Summer Reading

The book I choose was The Messenger. I choose this book for multiple reasons. One huge reason was it seemed like it had action. In the back cover it mentioned the Ed, the main character, stops a bank robbery at the beginning. This gave me the idea that there would be a lot of action in parts. Another reason I chose this book over the others was the title. The title is imply The Messenger which makes the book sound mysterious and creepy and like there are a lot of secrets in this book, and I like books with some secrecy involved in them.

I would suggest this book to anyone who likes a book where you have to think. This book keeps a lot of thinks hidden until the end to keep the reader interested for the duration of the book. Another reason you should read this book is that its relatable. It is about a young man who is having a hard time finding a identity for himself and is not doing a lot that make him proud of himself, but the book helps him change that and be a better person overall.

Summer Reading

In my Novel, The Messenger, Ed, the main character is given jobs to do by unknown people. These jobs are given to him by giving him playing cards with addresses or clues to where he should go. In one of these addresses he is given a gun and he finds out he has to kill a father who has been abusive to his wife and daughter. The thought of killing someone is hard for Ed to grasp since is  not a violent person however he goes on with his plan.

Ed is a taxi driver so he figures out when the father usually needs a cab and he finds him and offers him a ride. He then offers him a drink and shortly after he takes it the husband passes out in the back seat. He then takes him to a secluded cliff in the town, wakes him up and threatens him with the gun and makes him walk out of the car. He talks to him about how he has been a bad person and is just about to shoot him in the head. He takes the shot, but he purposely misses. He then leaves him there and days later he finds out he left town, never to be seen again.

Second summer reading post

                In the book Ed is a very simple person, he just wants to go on with life staying afloat any way he can, like his job as youngest cab driver in town. When he was a the bank there was a robbery and by talking to the robber and distracting him by making him angry he was able to stop him long enough for the cops after this he goes on with his normal like until he gets a playing card with addresses to go to.

He does not start really wanting to do things until he meets Milla an eighty year old whose husband Jimmy dies sixty years earlier in war. She had been living alone for that entire time with no one to comfort her. So when Ed is assigned her address as a job he realizes he must comfort her and he then decides to act like he is Jimmy to make Milla happy. For the first time in his life he felt like he actually was doing something right and it made him feel really good. I think helping Milla will encourage Ed to go to the other addresses and help the other people rather than before when he did nothing

Summer reading blog post 1

The book I am currently reading is “I am the Messenger” The main character is Ed, who is a 19 year old cab driver in a small town. He does not do a lot besides hang out with his friends and play cards. All he wants to do is just live his life and not worry about anything. But one day he gets a card in the mail and it has addresses on them. After a while of thinking he realizes that he needs to go to them and help someone with a problem. This makes Ed start thinking more about his life and how he wants to help people more rather that sit around.

                A lot of Ed’s friends are similar to him, people just going along in life and not worrying about too many things. His friends are Marv, Ritchie, and Audrey. They help Ed by being beside him in what he does and that is why they are such good friends. No matter what they do they support it. I think his friends will help him do the tasks he is given at the future addresses in the future rather than him doing them by himself. I also think they will work together a lot.

Text vs. World

In the story travel team Danny is a short basketball player who plays to help others score by facilitating. While i was at the gym on Monday i saw a pickup game going on and on the court i saw an adult playing who was probibly about 5 foot at most. however he still ended up having a huge effect on the game. He would drive inside and give other players easy layups with his dropoff passes at the rim and he mad quite a few shots.

He was also like Danny because he was a team player and not demanding the ball and being the most important player on the court. Insteed he let other plays take the glory of making the shot as he got the assist.

This week in the novel Danny's team is improving alot. They have 3 wins now going into the playoffs. However Matt, their only bigman is sick and cant play and they will be playing the Vikings, the team Danny was cut from in the first round.

One interesting thing is that Ty seems like he wants to play on Danny's team rather than the Vikings. Danny in the story notices that the Vikings dont seem like they are having fun when they play and Ty's dad constanly gets mad at Ty because of it. I think Ty will want to play for the warriors rather than the Vikings.

