Book Report

Leticia's Secret:

Lachtman, Dumas Ofelia.Leticia's Secret.Houston, Texas. Pinata Books:1997

Reason, Setting: I chose this book, because someone had recommended it to my dad, for me to read. But by reading the back cover it seemed interesting to read. This book is takes place in San Fernando Valley, and is tween story of something suspicious that is about her family, and how they treat her cousin Leticia, secrets and mysteries between their families.

Plot: In the book Rosario which around 12 years old, has to deal with never having her father around, and having to move a lot, because her mom would have multiple jobs in different places. And most of there family lived in San Fernando Valley, which was 3 hours from the town that they lived in. So Rosario’s mother had no one to leave her with especially when she was growing up. After a couple years they moved to San Fernando Valley with their family, and her mom worked full time. She would notice how once she started living with her aunts, uncles, and cousins, that they would make her do a lot of housework more than there own kids. The only cousin she was close with was her cousin Leticia, and she was everyone’s favorite niece or daughter. When ever she was caught arguing with her, the adults would make her do chores. In her new school she couldn'tmake any friends, and started getting depressed because she was lonely.

Character: Rosario is a main character in the novel, and I chose her because she was very inspiring to here how her early childhood and early teens she grew up. Which no person should have to go through, like not being able to see your own mom, for a couple days because she works night shifts and sleeps her days off and through the day. Also going from town to town making and breaking up friendships. Not really being able to talk to somebody, if you feel sad. Rosario would tell herself when she would see her mom crying after work that one day everything is going to be okay, and her mom won’t have to work that much because she is going to go to college. And even if her family, doesn’t treat her and her mom like family, that should be supportive to them instead they look at them like they have failed both of their lives. Rosario never gives up hoping that one day they get something better.

Evaluation: I really like this book, mostly because I thought this was a very inspiring book, not just because showing me how you have to try hard to get things and if not later on it’s going to be harder on you. But I learned that sometimes if you do your best, some kind of good will come your way. And no matter how much you think life is so bad, and your life couldn’t get anymore worse there will always be somebody suffering more than you. Like kids starving in Haiti, or in Africa, or people being forced to live on the streets, or in this case practically living with out your parents, one your mother has no other option but to work a lot, and second your father is a drunk and just left you and your mother 3 years after you were born. It just makes me think about the little things that I have, and that people would kill to have.

Current Event

36 teens arrested in truancy sweep:

Police arrested 36 students yesterday for being truant at school. The police targeted certain areas of town starting at 8:30 and ended at noon, with students from the ages of 13-17. The sweep targeted several neighborhoods, including City Heights, the College area, Redwood Village, Normal Heights, Kensington, Normal Heights and Rolando. The students were caught "ditching" in places like: parks, restaurants, abandoned houses and strip malls. They were handcuffed and taken into custody. Twenty of the students were eligible for a diversion program and the otehr 16 were repeat offenders.
It didn't say how many students, but some were found with tobacco, marijuana and drug paraphernalia and will have to face extra charges.

(sorry Elika, I just checked my blog and it showed that it wasn't posted just saved)



http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20080417-1442-bn17sweep.html

Vocabulary Words

This ride is called Vertigo which is at the fair, they probably named it that because it spins and twirls in every direction, and get dizzy afterwards.

These three soldiers Revere their country, especially because they are representing and defending the U.S of America.

This is a picture of Hillary Clinton, and found it on the internet. On the picture are words that are false about her and makes her appearance look bad, and could sue the person for Defamation of character.

This photo represents Quell because most people that want to put an end to their smoking habits use patches or gum, like this picture is a pack of patches. To slow down the need of wanting to smoke.

In this picture is a lady pointing arrows to the convention center, just in case some people get lost. But if she turns another way, she will be giving misdirection to the convention center.

Vocabulary Words:

epitome -a standard or typical example
revere -to regard with respect tinged with awe
vertigo -being in tilting or spinning surroundings
punitive -concerned with, or inflicting punishment
slander -a malicious, false statement
squander -to spend or use (money, time, etc.) extravagantly or wastefully
panache -a grand or flamboyant manner
forlorn -appearing sad or lonely because deserted or abandoned
quell -to suppress; put an end to

concision - small quality
libel -the act or crime of publishing it
defamation -false or unjustified injury of the good reputation of another
misdirection -a wrong or incorrect direction

Book Report

A Patriot After All: The story of Chicano Vet.

Ramirez, Juan. A Patriot After All: the story of a Chicano vet. University of New Mexico. Library of Congress: 1999.

I chose this book, because many of the books I was planning to read; my library didn’t have them. But as I was looking for another interesting book that had to do with the Vietnam War, because that’s what group I am in for the “War Documentary Project”. I actually came upon a book that was somewhat related to my ethnicity, which I thought was kind of cool, because I didn’t know of any Mexican descent people that were Vietnam vets. This book is autobiography of a persons life, being a youth wanting to go to the Vietnam War, and mostly focused on his life changing experience in war, and when he came back home.

The books main action point was when he was talking about his experiences in war, and told how he was put on combat when he barely arrived to Vietnam and wasn’t prepared on ways to react. And mostly because before getting to combat you have to do some time at war getting used to it. He was saying how out of fifteen people in his squad only 3 survived including him. Even though he didn’t know them very much or well enough, it traumatized him for watching their death, because the stepped on one the trap that exploded. It was also a shock, when he went in to the war, he observed that some of the people already in the war acted so cold to the Vietnamese civilians and would let them die and wouldn’t do nothing about it, and said he would never let himself get like that. When his term was over he was a big alcoholic and was addicted to a lot of hard drugs. He became very aggressive and abusive when he was drunk and it affected his relationship with his family, friends, and life. He came back as a whole new person.

The character I chose is the main character; his name is Juan Ramirez growing up in California when he was little people called him John. He was a Chicano; his parents were Mexican and had had family living in Northern California with him. Both of his parents worked in the fields, and soon they saved enough to buy a small house. Soon his father joined the army for WWII and came back and wasn’t given the things he was promised for joining. When he came back from the war he was like him but just an alcoholic. After graduating from high school he decided to join the war.

I really enjoyed this book, because I never read a war book before, that I actually understood what was going on. I’m glad that I had done some research on the war before I started to read, because in some instances they would talk about communism, but I knew what they were talking about. And they also said a lot of good information of what the war was about, and how life was like for the U.S citizens living watching the war happen, and also the innocent Vietnamese Citizens. I would recommend this book to my friends, because the whole time when I was reading it kept me wanting to read more, very interesting.