I have finished reading Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin. This book was a very amazing and inspiring read. Through out the book I was continually amazed by the southern people's discrimination against the black race. I can hardly believe it could get so bad on such a broad scale. A small hate group is one thing but for the whole population to be thinking that way or at least permitting it is very astonishing. As Griffin neared the end of his experiment as a black man he was switching back and forth between races and visiting the same places. I was amazed at how different the receptions he recieved were. He was the same man both times, wore the same clothes, everything was the same except his skin colour but when he was white he could go where he pleased and buy what he wanted but as a black he was treated with hostility and was very restricted. It is very sad really that discrimination like this can happen so openly and be so supported. After Griffin had published his journal and done quite a few interviews he recieved a very interesting mix of responses. He recieves many support letters, a large portion actually rom people living in the southern States. I thought that was interesting since that is where the racism is the worst, but it shows you how powerful peer pressure really is. No one wants to stick out and be the odd ball, people would rather be wrong than to be unpopular. In Griffin's own town though he is recieved with a lot of hostility and he eventually moves to Mexico so he and his family can escape this. I found the book very eye opening and educational. I would reccomend this book to nearly anyone.

I have continued reading Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin. I have been very busy with school and such and have not been able to read that much lately. Hopefully tonight I will be able to go home and finish the book. I have now read to the part where he is hitch-hiking across the state. I found it interesting that he would only be able to get a ride during the night. No one would give him a ride in the light of the day. This shows how big of an impact that peer pressure really has. I wonder how many of those people acting like they did to him would act different if you put them in a non prejudiced country where people didn't care what colour you where. I also find it very sad that even when they did give him a ride they would only do it so they could quiz him about his sexual experiences. Why did they assume that just because he was black he wouldn't mind talking about that kind of stuff? They would be way too embarrassed to ask another white man about a subject like that. Why was the black man considered as more of an animal than a human just because their skin was darker? He tells us about his difficulty in finding a job just because of his skin colour. That was one thing that really puzzled me. Why wouldn't they want to hire a black person. They have continually showed that they were capable of working amazingly hard, way harder than some rich white man would. They would nearly work to death if they could give their families a better life. Why wouldn't people hire them? The only reason I could think of would be because then they would be out mixing and mingling with the whites but there are a lot of jobs that don't involve any public contact. Why were they so discriminated against? That was so wrong. I am very glad that we have came such a long ways in that department and I hope we keep on progressing.

Yesterday I started reading the book Black Like Me written by John Howard Griffin. It is a nice little book that has been easy to read. I started reading it because Mrs. Kulyk had reccomended it to me. I am now about halfway through the book and it has been a very entertaining read. It hasn't only been that though it has also been very educational. I have gained a lot of new knowledge and even more questions. I wonder if the racial discrimination at that time period was still that bad. If so why haven't I ever heard about it? I thought that they were slaves and then they were free and that was that. Oh sure I knew the transition wasn't that quick and painless but I had no clue the discrimination was still that strong in the 1950s. Everyone knew the situation wasn't perfect or even good for that matter but this book reveals a very severe and different world from the one I know. How could you live in a world like that and not hate the whole world when you were always treated in such an unfair fashion? Another question I had was how could the author submitt himself to that if he knew it was even half that bad? Isn't that a lot of pain and agony for one book? I am glad he did now because I am enjoying reading the book but was it worth it for him? Was he glad he did this? Did he ever recieve negative percussions after his book came out because of what he did? I wonder if down in the south there is any prejudice still alive to this day? Why are people discriminated against because of their skin colour. There is really no difference between our races other than out colour, what made the African American race so hated. I will have to look into these questions in order to answer them, but till then I am going to go back to reading the book. Lol.

I lost my book Black Wind so I started to read Holes by Louis Sachar. The book was written to target a younger audience and this made it a slightly more boring read. I could see all of the coming from a long ways away. This made the book a slower read because it didn't hold my attention and I quit reading several times and picked it up later. I did finish the book but it seemed to have a very picture perfect ending that made it kind of unbelievable. Why would the curse be lifted just because he found a suit case that belonged to his great great grandfather? I also wonder what happened to Zero. After they get out of the camp he just disappears even though Stanley and Zero are best friends and Zero has no one else. Where does he go? I probably would have enjoyed this book a lot more if I would have read it like ten years ago but reading it now I found it very boring and terribly predictable.

Yesterday I started reading Black Wind by Clive Cussler. I am about two thirds of the way through the book and am really enthralled in it. The book is a paperback novel and is well used. This makes it an easy book to read physically as the pages aren't real stiff and you can hold it open easily. Black Wind is written in a third person style which makes it very interesting because it tells both sides of the story so well while yet creating feelings of dislike in you toward the bad guy. It is a very good book and I can't wait to get back to reading it. I wonder how the good guys will be able to pull off a victory with things stacked so strongly agaist them? I don't really see any way for the bad guys plan to fail. Maybe it won't, I guess we will find out but either way I am sure it will be a captivating finish.