Book Update

Right now in the story Dannys's team finnally got their first win. They played close the entire game and pulled it out at the end. Everyone on the team was very happy that they won. The where going to go to a pizza place to celebrate, but after an hour of being there Danny's dad was nowhere to be seen. It turned out that he got in a car accedent on the way there. Now they didnt have a coach and they had to find someone who could coach there team. After going though all the options Danny was chosen to be the coach since according to his dad it was danny's team.

I think Danny's dad getting in a car accedent shows that he is very unlucky. Just like his first accedent, it happened when things where going really well for him and they got ruined. I think this will really show how strong of people everyone on the team is to see if they can go though have their coach gone and still try to win.

I think Danny being chosen to be coach is a way of showing how much Danny really means to the team. He is not only a player, he is the reason the team even happened and is the leader for the team. I feel like the other players look up to him and will do anything he tells them because they trust him.

Alot of us on Christmas get good presents, since we live in spoiled Mason, and in the Travel Team Danny gets that. Despite the fact that his Mom makes little pay and his Dad blew off al his NBA money his mom still found a way to buy him a brand new, and expinsive, laptop. Also along with that he got a new pair of Lebrons. Then the great thing happened and his dad showed up for Christmas, which is very rare for him, but he got him a new ball. It it was not any regular ball, the ball was signed by Jason Kidd and John Stockton, Dannys all-time favorite players.

His parents buying these thoughtfull and expensive gifts really show how much they really care for Danny. His dad getting the ball signed but not just any players, but his two favorite players show that he really cares what they think. It proves that even though in the story it seems like his Dad doesnt care he really does on the inside.

Book Update

At the point i am in the story Danny's team played the Vikings which is the team he was cut from. There team destoryed his team and he was basicly bullied by Teddy Moran who is his least liked person. He throws random elbows at Danny because Danny almost beat him up. Then during the game Danny boxes out Teddy hard and he knocked over Teddy into Ty, Danny's former teammate, which caused him to break Ty's wrist.

Everyone is blaming Danny for Ty's wrist being broken. This causes everyone to feel like Danny is trying to ruin the Vikings season since he was cut from the team. This makes Danny feel really bad about hurting Ty. He is very sad and he wants to make it better with Ty.

I think Danny will have to work through being the villian and hurting Ty and be more friendly with them and not the enemy. This will also make it harder for him to focus on playing basketball since he has to deal with doing this and constantly being reminded that he did it.

Column

This column was about Jesse Cheatham, the coached of the high school student who was arrested for robbing DeSales Market at gunpoint, is still trying to help him grow as a person. Despite getting arrested Cheatham still wants to help him because he cares and he is more than a coach.

The beast line was, "Jesse Cheatham is the guy who pulled you aside when he saw that there were two versions of you – the smart Aiken sophomore who recently passed the Walnut Hills High School entrance test, and the street kid who pulled his pants down around his knees, grew dreadlocks and ran with his friends." This showed how he stuck with him not matter what it was. He would cheer him on if it was good or help him up if it was bad.

Ramsey's style is a lot of quick but meaningful sentences that really help understanding her point. One example is, "The result?" in the first column and, "Which is why one person couldn't make it in the door." was the other one.

Some questions I have for here is how she got in to Journalism, How did she develop her writing style and who was the biggest influence on her writing style.

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/columnists/krista-ramsey/2014/03/29/krista-ramsey-desales-market-robbery/7071067/

The Travel Team

Currently in the story right now Danny's dad desided that he wanted to coach Danny by making their own travel team with the player who are left who didn't make the original travel tea. The team is made up of people who are all very short and Matt who is tall but is very bad. Danny's dads comitment to not only coach Danny, but coach him on a bad team despite him not liking coaching shows that he cares for Danny.

The first practice for the team turned out very bad. When they played 4 on 4 there where "6,000 turnovers". This really puts Danny down about having a travel team. He though if they had a travel team they would have some good players but it turned out that the team is worse that he thought. It will be interesting to see how Danny ajusts from being a supporting player on the old tr5avel teams to the best player who has to score on his team.

Start Of the Book

At the start of the book it tells you about how Danny, the main character, always plays basketball despite his size. He uses it as something to take him away from his tough life of being short and having devoriced parents. He alway trys to be the best passer so everyone will want him to be on their team.

At the beggining it seemed like he was having a good day but it turned ou he got cut from his travel team. Not only did he grt cut but he was cut for his height. I can tell that this will be one thing that will push him to get better and prove the coachs wrong on cutting him. I think if he gets on a team he wil want to play the team he got cut from.

