I Am Number Four; the Lost Files of Six

  In the book I Am Number Four; the Lost Files of Six by Pittacus Lore aliens have arrived to earth from Lorien to hide from war with another species of aliens named the Mogadorians. The Lorins have to hide and develope their legacys ( powers) that will help them stop the Mogadorians and take back their planet. Unfortunately there are only ten of them three are dead and seven of them are left. The main character in this book 6 ( the aliens from Lorien have names that go by number) struggles to survive in earth with her cepân (their trainers who help them train for battle and kin of their parents but with no legacys). In the book 6 personality changes.
    One of the major personality changes was the difference between when she was 12 and when she became 18 . When she was 12 she feared the Mogadorins and doubted herself about not being able to stop them. But when she became 18 she doesn't fear them anymore and is willing to kill as much of them that come in her way.
    Another personality change was when they were captured in the Mogadorians cave were they were tortured to death to tell them everything they knew. When she was in her cafe she wanted to die. She knew that she couldn't be a warrior without her legacys and she thrived to see the cepân Katrina. Who then later gets killed when 6 lies and says her number was 8. This changed her personality because after Katrina was killed she became a warrior seeking revenge on the Mogadorians.
   All in all I think that this book is amazing. It is compacted with adventure, science fiction, action, and romance.

Jason Lei                                                                                                                             10/7/13

813                                                                                                                                        ELA

Dear Ms.Berner,

        Imagine a world without books because freethought was illegal. Imagine that books k and in that world are being taken away and burned. This is what happens in the book Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, one of the most challenged books in our country. This is how I feel when books are being banned because these books are being taking away from our reach. Books all around us are being banned for ignorant attributes like offensive language and drug abuse. I believe that books should not be taken from our libraries because books help us cope with our feelings and they help us run away from our scary worlds to a one that makes us feel important.

        Many authors like Sherman Alexie, author of “ The Absolute Diary of a Part-Time Indian” concur with my claim. In the article “Why the Best Kids are Written in Blood” by Sherman Alexie, he talks about how teens from different schools survived many hardships, like poverty and gang warfare in order to graduate. In the article he also writes about why he contradicts to Megan Cox Gurdon’s article, “Darkness Too Visible”, on banned books and how young adults books are dark and horrendous. “ And there are millions of teens who read because they are sad and lonely and enraged. They read because they live in often-terrible world. They read because they believe, despite the callow protestation of certain adults, that books-especially the dark dangerous ones-will save them.” Alexie discusses that we read these “Gruesome” books because they help us learn to deal with what is going on in our lives and how to help ourselves get back on our feet.  “ I write to give them weapons -in a form of words and ideas-that will help them fight their monsters” Alexie adds. All in all Sherman Alexie talks about how we can no longer be protected and teens need books to help them run away from their scary lives and if they were not able to run away because books like “The Absolute Diary of a Part-Time Indian” are being taken of the shelves in our libraries then teens won’t learn how to cope and solve their problems.

        Books all over the world are being banned from schools like Fahrenheit 451, Harry Potter, Where’s Waldo, and Crank. One of the schools is Conroe High School in Montgomery, Texas. Diana Verm, a student in Conroe High School was offended by the book “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury. She said that after reading the first few pages she immediately closed the book because in the book they burned the Bible, but Diana didn’t understand the concept of the book. The purpose of the book was to allow free thought and say that books are good not evil. The book disagrees with burning the Bible because the Bible is a book. I believe that if Diana read the book a more indepth instead of skimming through the pages for little details that support her claim that the book does truly disagree with burning the Bible and other books.

