By Tyler Bell The smell of fire fills the air as smoke blocks out the street lights. For the fireman “it was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and changed.” Books burn on the street corner as many come out to watch the scene for their evening entertainment. The number 451 is illuminated by the burning books. This is the world of Fahrenheit 451 as envisioned by Ray Bradbury in 1953. While living through the…
By Siarra Hoover I had always told my friends and family that I did not like to read on my own time, let alone for a school assignment. But then I walked into my seventh-grade language arts class. I found out that we had to read books on our own as well as a couple as a class. I was dreading going to that class every day because I had no desire to read whatsoever. However, that changed slightly when I…
By Ethan Brooker During my junior year of high school, I took an AP language course with the wonderful Ms. Hale. This class was rather quite different, as we focused on the values and lessons taught in literature instead of the basic curriculum taught. This class is where I was gratefully introduced to the masterpiece that is Tuesdays With Morrie. The many lessons that we learned from reading Tuesdays With Morrie revolved around the ideas and values introduced. As I…
By Ellie Harshbarger When I came across The Last Song for the first time it was the movie, not the book. Miley Cyrus played the lead role and just like every other girl my age that was the reason I had to watch it. I was nine years old at the time, so my understanding of the events occurring in the movie is drastically different from how I now view things while reading the novel. When I was younger I…
By Ash Moen My father has a poster in his bedroom that has scary monsters on it. They swing from branches that should not be able to support their weight and they look disturbing. It is a poster from the pages of the book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak. It was his favorite book growing up, and the source of nightmares for me. But as I have gotten older I am able to appreciate the story for…
By Alan Cohn Rick Riordan is a New York Times bestselling author of over twenty novels. He is known for mythology-based book series like The Kane Chronicles, Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, and Percy Jackson and & the Olympians. I have been well versed in Rick Riordan’s books since middle school. If I remember correctly, I started reading them because I needed something to do during my library period. Back then I was, and even now I am,…
By Halima Elmajdoubi In many novels, the protagonist is often the character that you root for. They are the hero that will save the day, or the underdog that you wish will inevitably prove themselves, discover true love, escape persecution, or all of the above. Right? This could not be said for Edna Pontellier–or at least not at first. In The Awakening by Kate Chopin, the protagonist, Edna Pontellier, is not particularly likable, nor immediately relatable. I did not turn the…
By Josselyne Ramirez Esperanza: to want something to happen and be true, also known as hope. Esperanza Cordero is the name of a young Latina girl in the novel, The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros. In her coming-of-age journey, she longs for a home of her own where she can be herself. A space far from Mango street where she can develop her hybrid cultural identity. She is given this home by her parents, resolving the main problem,…
By Denis Harkin In everyday life we share connections with people. Whether that is a significant other, teacher, or a policeman that is directing traffic through a closed off area of your daily route. These connections might look like a kiss on the cheek, a smile and a “good morning,” or a simple wave of hello. It’s in these small connections that humans show patterns in their daily life, but do we easily recognize every connection people have with others?…
By Teddy Mitchell When I first read this book, I was sitting in my eighth grade class on the third floor in Mr. Fraser’s class. We read it aloud as a class and characterized each relevant character in the story and wrote full descriptions up on the board for each one. Every night, we would be assigned readings and small essays, comparing and contrasting the lives of the characters and the relevance of each one to the main plot of…