Book Predictions

The next book I am going to read is The Travel Team. I heard it was a good book. It is about a kid who is short and is trying to play basketball. His dad lived in the exact same town just like him. Unlike him however he was the best basketball player in the town. But he got in a bad car accedent and was unable to play anymore.

I think it will be about him overcoming the struggles of being short and him growing in his releasionship with his dad. Also think the book will be about the main character trying to get his dad to help him play basketball since he was so good.

I think the main conflict will be The main character trying to get good at basketball despite his size. The cover shows him lokking up at the rim almost confused. This telles me that he will have to try to figure out how to become good.

End of the book

I just finished my novel. It ends with Molly going to the tree in New York and meeting up with Josh. This is just like when he meet her mom under the same tree. It ends with Josh saying for why he is out in the snow is he had to go get his daughter. This means that he is commited to making her his daughter.

I liked this book alot because the way it used family in it. It showed that even if you dont think there your family you can treat them like they are. Also you should never give up on an idea even if you do like it. Just because you think it is a bad idea doesnt mean it is a bad idea.

Overall i would give this book 4 stars. It was very interesting and used forshadowing well. It also kept you engaged with its suprises and info that it gave away. It used rthe characters conflicts to make it very interesting.

Symbolism

In the story the Miracle on 49th Street Molly just celebrated Christmas with her family. She got a picture of her mother Josh and he got her the same thing. This represents that they both miss there mother and both feel conected because of the relashionship they both had with Molly's mother.

Later Molly said her goodbyes with Josh. when she did Josh went in to give her a hug but Molly did not let him. I think this reperesents that Molly like Josh alot, but still they do not have the releshionship she wanted when she first wanted to get to know her.

Then at a Christmas get together with her parents cousin she wanted to invite Sam to come other rather than be with her cousins. I think this shows that she never had a real closeness to anyone in the family and the only person she liked was Sam .

Blog Reflection

http://nolansraedingblog.blogspot.com/2014/02/characterization.html In this post I talked alot about the characterzation of each character in the story. Each one had a differant characterzation by the author. In my earlyer blogs I only summarized the storys and what was going on. In my later posts like this one i went into detail about how the small literary devices the author used to make the story better. For example how Josh in the story is viewed as this big person who doesnt listen to thers but is really swayed very easily by others.

My goal that I met for reading was read the majority of my book. I read about fourty pages a week which is a good pace for me. My inmrovment for writing was I was abole to go more  into details of the book like I did in my charcterzation post instead of just looking at the broad details of what happening and a summary. Some improvments I should make is I should try to read two books next tri and I need to go even more into detail and also use quotes from the book to show people who read my blog exact time swhere literary devices are used.

Conflict

In the book im reading there are alot of conflicts happening all at once. They main conflict is that Molly and Josh can not see eye to eye on anything. They always be fighting about whether or not Josh cares about Josh

Anouther conflict is Molly's family is moving to LA. This causes to prossess of Josh and Molly becoming family tough because if they make a decision soon it will be to late and Molly will be gone with little chance of getting to know Molly

A third a conflict is Molly does not like her current family. She feels like they truly don't care for her but they are just oblegated to take care of her. This is a main reason Molly wanted to see Josh in the first place because she though it would get better.

It seems like in this story on conflict leads to anouther. Because Molly doesn't like here family she is with she want to know Josh. This caused Josh and Molly to fight and not be on the same page. Then the move to LA came up causing one big conflict they all have to deal with

Right now in my story Molly just had her basketball game in which she had a huge suprise. LJ Brown, the Celtics player she likes the most, desided to show up to her game. This have her alot of excitement and she ended up having a great game. But after the game when they are getting ready to take her home Josh shows up and LJ and Molly finds out it is just a plan to get them to talk again.

I think this shows that everyone wants Molly and Josh to finally talk again if LJ is helping him talk to her. This also shows that Josh is desprite to talk to her any way he can. I also think it wasnt Josh's idea but is was LJ because Josh was not being assertive enough and talking to Molly.

I think this shoes that Josh has a little longing to know Molly. I think it was not the best way because Molly was forced to talk to him. I think it would be better if they just went out for a walk and talked about the problems they are having with eachother

Currently in the novel Molly has desides that she does not want anything to do with Josh. She wants to move on and move on with her life. Josh keeps trying to call Molly and try to talk to her about what happened but Molly keeps refusing to talk. She now is back to her old life of going to school and now playing basketball.