Last week I read Honus and Me by Dan Gutman. I was given the book and that combined with the fact that it is about baseball convinced me that I should read it. It is a book that is aimed at a slightly less advanced reading audience but I found it very interesting non the less. The book is fairly small and has a very simple and yet attractive cover. Honus and Me made for a quick and entertaining read. It didn't take very long to read it and easily kept my attention the whole way through. It made me think about a lot of things. In the book the boy finds a tabacco company issued baseball card of Honus Wagner in an old lady's attic when he was cleaning it out. He does some research on the card and finds out that the card is worth more than half a million dollars. He tells the lady this and she says she doesn't want to sell it because it is her last remaining picture of her son. That made me think, if something is worth over half a million dollars is it possible for it to be worth more than money to me? Many family heirlooms are worth more to you than their money value but that is usually because the object itself is almost worthless. If I had something worth that much would I would probably sell it no matter what it was. In the story the old woman is dirt poor but yet she decides not to sell the card because the picture of her son is worth more than half a million dollars to her. Would you keep something worth over half a million dollars even if it was the last remaining picture of your son? What would that be worth to you? Is something like that priceless?

On Monday and Tuesday I read Frightful's Mountain by Jean Craighead George. It is third book in a series and George has won numerous awards for various books in the series. The book is a very nice size with a good balance between big enough pages to be readable and small enough that it isn't cumbersome. I had bought the book new and had only read it once or twice since since so the pages were still very crisp making the pages easy to turn and enjoyable to read. The book is about a boy named Sam Gribley and a falcon named Frightful. I wondered what would inspire an author to write a series about falcons and so I did some research and found out that George, the author, is a falconer and has been fascinated with hawks and falcons, particularly falcons, since he was young so it was a very easy choice to write about them as well. The book itself was pretty interesting, it didn't keep me on the edge of my seat but I did enjoy reading it. It did stir up some emotions inside of me when I read it. I felt the thrill of the chase when the hawk is racing down its next meal, the joy when Frightful escapes from danger and bliss as Sam and Frightful bond into best of friends. I also felt the sorrow when three of Frightful's four eggs froze killing the baby falcons inside. I wonder why Frightful would leave her chick behind once it was old enough to fly? Why doesn't she bring it with her and teach it everything it needs to survive? Why is nature so brutal at times? But at the end of the book a new falcon came by and you learned that it was Frightfuls chick. It was nice to learn that it had survived and had grown up and was doing well. This book was pretty good and it is definately a good book to read if you like nature and birds of prey. I enjoyed reading it.

Yesterday I read The Call of The Wild by Jack London. The book is a hardback novel and the cover is an attractive picture of a blonde haired man with his dog sled team. It was a fairly skinny novel and was large print so it was very easy to read. The book was fairly easy to connect with on a personal basis because the book is set in Alaska and their weather there is much the same as our's here in Saskatchewan. Also I have a dog that acts a lot like the main dog in this book, Buck. But there were some things I couldn't connect with such as the time setting. I couldn't imagine having to rely on a dog sled team to bring in the mail, food, medicine and other necessities. They also got a lot more snow storms than we do. A couple of times in the book they had such bad storms that you couldn't even see more than a foot or two in front of your face and yet the dog sled team had to go on because people were relying on them. And all of the people are always dressed in super big parkas because it is always cold, and even when it is nice it can turn cold in an instant. You always had to be prepared or else you died, it was a harsh life. After a few chapters of the book I predicted that at the end of the book Buck would have to chose between his love for his master and his love for the wild and freedom. I was right in that prediction but I also predicted that he would chose his master. I was wrong there, Buck chose to go live free in the wild. I think that his master let him go because he loved Buck so much that he wanted Buck to be perfectly happy but I still wonder how he could do that. Buck was the main leader of his dog sled team and without Buck he will have a tough time making anymore runs. When he let Buck go he basically gave up his job and his only source of income. He also gave up the thing he loved the most, his dog. Buck was his only real friend. How could you love a dog that much that you would be willing to sacrifice so much for his happiness? I liked the book but thought that the ending was a little foolish. Would a person ever actually give up that much for an animal. Other than that it was a good book and I enjoyed reading it.

On Saturday I read The Trail to Crazy Man by Louis Lamour. It was a short story and was only about one hundred and eighty pages long. This meant the story had to be very brief and concise with a lot of action. This book was a lot different style than the last book I read by Louis Lamour because this one was so much shorter and was a lot more action packed. In this novel it held and captivated you simply because of how much action there was going on at all times. The last book, The Lonesome Gods, was quite big and he held you with a great story. You were really into the characters and their personalities. In this book the characters aren't developed quite as well because of the length but a fairly good job was still done simply because Lamour is a good author and that is one thing he really excels at. I was first attracted to the book because of the author and then the cover really grabbed me. It was quite bright and was a beautiful sunset picture with a lonely cactus in it. It is a story about a man named Rafe Cardac, who saves this lady from having her land taken over by this big cattle baron. It is sort of your typical knight in shining armor story but set in the west. Despite this it was still really interesting and kept me thoroughly engaged. One thing I wonder though is why doesn't she believe him, why does she continually believe the cattle baron even when the cattle baron is so obviously after her land and does not truly care for her? Why does Rafe continually put himself in danger to try to save her from the cattle baron when she herself is fighting him? Why doesn't he just let her be and let her live with her mistakes? I suppose this is because it wouldn't make much of a story then and it wouldn't be very interesting. I can't really connect to Rafe because I have never been in that situation where you have to save someone from themselves but I can imagine it would be tough to keep on trying to help even when you knew they didn't want you too. Either way it made for an interesting read that I really enjoyed

