May
22
Book Assignment #1 – 2019
Due Friday, 5/24 by 11:59 p.m. 500 words minimum.
Please include the title of your book in your response in every blog.
a. Summarize your reading for the first third of your book. Identify the subject of the book or main characters. Be sure to identify what you think the author’s thesis or major theme is in the book.
b. Provide a biographical sketch of the author and his / her other books.
c. Connect your reading to something we’ve studied in APUSH. What did you learn from the book that you didn’t already know? Were you surprised by something? If so, what?
d. What questions / thoughts do you have w/ regards to the direction of the book / development of the characters?
The Orphan Train Blog Entry #1
The first third of The Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline is very interesting. It goes back and forth between two stories: the story of Molly, an orphan in 2011, and Niamh, an Irish immigrant turned orphan in 1929. Molly, one of the protagonists, is a gothic teenage girl that doesn’t feel like she fits in. She became an orphan after her dad died, and her mom went crazy. She lives with her foster parents, Dina and Ralph, who don’t care all that much about her, especially Dina. After getting caught stealing an old book that Dina refused to pay for, she was given the choice between juvie and 50 hours of community service. She chose the community service, and ended up cleaning out an old woman’s, Vivian’s, attic. This is where the two stories connect. Vivian is really Niamh. I can infer that her name was changed. At the point I am at, one third of the way through, her name was changed to Dorothy after foster “parents” took her in. They treat her terribly, and really only want her for work. I think a major theme in this book is not fitting in. Both Molly and Niamh/Dorothy/Vivian feel like outcasts. Molly is constantly moving and always feels like the weird new girl. Dorothy, at this point in the book, is an Irish immigrant left without a family, and forced to work for a nasty woman, with a group of mean girls. I think the author is trying to show parallels between both of their lives. She wants to integrate the two stories in a clever, meaningful way.
The author of The Orphan Train is Christina Baker Kline. She was born in Cambridge, England, but moved to Maine as a child. She graduated from Yale, Cambridge, and The University of Virginia. She taught several different English and writing courses at Yale and NYU. Now, she lives in New York with her husband and three sons. She has written other books including A Piece of the World, The Way Life Should Be, and Sweet Water. Most of her novels fall under the fiction genre, whether is be historical fiction or literary fiction.
This novel connects a lot to the immigration patterns we learned about in APUSH. I think Niamh and her late family would fall under the second wave of immigration. They came to America for a better life. In Ireland, they were constantly cold, hungry, and poor. Once they got to America, what they thought was going to be a land of plenty, almost like a made up, magical place, they realized that their lives weren’t all that great. They were judged just by the way they looked. Niamh’s father was hired for a very low wage. He was also an alcoholic. In one passage, she compared her father’s job to indentured servitude; he was working hard in America under poor conditions for the hope of an eventual better life , just like indentured servants coming to the New World. They were shoved into a crowded tenement, probably filled with disease. These are all conditions of immigrants that we learned about in class. Another person in the story who connects to the immigration patterns we learned about is Niam’s foster “dad.” When the orphans were being inspected, he was drawn to her because she was Irish. He had auburn hair. He said he came over during the famine. In APUSH, we learned about the Irish potato famine. He probably would have come into the country at the very tail end of the first wave of immigration. In this book, I learned about how orphans were treated. It was really terrible. I knew about convict leasing and other forms of modern slavery, but never this. Many of the male children, like Dutchy, were chosen for hard labor. The man who was going to foster him straight up told him that he’d be working on the farm. Also, the orphans are given little food and water, don’t have decent everyday things like bathrooms, beds, or warm blankets, and are not listened to when they try to speak up. Most of the people who were going to “foster” them really only wanted a free source of labor. This seems like a modern form a slavery. It was really surprising that people would treat kids like this in the 1920s and 1930s.
I have made the connection that Niamh is really Vivian. I am wondering how she got to the point where she is. Molly described Vivian as a rich women living in a mansion. Niamh came from nothing. Right now, her name is Dorothy. I wonder what she does to probably get sent back, and have her named changed to Vivian. Another question I have is why did nobody care that these children were being exploited? They were treated so inhumanely, and really, nobody cared whether they found families or not. The leader of the orphan train often complained about her job, and said she only did it to “do her Christian duty.” But, to me, what she was doing was not very Christian.
