN AS: One of the authors of The Federalist Papers.
SChOOL ATTENDED: King's College, 1764 (now known as Columbia University).
hIS GOAL/dREAM: To establish a fair government system



bRIEF HiSTORY: While growing up in New York he became a lawyer. His ability to compromise and negotiate with others led him to help draft the constitution for the State of New York. Just as many other founding fathers in history as well as John Jsy did; they believed in fair government system. But as tension grew between Great Britain and the American colonists, he first opposed to the war, but later drafted a compromise document called Address to the People of Great Britain.While the Revolutionary War was going on, John sent cannons to George Washington's troops in New York. He also organized a council to search for spies and traitors. Soon he traveled to Paris and worked with Benjamin Franklin to negotiate peace with Great Britain.
Since he didn't agree with the new government (Articles of confederation) Alexander Hamilton, James Madison including himself wrote 5 essays to argue for a new government structure. these writings were called the Federalist Papers soon ratified by the U.S. Constitution.



http://www.whitehouse.gov/kids/dreamteam/johnjay.html

creative picture

In the picture of the baby in the water:


Jessica Freeman at the age of 16 was raped and turned out pregnant. She had been raped by her very own father, and when she was younger he used to abuse her, and treat her unfair especially compared to the rest of her sisters. When she found out that she was pregnant, she kept it to herself because she knew her dad would hit her until she lost the baby. But he started getting suspicious one day, when they sent her home one week straight for feeling nauseous and throwing up. She would tell the nurse that she was fine, and it was nothing but the nurse said she couldn't stay at school feeling like that. Her dad finally asked her, what the hell was wrong with her? And she would always tell him that she was just catching the flu from one friend.

Her plan was to run away once she started growing and it would be noticeable, she planned to go to her aunts house (her mom's side). Since her mom died after her third sister was born, she stopped talking to most of that family except her aunt Lauren. Her dad got mad, when he would catch her o the phone with her. Jessica really admired her, because she became a lawyer, and had a perfect family according to Jessica.

Jessica came home from school one day, and her dad was waiting for her in the car. He told her to get in the car because he was taking her for a checkup. She told him if any of her sisters were going, and he told her that it was just going to be her, and him. She started making excuses why she couldn’t go, but he started yelling at her and grabbed her arm and forced her to go in the car. When they got called up, from the waiting room, the doctor made some blood tests and a urine tests. The doctor told them both that she was pregnant, and needed to come in to make sure the baby was okay, and to let her know the things she should be doing during her pregnancy.
When they got home he told her, he was going to make her get an abortion as soon as possible, so that she wouldn’t make it obvious. But she knew exactly that it wasn’t the baby’s fault, but she had to run away by the next day. But her dad caught as soon as she was making the run for it; he started to hit her, and went straight to get an abortion. She was crying, and didn’t know who else to run to.
When the abortion was completed, they took the 4 month old baby, and threw it away.
This photograph in MOPA was taken of this poor little baby that had no choice in life, 10 days later Jessica died of suicidal.

Current Event

In this current event, it has to do with drug dealers getting caught after a three year investigation. 59 people were arrested locally last Thursday, for trafficking drugs based in their network in San Diego, and forty of those have already been prosecuted. Investigators started to investigate their trafficking since April of 2004 from the United States and Mexico. Which soon 200 people were able to be identified in the organization, they smuggled large quantities of methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin from Guadalajara, Mexico through Tijuana and into the United States. And most of these drugs were packed in Chula Vista. The ways they sealed, packaged, and hid the drugs was using such practices as stuffing tomato sauce and menudo cans with marijuana and sealing them back up. As soon as they were packaged the drugs were moved to other cities, including San Francisco; Anaheim; Riverside; Yakima, Wash.; Detroit, Mi,; Atlanta, New York and Greensboro, N.C. Officials said homes in some of those cities served as “stash houses” for some of the drugs. Investigators also seized $9 million in San Diego County and a total of $25 million in the operation.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20071206-1205-bn06drugbust.html

