Night of the Crystal (unfinished)

Kristallnacht is an event that happened in Nazi Germany on Nov. 9-10 1938

UNFINISHED

Our class is now reading a book called the Book Thief, which is a story about a young girl caught in a Nazi fanatical Germany during world war two. The girl was dropped off on the front step of a middle aged couples house and has to deal with her abusive step mother and paranoid Nazi's as death himself narrates this wonderful book. The author of this book is Markus Zusak he is Australian 30 years of age, and has been writing sense he was 14. Zusaks mother grew up in Germany during the holocaust and witnessed the horrible treatment of the jews and a terrible bombing in a town called Munich. He has written a few other best sellers such as The Underdog, Fighting Ruben Wolfe, Getting The Girl, and I Am The Messenger. Markus Zusak has recieved many awards for his liturature:

The Book Thief

2008 Ena Noel Award - the IBBY Australia Ena Noël Encouragement Award for Children's Literature

2007 Michael L. Printz Honor book by the Young Adult Library Services Association

2006 Kathleen Mitchell Award 2006

The Messenger (a.k.a. I Am The Messenger)

2007 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis

2006 Michael L. Printz Award Honor book 2006 Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book

2005 Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year-Children

2003 Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year Award

2003 New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature

When Dogs Cry/Getting the Girl

2002 Honour Book for Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year (Older Children)

Fighting Ruben Wolfe

2001 Honour Book for Children's Book Council of Australia Book of the Year

shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Ethel Turner Prize for Young People's Literature

Many people wonder where he got his ideas from for The Book Thief He got his ideas from two stories he heard from his German mother. one of the bombing of Munich, the other is how a young kid tried to give an emaciated Jew a piece of bread and both of them were whipped.

New Thoughts

This year we read a book called The Hunger Games it is about a dystopian government that has split its own country into 12 districts where children between the ages of 12-18 are picked to compete in a death match called The Hunger Games to see who will win. The second book in this series is called Catching Fire and based on The Hunger Games here are some predictions on the second book: I believe that there will be controversy between Peeta and Gale, and a smattering of rebellion against the government.

Head High 'Till I Die

I did research on a "rebel" in history that has shaped the way our society is today, the "rebel" I chose is Chief Joseph an Indian chief who lead his people against the U.S. Army to fight against oppression where his people were unfairly being rounded into reservations where they were expected to live off barely any supplies and even poorer conditions glog

"The Crucible"

John Proctor is caught in a whirl wind of mischief, and vengeance. As he try's to figure out how he will save his marriage from a young whore of a girl, he finds himself having to defend his name from the ignorant people of Salem Mass. who believe that the devil has come to earth to recruit souls for his witchcraft.

A Short Drop And A Sudden Stop

For our current book I have chosen "Execution" for my word of the day. I chose this word because over the one year span of the Salem witch trials there were 19 people executed for NOT confessing to witchcraft, While the ones who confessed were not hanged.

O Lonely Witch

O lonely witch, Blessed Be,
thy soul has longed to be free
for the spells you cast in secret,
if the Unpuritans hear them,
will surly bring them to an end.

The character I am assigned to be in the play/book we are reading(The Crucible)is John Proctor and as a short description of this man is that he is very resentful of the fact that so many people are going hysterical over the idea of the "devil" being in Salem and people being accused of witchcraft. John is asked to recite his ten commandments as he claims to be a good christian but he falters and is able to recite all but 1: Thou shalt not be adulterous, which is the crime he has committed.

Wrongly Accused, Nicholas Frost

Nicholas Frost was a grandson of an original settler of Kittery, ME in the U.S

Nicholas Frost was from Piscataqua, NH, on Sept. 5, 1692 Thomas Dodd of Marblehead, MA, accused Nicholas of bewitching his daughter, Johanna.

Do Something Crazy!!

In our new book, called The Crucible which is about the witch trials in Salem Massachusetts we have to pick out words we like and the word i have chosen for this post is "Hysterical" this ward means to be disorderly and going "crazy". To me this word can mean one of two things; Either somethings funny, or totally out of order. There is a little bit of both in this book, where it is a little funny that so many people were accused of witchcraft just for owning large sums of land, and the other reasoning is that after the accusations start everything goes down the drain.

Do What Needs To Be Done.

This Blog has been set up for my high school English class and has improved my sense of writing and my ability to pick out my mistakes. I, as a 16 year old high school junior, don't particularly take an interest in writing all these posts, BUT I have had an interesting time looking for the information about Sierra Leone. As I have said this blog has improved my writing by helping me with my vocabulary and my ability to use my words in a meaningful way.