a.) The Front Runner started with a informal prologue that began with the author, Matt Bai following Gary Hart through Colorado as the two drive to his house. They stop along the way at Red Rocks amphitheater, the location where Hart announced that he would be running for president for the second time. It is clear to the reader at this point that this is taking place in a much more modern time, closer to now than when Hart was actually a presidential candidate. Once they reach Harts home in Kittredge, and Bai and Hart begin to talk. While this is occurring, Bai fills in the reader about how Hart was attacked by the media, he became the first major political scandal involving a public figure, and his past relationships and infidelities. Bai tells about how Hart will forever be remembered for his scandal, and the way the media interacted with him while this was occurring. As this occurred during a time when news and nationwide media was really breaking through to the country, this story became widely publicized and was very hot news. The media staked out his home, and some would say crossed boundaries to try to see Hart and get an interview. While Bai is telling this, his conversation with Hart occasionally breaks through also, they talk about what this time was like for him, and how it has affected him thereafter. After this chapter, time is flipped back and Hart is now being described as a new and fresh Democrat, time has flipped back to before Hart was even a presidential candidate. His policies and life before the scandal are touched on, how he would and could’ve been a change for the party and politics as a whole had this scandal not wrecked his career. Near the end of the section, he begins his bid for Presidency and his awkward and weird relationship with the media begins. The author seeks to set up background for the situation of Hart’s scandal while also talking about the media’s affect on the situation as a whole and how it was changing in the nation.
b.) Matt Bai has worked as an author, journalist, and screenwriter in his career. He now works as a political columnist for Yahoo News. He was once a chief political correspondent for the New York Times Magazine, where he covered three presidential elections. His most popular book, All The Truth Is Out, covered the Gary Hart political scandal, which is the book I’m reading. The title was changed after the major motion picture was released. He still appears frequently on NPR’s meet the press show and he also played himself on the Netflix show House of Cards. He also worked to write a book called the Argument, which covers the battle to remake the Democratic party politics in a timely fashion as it was vital to the party as a whole. This book was a New York Times notable Book in 2007.
c.) One way we’ve learned in APUSH is the Clinton Lewinsky scandal, which is very recent in our studies. This connects because like the Clinton scandal, Hart was also exposed for having an affair while in some form of office, for Hart, it was when he was in Congress. This directly affects the Clinton scandal also because Hart was the first one of these scandals to be jumped upon by the press and be blown up to being huge nationwide news. This affects Clinton because when his scandal with Lewinsky came out, the media was all over it and it became a huge deal with Clinton being impeached and such. Hart was the guinea pig when it came to how the media dealt with political scandals like these and for that reason his life was intruded on and the media didn’t hold back when it came to finding out about him. For scandals to come after him, the media showed more restraint and much more tactical actions when they covered and dug into these scandals. This book is showing me just how much the media has changed when it comes to politics. Before the Hart scandal, politicians were much looser with their conduct and secrecy, it was almost like Hart made no effort to cover up his affair and to hide the woman from the public. Now, the media is a much larger presence in politics and our lives, which changes how politicians act.
d.) I think the book will now develop in a much more chronological way, doing rid with the jumps in time that the beginning had to offer. It will be interesting to see how Hart develops into a veteran politician, as he is currently rather young in his career and unproven. I wonder how the affair is going to surface, and what the scene will be like when it is first announced. It has been hinted at that the media surrounded his house trying to see him, so that should be an interesting part of the book.
“Man Hunt, The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden–from 9/11 to Abbottabad” by Peter L Bergen delivers a taut yet panoramic account of the pursuit and killing of Osama bin Laden. The Main characters as of now are Osama Bin Laden and his accomplices in the terrorist organization Al Qaeda. The prologue is titled a comfortable retirement. This passage is about the final years of bin Laden himself. He spent almost six years in his last hideout in self-enforced austere house arrest, surrounded by his wives and children. As Bergen notes, it was “a comfortable retirement.” Bergen then transitions to a new chapter called 9/11 and after. In this chapter, Bergen takes the reader inside the mind of Osama Bin Laden as he carries out his September 11th terrorist attacks. He describes Bin Laden’s motives, strategies, and the ultimate execution of his master plan. Peter also talks about Bin Laden’s close accomplices’ reactions to the attacks. Following these descriptions, Bergen analyzes Bin Laden’s actions and life immediately after the terrorist attacks. Bergen talks about Bin Laden’s life in the Tora Bora mountains, where he went into hiding for the first time. Bergen analyzes Osama’s living conditions, family members struggles, and the eventual decline of the AL-Qaeda terrorist organization. In this chapter, Bergen makes it evident that while Osama was in the mountains of Tora Bora, he was extremely vulnerable. America initiated a bombing raid on the location in an attempt to drive Bin Laden out of hiding but it failed miserably.
Peter Bergen (born December 12, 1962) is a British-American journalist and author who serves as CNN’s national security analyst, New America’s vice president, and as a professor of practice at Arizona State University.] He produced the first television interview with Osama bin Laden in 1997. The interview, which aired on CNN, marked the first time that bin Laden declared war against the United States to a Western audience. Bergen has written or edited seven books: Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden (2001), The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda’s Leader (2006), The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and Al-Qaeda (2011),[3] Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden From 9/11 to Abbottabad (2012), Talibanistan: Negotiating the Borders Between Terror, Politics, and Religion (2013), Drone Wars: Transforming Conflict, Law, and Policy (2014), and United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown Terrorists (2016). Three of the books were New York Times bestsellers, four of the books were named among the best non-fiction books of the year by the Washington Post and they have been translated into twenty-one languages.