I finished reading The Lonesome Gods by Louis Lamour. It was a very good read and I would recommend it to anyone who likes western novels. The father had become a drunk and had no money at all. I think he was very ashamed of what he had become and that was why he didn`t go back right away. To me he has developed as more of a caring and thoughtful person than the cruel and indifferent person I had first seen in my head. That was very interesting and was a development I wasn`t expecting. This sort of reminds me of a lot of people because I know a lot of parents that are split up. But yet at the same time he didn`t leave because he wanted to he left because he had to go make them some money. I still wonder why he didn`t come back after finding the gold and why he spent it all gambling and drinking instead. I feel that his fathers absence was what made life so rough on the young boy, especially when his mother died and he was the only one there to mourn her. Then he set out on his quest to find his father but it was many, many years before they finally met. If the father was at home the whole time the story would have been totally different because the mom probably wouldn`t have died because she wouldn`t have had to work so hard. At first I felt mad at the father and then sorrier and sorrier for him as I saw the awful downward spiral he had got himself into. This story is obviously more interesting and grabbing then the one I had mentioned before where things were perfect and I wonder why a story about tragedy and hard times is more interesting to us than a story where everything works out perfectly all of the time? Is it because it is more realistic then?

Today I started reading The Lonesome Gods by Louis Lamour. I am about thirteen chapters into the book. This book grabbed me right from the start and it was tough to put it down. So far the book is about a boy whose mother has died and he has taken off and is looking for his father who is somewhere in the west. This book is about his adventures he goes through in order to track down his father. It has been very interesting so far and I can`t wait to start reading again. I wonder why his dad is gone from home to start with and why he doesn`t come home when his wife falls sick. Is he dead, does he not have any communication with the east at all or does he simply not care. This book I am reading is so far fairly simular to another book I read a couple of years ago. The biggest difference is the setting. The other book was set in England and this one is set in America. I look forward to finishing this book.

I finished the book Ghost Recon and it had a very exciting but also very unexpected ending. The Taiwanese colonel, named Fang Zhi, defected and went and joined the Chinese. He and several other leading Chinese generals were having meetings to plan a series a series of attacks that would send the whole world into war. The Americans found out about the final part of these meetings and sent in their "Ghost" task force to infiltrate the base the Chinese were at and to take out all of the leaders. Scott Mitchell had moved up in the special forces and was now in fact the leader of this extremely elite "Ghost Reconnaissance" task force. The "Ghosts" went in and successfully eliminated all of the targets and on their way out Mitchell ran into Fang Zhi. This resulted in a really big battle and then a big chase that just about killed them all but finally ended with the death of Fang Zhi. I got a sense of completion and accomplishment when i read this ending and Michaels did a really good job of rapping the book up. I had guessed that Mitchell and Fang Zhi would end up fighting each other but this is one way that I didnt ever think of. At the same time it fit very well with all of the characters personalities so it made me wonder why I didn't think of it. It was so obvious once I had read it and yet before I would never have guessed it. The book was well written and kept me interested throughout. I would definately recommend it to all people who enjoy fiction war novels.

This Monday we went to the library as a class to pick out books to read. I chose to read Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon by David Michaels. I chose this book because it is a good science fiction/action mix and had a bright cover that caught my eye. I had heard that it was a good book and the summary sounded appealing to me. It has been a great book so far. I just started reading it yesterday and I am already four fifths done the book, I will probably finish the book tonight. I have really enjoyed it and can’t put it down. David Michaels does a really good job of introducing the characters to you and then bringing them to life. Every time they get hurt or killed you share in the pain with the rest of the crew and every time they escape a tight situation you celebrate with them. The main character is an American named Scott Mitchell. The book starts with him and his team being ambushed by rebels in Taiwan. As they got deeper and deeper into trouble they called for backup from a Taiwanese army patrol located nearby. The commander of the patrol refuses to come and help them because he doesnt want to lead his team into almost certain death just to help out some Americans. I get the feeling he has had a bad experience an American before and holds it against all Americans but I guess we will see. Either way this creates a very interesting relationship between these two men who are supposed to be allies. As the book goes along they continually meet and clash. Michaels does a really good job of making you like Scott Mitchell and dislike this Taiwanese colonel. That is one of the things I have a question about, I can almost sense that they will have one final epic clash but I am not sure how Michaels will be able to do that as they are allies and can't really fight each other. But one thing I know for sure is that I am excited to finish this book!

Yes, i got some ads up. Hopefully i will be rich in a couple of months, lol. JK.

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I created this blog to post my thoughts on the books I will be reading in ELA 20 this year.

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