Harry Potter is another issue in our libraries. Catholic schools are taking down the book out because of witchcraft and sorcery. Many other schools believe that the book is inappropriate and have taken the book out of libraries because of disrespect to adults. Another issue in our library is the book “Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky. Glen Ellyn School in District 41 is taking the book away from the school library because of sexual content and inappropriate language. In the article “ Glen Ellyn D41 Removes Perks of Being a Wallflower From School Shelves” by Quan Truong the school had a debate on removing the book from the libraries. Anne Blyth, a parent of a student in the schools says “They’re young adults and we can’t keep them in a bubble. If they want to keep their kids in a bubble, that’s fine, but they shouldn’t be telling me what to do.” Many other parent and teachers also agree with Blyth but as a result the school board voted in favor to remove the book from school libraries.

Writer of “Darkness too Visible” Megan Cox Gurdon disagrees with not banning books. In her article she talks about how young adult books these days are dark and filled with profanity. She talks about how young adult books started to get gruesome and how books back then were also written in blood .But, what she doesn’t understand is that these books are meant to be dark so we can relate to them and if we can relate to them we can learn hot to help ourselves in these times of trouble. Taking away these books is like taking away our freedom because we need these books to understand the way of life.

        In conclusion, we shouldn’t be banning books because we need  learn how to help ourselves and if books are being taken away from us then we won’t be able to learn. People who disagree like, Megan Cox Gurdon don’t fully understand why these books are important to us and need to stop trying to protect us from the world because they don’t think we can handle the it.  

The inventions of Hugo Cabret - Jason lei

From what I thought the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick was amazing. The book wasn't only compact with words in paragraphs like in ordinary books but in this book it is also compact with very detailed pictures. In the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret the main Hugo is an orphan who lives in the ceiling of a busy Paris railway terminal where he works as a clock keeper. The only way for Hugo to survive is to steal from local shops. Hugo's life was wonderful before living with his father who worked at museum. One day his father was working late at the museum and the guard didn't know he was still in the museum so he locked the doors. Unfortunately the museum caught on fire and Hugo's father was stuck in there. He later moved in with uncle, a drunk who worked as the cock keeper in the terminal with no money and didn't care for Hugo. One day his Uncle drowned in the Seine. Hugo's goal was to fix the automaton his father brought home from the museum one day.

It is amazing how  young boy can live on his own without any parental guidance. Hugo was a very mysterious boy who always stole from the toy shop owned by a man named Georges Méliès, a famous movie producer who later became broke when World War One happened. Hugo often stole the toys to use the parts to fix the automation. When Georges caught him he took the book Hugo has drawn in with specific details of the missing parts the automaton needs. When Georges flipped through the book the immediately became scared and frightened because he was the creator of the automaton. He took the book way from Hugo and wanted to burn it. Georges was an important character in the book because he was a lot like Hugo, both stubborn and curious. Hugo was paranoid about how Georges knew about the automatons and was curious why Georges feared them so much so he decided to find out. He needed someones help and he then befriended Georges god daughter Isabelle Méliès. She too had no parents due to a car accident and was willing to accompany Hugo in his journey.

What I liked about this book so much was that it was filled with pictures that described what was going on.I highly recommend this book because it is unique from other books and it is filled with comedy and adventure.

Prodigy by Marie Lu - Jason Lei

After finishing the first book Legend by Marie Lu I decided to read the sequel to it. In the book Prodigy, Day and June have joined the Patriots to find Day's brother Eden. But to get the help of the Patriots the would have to complete a mission, to assassin the new Elector Primo, Aidan. June was sent to bring herself into the Republic and again the trust of the Elector. While June was in the inside she changed a lot in what she believed in.

Before June was sent in the inside she was in love with Day. She only joined the Patriots because she wanted to help him find his brother and she didn't want to leave him behind. But when she was sent  in the inside she soon fell for Aidan the new Elector Primo. They had a lot in common, they both went to Drake University, both came from rich families, and they both think alike. 

She also wasn't sure if killing Aidan was right. Before when she wasn't sent into the Republic to gain trust of Aidan she didn't want anything to do with him and she didn't care if he died because she has grown to hate the Republic for what they have done to her family. But when she was sent into the inside she missed the life of being rich and eating fancy foods and wearing fancy clothing.