Book Report

Albom, Mitch. For one more day. New York, New York. Mitch Albom Inc: 2006

I chose this book because for my freshman year, my book club book was “The five people you meet in heaven”, and I really enjoyed reading the book. I really liked it, and I had heard that the author had a couple books out, but I didn’t know which ones. But in Starbucks one day, I saw a book that the author looked familiar to me. This is when I realized that it was a Mitch Albom book, which is when I got it. This book is more like a biography or you could say an interview in the person’s point of view. It takes place most of the time in a small town in Pepperville Beach, and is to the date type of setting.
The plot is a lot of things, because the main character’s life is going in a disaster. It first starts out that he cheats on his wife and soon after his wife divorces him, and then realizes that he is a big mess without a family, and someone to love. His daughter gets married and doesn’t even invite him to her wedding, because she ashamed of having her dad there. And the only person he had, that would still care about his life was him mother which had already died. He felt he had no one left in the world that would even care if he was dead or alive. He drove back to his hometown and decided he was going to be brought in this world in Pepperville Beach that he would leave it too. He threw himself off the top of a big water tank. But the thing is he when he woke up, he saw his mother once again, but went over time, and realized that during his lifetime when his mother was left by his dad, always wanted the best for him but he wouldn’t show much love for her back. As he went back in time, it showed how the day she died, he was supposed to be there with her, but decided to lie to his family and play a baseball game for his dad after 20 something years he just came back with out any reason. But since he didn’t play too well his dad just left him once again, and missed his mother’s birthday and death.
The character I choose is the mother, because while she comes into play in the book, she is juts as important as the main character is. I thought she is what made the book more interesting, and made me want to keep on reading the rest. The whole time while her son is trying to figure out why his mom is alive again, she is acting like nothing is wrong. She is just a really strong, beautiful, kind, and loving person. I say this because according to the book she had gone through so many things with her ex-husband and community, and although she knows all the bad things her son has done, she accepts it and forgives him and loves him just as much. The plot changes in the end; by of course the mom because, he just had the chance to be with that one person that really loves him no matter what. He soon wakes up, and is in the hospital with a surrounding of his family, and is thankful for all things he could have lost. But by having the extra chance to be with his mom, he also got a reality check of what things he has, and what he could mean to other people if he was gone. Just like his mom.
I loved this book, I read this book until my eyes got tired and closed. But everyday, it kept me on my toes waiting to see what was going to happen next. It wasn’t a thriller, but it was just a great book! I already have recommended it to my friends, which are probably going to read it for their next outside reading. This book also came with a lot morals, by teaching me that everyone is not living to be taken for granted. We all have only one life, to live it happy no matter what kind of problems you have, and never take your life because you think no one cares about you, because to one person you could mean the world to them.
This book is based on a true story, but other than that I do think people actually go through these situations everyday. People that go through suicidal emotions, or people that have no other way to handle their problems.
I would never act anything close to who and how the character is because I wouldn’t take the same decisions as he did, I know we’re not perfect but I love my life. And I wouldn’t screw it up, and take big decisions like he did. But there are many teenagers and young people that think the same way as he did.
I really plan on finding the rest of the books Mitch Albom has written, because just with the two books I read so far from him, I am really impressed and love them. So I hope to find the rest from him.

E:prompt

I think that you technically no one has any right at all to kidnap someone to be using them for, so that another life could live. If it isn't right to kidnap a child or a an older person, what makes it right to just to do it to an ordinary person? But i think it depends on the person, because if it is a person who doesn't really care about anyone' s lives, and has hatred on human beings for some reason. That person will just pull off the cord. but on the other hand if it was a person who was very kind they might leave it on, and wouldn't mind staying in the hospital so that the life of another person stays alive according to your choice. Therefore, i think there should be no obligation but a choice in which to stay connected. yes, people could argue that you are taking some one's life, in which is murdering, and therefore murdering is illegal; a crime. But the thing is that the person was taken not by choice, but kidnapped which is also illegal. So they wouldn't be able to bring up the murdering crime.

Vocabulary words

Alleged- doubtful; suspect; supposed. This picture represents the suspicion in their faces, like if they might be up to something, and people might not want to believe what they have to say just by looking at there facial expressions.

Adverse- opposing one's interests or desire; opposite; confronting. This picture is showing Adverse, because the girl is disagreeing with the guy since he cheated on her; and she found out. in this picture it shows the girl confronting the guy from all the lies he told her, with the other girl right there too, he's getting caught up!

Zealous- ardently active, devoted, or diligent. This picture represents Zealous because the girl , is showing dedication to her work, and is doing her work very proficiently and on task.

Vehement- strongly emotional; intense or passionate. This photo is expressing vehement because these two are showing passion, and is used all the time in soap operas. soap operas express their emotions very strongly, in which this picture is doing.