Ana+Q2

10-29-10 I started Night by Elie Wiesel. The book was strongly recommended by Eduardo Belalcazar and Ulises Hereida. They both mentioned the book being a book that is a "must read". I'm half way done with the book, the book is short, and I realized that both Eduardo and Ulises failed to tell me that the book is a little strong to read. When I say strong to read I mean that it has certain scenes that can't be read loosely especially because the author puts so much emotion and sentiment into the his words. 11-05-10 I have finished the book and I can say that this book has challenged my view on certain things. Elie Wiesel was just a young boy and all the things he had to go through was just unbearable. There is this one part that really stuck out to me the most, it was when Elie's father was very ill and Elie was doing everything possible to help his father: he would give his ration of bread and soup to his father instead of eating it himself. The saddest thing was that a man came up to Elie and told him a piece of advice: stop giving your poor father your ration of soup and bread, he is going to die any way, so you really should be having two rations of bread. You aren't helping your father, he is too weak, you are just hurting yourself by eating. Do not forget you are in a concentration camp and here it is a man for himself there is no friends and family, you shouldn't care about anyone even your father. That was a hard advice to give a boy that was just realizing that he was losing his father, Elie was doing what he thought was best and I don't blame him for thinking about the advice that man gave him, for thinking that he should steal his father's rations of food. Just the thought of a young boy having to choose from taking food from his father just to have an extra ration of food sounds inhumane but its logical to think twice before doing such a thing. 11-12-10 I began to read //Heroes// by Robert Cormier. I read the first chapters and the most shocking fact is that the main character Francis Joseph Cassavanat is 18 and he has returned from war with no face. I like the book so far because I have been succesful in picturing the different scenes in the book. One thing, that really caught my eye was that it has a similar plot to //The Great Gatsby.// The both stories talk about a boy going to war and coming back to full-fill a dream, in this case Francis and Gatsby both return from war in search for a lost love, I doubt this book will take the small direction as the //The Great Gatsby// because I can start to see a shift. Francis is looking for his childhood love or crush but yet he is struggling with his self-esteem. The book so far seems very interesting! 11-19-10 Francis is a character that is trying to regain the life that he left behind at age 18 (before he went to war). The book has taken a new twist, the book is focusing on flashback of Francis' childhood One chapter, was talking about an old rec room, where he would go to see Nicole,the girl he loved. In this chapter, I got to see a little of Francis' childhood. It seems that he comes a poor and ghetto neighborhood, because he mentions how teenagers in his neighborhood would graffatti on the rec cenrter, WRECK CENTER. I honestly can relate to the feeling of guilt and embarrasment that he goes through when he sees that. I drive around my neighborhood to think and I look around and see bussiness covered with graffatti and they don't even bother washing it off or reporting it. I feel guilt because I too ran away from that fate, like Francis he went to war to get away from something (the book hasn't mention what) and I ran away from that fate of being another girl that was going to drop out and probably get pregnant at a young age, my family wanted better for me and took me away. The embarrasement comes from coming back to where you were originally from and seeing that nothing has changed. Francis comes back from war and the rec center is closed down but it still has the "wrec center" on the sign, I come back to the neighborhood I ran away from and nothing has changed, just me. Its a sad thing to understand because it seems like you aren't moving foward until you find the reason why fate brought you back. The book so far hints that Francis has another motive on why he came back. 11-26-10 I was right! The book keeps hinting that Francis has some trouble with Larry LaSalle. The strange thing is that the author writes two whole chapter trying to set a picture of Larry. Larry is a veteran and has a silver star that stands for bravery, everyone in Frenchtown loved him and admired him including Francis.Larry helped Francis find his passion for table tennis and gave him courage and advice to ask Nicole out.The question that pops into my head is: Why does Francis seem to hate him if as child he admired him? What changed? Honestly I have my guesses but the book seems to build up background information before we know for sure what is it that Francis really came back home. 12-03-10