June changed over time because she didn't know what to do, save Aidan or trust the Patriots. 

Faithful Elephants by Yukio Tsuchiya Jason Lei

Faithful Elephants by Yukio Tsuchiya, takes place in the Ueno Zoo in Japan while Japan was in war. The book is about how the Ueno Zoo had to kill all the animals in the zoo because they were ordered to do so by the Japanese Government because if a bomb were to ever hit the zoo the animals might be a possible threat to the people of Tokyo. In the book we learn that we have to make sacrifices in life.

One of the sacrifices they made in the book was that they had to kill the animals in the zoo. This was a big sacrifice because the employees and trainers worked with the animals everyday and they grew a bond with the animals in the Ueno Zoo. They grew such a strong bond with the animals that they even thought about send the animals to another zoo in Japan but they weren't sure if bombs were going to drop there either. This shows that they really didn't want the animals dead.

Another sacrifice they made in the book was that they had to kill John the elephant. John was one of the employee's and trainer's favorite and so were the other elephants Tonky and Wanly who also had to die. John was the first of the three elephants to die. He was also a very smart elephant and they had to try a couple of times trying to kill him. The first attempt of killing John was was mixing poisonous potatoes in the his potatoes but John threw the poisonous ones out. The second attempt  was trying to inject poison into him but his tough skin snapped the needle in half. The last and final attempt was starving  john to death. This worked and became the solution method of killing the elephants. Even though the trainers had to kill John they felt terrible. They treated the elephants like their own like their child and they had to watch it die.

The last major scafrice they mad was killing the last. To elephants Tonky and Wanly. They were starved to death just like John because it was the only method they tried that worked. Killing the last two elephants was really hard on the trainers because they were the last animals in the zoo. The trainers and employees also had to watch them slowly die everyday. The trainer and employees felt terrible that when Tonky and Wanly did their Banzai trick it broke the trainers heart that he ran to get them food and water. This shows that he loved them. Another wayit shows that the trainer loved the elephants was how before the elephants were dying he held them tight and watch as their eyes went as white as ever.

In conclusion, Faithful Elephants doesn't only teach us that we have to make sacrifices in life but it teaches us that some sacrifice aren't supposed to be made and should be made because they are wrong and stupid. 

Divergent by Veronica Roth - Jason Lei

In the book Divergent, the human society has been split up into 5 fraction. Each fraction represented one thing they believed in that the human race lacked. For an example, the Erudite believed that the human lacked intelligent so the people of Erudite were intelligent. When you turned 16 you were to make an important decision on which of the four groups you would like to transfer to.The main character Beatrice, was born Abnegation,the people of Abnegation believed that people were too selfish. Beatrice thought that she didn't fit in Abnegation because she didn't really believe in acting selflessly, so she transferred to Dauntless. The Dauntless fraction believed in bravery, and Beatrice did show bravery for choosing Dauntless. In the Divergent Beatrice sacrificed a lot to become Dauntless.
One of the sacrifices she made was leaving her family. She left them so she can live her life happy in the fraction she chooses, but the downside was she would have to leave them and that she might never see them again. The second sacrifice was change her looks so her parents won't recognize her. She thought that it would be better for her and her parents if she didn't become to attached to them when she was away. So, she tattooed three bird on her leg to represent the people she left.
The book Divergent is really good because of many things,like shows self confidence. I haven't finished the book yet but so far it is really good. It has a lot of action from her training she has to do. I recommend this book because it is mind blowing.

Walking Dead pt 2

In the second half of the book, in the Walking Dead me and my book club found more answers to our question about how the weather affects the protagonist. We also made many questions about various things while we were finishing the book.

We found that another way the weather affected the protagonist was during the snow storm and they had to leave because they were running out of supplies and when they were on the road they found Tyreese and his family on the road. They also had to stay in creepy estate filled with walkers for one night because of the weather. The weather also affected then because the next day while they stayed at the estate they went searching in the other houses and a couple of the members of the group died