Hazard In Haiti

On Jan. 12 Haiti, which is one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world, experienced the worst earthquake in 200 years. The natural disaster left the majority of the capital under ruin and 50,000 citizens believed to be dead. The massive devastation has left many obstacles for any out side country trying to send help. About 3 million people/one third of the pop. in Haiti have been effected. The orphans of the earthquake have been, and are being set up with eligible parents in the U.S..

Life for the Ex-soldier

Ishmael Beah now lives in New York City where he finished college with a B.A.. Ishmael is a pert of the Human Rights organization, and has spoken in front of the United Nations about is past and the situation in Sierra Leone. Ishmael has spread his experience memoirs to many other organizations for children in war torn countries.

Homage to the Boy Soldiers

Be Who You Were Born To Be

"You are a human being. You have rights inherent in that reality. You have dignity and worth that exists prior to law". ~Lyn Beth Neylon

This quote states that all HUMANS are born with a set of rights and no matter what should never be denied them, and given the dignity of always having them.

"Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally". ~Abraham Lincoln

I live in an area where I hear people talking about how we should all own a few "blacks" and as a free thinking human I believe that every other "person" who speaks that way should be put to the whip and see how it feels. Now i wouldn't truly whip someone but it ENRAGES me when people continue to believe in controlling other people.

"A Single Slice Reveals Them" a poem by Niomi Shihab Nye

An apple on the table hides its seeds
so neatly
under seamless skin.

But we talk and talk and talk
to let somebody
in.

This poem is related to the book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier because it tell us how a person can hide who they truly are inside but if you spend even five minuets with that person you will be able to see who they are and not what they seem to be. In the book Ishmael Beah has been sent to a reform camp after being taken from the Sierra Leone Army and starts to be haunted by the memories of all the killing and dead bodies he has seen. As a soldier he hides the weaker, more open kid inside him. The staff in the facility refuse to let him go through his life without opening up so they continue to tell him it not his fault for being the way he is and continue to trying to open him up. Ishmael himself wants to be the way he was before he was forced to snort lines and shoot rounds but he is so brainwashed he believes that it is impossible for him. It will take along time for him and a relentless intervention for him be finaly open up and be a kid again.

Living Double

In the book "a long way gone memoirs of a boy soldier" the main character Ishmael Beah is taken away from his unit and put into a reform camp where he and other boys from the army get into a fight with rebel boys and wind up losing one of there own and killing two of the rebel boys. At about two months into the boys stay at the camp the boys start to have withdrawals from the heavy drugs they were taking while they were in their units and as the boys start to end the withdrawals the memories of all the people they have slaughtered begin to haunt them and Ishmael is caught between the soldier side of him witch wants to fight everyone that he sees and go back to the front and kill. The boy side of him just wants to play soccer and hang around with his friends. Ishmael is having a hard time trying to find a way to show he is a hard soldier and yet he is wanting to let go and goof off.

LITTLE RAMBO.

L.ives full of hate while
I.nside the fire
T.urned against humanity
T.arrorized by the very soldiers they now burn
L.oves to hear the screams
E.ngulfed by pounds of drugs and the adoration of violence

R.isks own life in the pursuit of blood
A.rmed to the teeth with no desire to stop
M.eans to burn all who bare the R.U.F.
B.urrows into mounds or cocaine and weed just to survive the pain
O.ut raged by the fact the enemy yet live

God Grew Tired Of A Boy Soldier

After watching a movie called "God Grew Tired of Us" and reading the book "a long way gone, memoirs of a boy soldier" I realized that our world really isn't as we hope it is or as we would like it to be. In the movie the country of Sudan comes under a civil war between the northern and southern half's, the refugee boys who leave for freedom call them selves "the lost boys" of Sudan start with 28,000 boys and end with 12,000. The numbers dropped so much because as they were leaving they came under fire at separate times by soldiers and fighter planes.

In the book the country of Sierra Leone, at the same time, came under a civil war between groups of rebels and the government army and the main character Ishmael Beah's village gets attacked by rebels and is split up from his family, as he runs from the fighting he is haunted by the memories of the dead dieing bodies he saw as he ran. He continues to travel with a group of friends he finds along his way until he is brought in by the Government Army and forced to fight, kill and take drugs.

The similarities between the two of the stories is the the fact that the two different groups of boys had to run from the war there own country was waging on the people and on many time they had to fight to survive.

"a long way gone" Text To The Movie "Lord of War"

"smoking marijuana and sniffing brown brown, cocaine mixed with gunpowder"
I made this connection to the movie Lord Of War because in the movie an Arms Dealer walked into a bar in Africa after making a deal and gets "brown brown" ordered for him by a soldier who is smoking weed behind him.