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 HalimaĀ 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 RamirezĀ 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 āgood morning,ā 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. Fraserās 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…
By Isabela Berstein The time whenĀ I read Giovanniās Room, an extraordinary novella by the even more extraordinary James Baldwin, could have been the worst possible moment ā but, surprisingly, it might have turned out to be the best. I was living through my very first real winter ā all the previous eighteen had been a collection of only slightly chillier and less rainy summer days, as every winter is in Rio de Janeiro. I was cold all the time, I…
By Megan Hatfield Have you ever thought what it would be like to be invisible and no one could either hear or see you? What about having the ability to control your future or go back to the past, while still living in the present? āImagine if all your choices were gone. Except one. And itās the only one that truly matters.ā Well If this intrigued you, I would say that this book is definitely the perfect fit.Ā If I…