Right now i feel like the roles of Josh and Molly have reversed. Now its is Josh trying to get to know Molly instead of Molly trying to get to know Josh. This is interesting to see how each character reacts to being put in a differant role in their struggle. It will also be interesting to see if Josh really cares about Molly. To this point Josh has never really showed feelings towards Molly, but instead acted like being with her was a chore.

I think this could also be a way of Molly truly seeing if  Josh cares about her. She did not want a DNA test because she want him to love her because he truly did not because they shared the DNA. I think she is doing this to test Josh and see if is telling the truth about how he feels about her.

In this part of the novel The Miricle on 49th street josh takes Molly to New York. We find out that her mother was a very good figure skater and she was considering trying to go to the olympics.  When they get to New York Molly goes to the skating rink and skates with Mattie watching, but then Josh comes and watches so Molly trys to impress him. Then they go on a walk and Josh tells Molly about his times with Molly's motherr and how she came to see him play during a Christmas game and they beat the number one team Kanas.

The next day in the morning Molly goes to Joshs room and overhears him talking to his agent about how he is only being with her so the press doesnt find out that she is her daughter. This makes her angry and she goes out to New York on her own and now she is trying to find out a way to get back to Josh.

I think that now Josh will have to sincerly be nice to Molly now if he wants to get a second chance. I also think there relashionship will grow to more of an emotional level because he know how she is feeling and that she cares about how he thinks.

Characterization

In The Miracle on 49th Street I think the author does a good job characterizing the characters. For example at the beginning of the story Josh is viewed as this perfect person who is an amazing athlete who if Molly told him that she is her daughter would immediately let her live with him and act like a true father. But instead the book uses the way he interacts with others and the way he is quiet to show he is a quiet personal person who does not interact with others well and is easily swayed by others opinions like his agent.

Molly is characterized as a young girl who want what she wants and will do anything to get it. She wanted a real father and she knew it was Josh so she did everything she could ever do to convince him to believe her. She also is very mature and understands things better than kids her age do. She knows When Josh is pretending to be happy around her and when people don't trust her and it helps her in this story.

In the part I'm in the novel Miricale on 49th Street Molly just had a meeting with Josh Barbra, her parent in charge, and Mattie, Josh's assisitant. They had a descusion about how Barbra thinks Josh should do about Molly. during the meeting Barbra acts unsure about leting Molly go with Josh but when they have a one on one at the park it turns out she was ok with Josh being in charge of her. But then she told her the shocking news that they will b moving to LA because of Bill her acting father go a promotion to go there.


I think now Molly will try to speed up getting to know Josh to be able to live with him before they move so she doesnt have to go to LA. This will put pressure on her to live with Josh so she doesnt have to move. I also think Molly will try to get them to stop moving so she has extra time to get to know Josh.

One important character trait Molly has is her resiliance. Even though her mother died she can still live on without her. Also even though Josh keeps rejecting her as his daughter she keeps trying to convince him that she is her daughter. If she wasnt as resiliant she would never find out if he is her father but now she has a cjance to find out.

In this part of the novel The Miracle on 49th Street Molly gets courtside tickets to the Celtics home opener and lockeroom acsess to the players. This gives Molly a great opertunity to talk to Josh. After she convices her parents to let her go to the game she goes in it ends in a game winning alley oop that Josh throws. After the game though she sneaks out and into the players parking lot to try to get anouther chance to talk to Josh once they get there and Josh gets in there car Molly sneaks into his backseat of his car. Once they leave Josh makes a sharp turn that causes Molly to yell and that gets Josh to notice and he finds her in the trunk. He then takes her to his apartment to talk to her about why she been following him. she then shows him her mothers letters she wrote before she died that prove that Josh is Mollys father. Once Josh reads them he still doesnt believe her and she leaves losing hope and thinking Josh is a jerk.

I think in the next part Josh will try to find Molly and get to know her and maybe change his mind about not believing that Molly is not his daughter. I also think that if he does try to get to know her they will go though alot of fights about Mollys mother. I also think a reporter will find out about Molly and there will be a nationwide controversy about it.