In APUSH we haven’t really gone into depth yet about the 9/11 terrorist attacks. However, I have learned a great deal from just reading the first third of this book. I feel like I have a much better understanding of the actual attack, terrorist groups such as the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and just Osama Bin Laden in general. I didn’t know that immediately after American secret services got explicit evidence that Bin Laden ordered and executed the attacks, America bombed numerous hiding spaces occupied by Osama Bin Laden and failed on all of their mission. One detail about Osama in the novel surprised me very much. It was Osama’s final warning testament to his children after he escaped from Tora Bora where advised his children to not join or work with a terrorist group of any kind. I found this surprising because most often terrorists breed and recruit children to join their groups.
How Bin Laden’s life shifted after he leaves Tora Bora? How will Bin Laden manage to reconstruct his terrorist group Al Qaeda that is in shambles? Will America continue to bomb other hiding places Osama was or could be in?
A.) The book I’m reading is The Private Thoughts of Amelia E. Rye, by Bonnie Shimko. Its written as a diary from the perspective of Amelia. She’s a white elementary school student in 1960s America. She’s a very lonely child, her father ran off with another woman when she was young, and her mother has never been caring or loving towards her. For a long time, the only person in her corner was her Grandpa Thomas. The bullies at school directed their attacks only at Amelia for years until a black girl named Fancy came to her school. Since she was black, this gave bullies ten times more ammunition to be mean, but overtime Fancy let the insults roll right off her back. Fancy and Amelia became best friends, but Amelia had to hide this from her mother. Amelia’s mother was very racist and if she knew that Fancy wasn’t white, she would have never let her and her daughter remain friends. At the end of this third of the book, Grandpa Thomas has a stroke and this is very difficult for Amelia as he makes his way through a long recovery. At the very end of this section, the woman whom Amelia’s father had run off with, came back and Amelia tries to build the courage to confront her. I think the main theme of this book will be coming of age.
B.) Bonnie Shimko was originally a second grade teacher but after thirty three years decided to change her career path and write young adult novels instead. She published her first book in 2002 and ended up winning the Lambada Literary Award for it. In 2006 she released Kat’s Promise, in 2010 she released The Private Thoughts of Amelia E. Rye, in 2013 You Know What You Have to Do, and most recently in 2015 Stony Lonesome Road.
C.) One thing from APUSH that connects to this book is the consistent racism and discrimination even after the Civil Rights Movement. Amelia’s mother refuses to allow her to go to black children’s homes, even when they’re close friends. Also, the other students at their elementary school choose specific things about Fancy’s race to make fun of. They cut off her braids that are different than what they’re used to seeing because she has such a different type of hair. Also, they make comments about how Fancy looks “dirty” and they’re glad they have such clean skin because it’s white. In class we learned that despite laws being passed that banned segregation in places such as work, they couldn’t stop social discrimination such as the kind that is prevalent in Fancy’s life.
D.) I think as the book moves on there will be a lot of drama. Amelia is making decisions that are almost certain to upset her mother such as talking to her father’s ex, and spending time with Fancy. It seems inevitable that her mother will find out and it will cause a lot of trouble. Also, I’m not sure what will happen with her Grandpa, I think he will recover, but their relationship may change over time as Amelia grows up.
The Astronaut Wives Club is a book about the seven wives of astronauts of the Mercury astronauts. From the beginning of the book, we just know these women as the husband of the Mercury astronauts, but actually, the news begins to dig into their lives and what they do. In the first third of the book, it tells a short story about which wife of the astronaut this is something about them. Also in the book, it talks about how the news has barged into their lives and how they have handled it. For example, the news found all the women’s house and most of the time the newscasters were welcomed into the house. In the first part, they also talked about how the United States was still behind Russia in their space race, at the time of the chapter. One major thing that happened was John’s wife was awaiting takeoff, but it was rescheduled for another date because of the weather. Annie was devastated and her reaction was on TV. The main theme in the book is family because all of the news castings relate to how the wives feel about their husbands leaving and if they are safe.
Lily Koppel was born in 1981 and she is a writer that currently lives in New York City. Koppel writes for The New York Times and other publications. She graduated from Barnard College in 2003 with a degree in English Literature and creative writing. Koppel began contributing reporting to The New York Times Boldface Names celebrity column in 2003. She is best known for two books, The Astronaut Wives Club and The Red Leather Diary. The Red Leather Diary is also a historical non-fiction book about an old journal that was found and written in from 1929-1934. She has also appeared on many popular shows such as The Today Show and Good Morning America.
To connect this book to something that we’ve already learned in APUSH was about the space race with the Soviet Union. The Space Race began on August 2, 1955, when the Soviet Union responded to the US announcement four days earlier of intent to launch artificial satellites, by declaring they would also launch a satellite “in the near future”. The Soviet Union beat the US to the first successful launch, with October 4, 1957, orbiting of Sputnik 1. The race reached its peak when the US first landed on the moon. Another thing shown in the book was the “duck and cover drills” which was practiced by children in schools, who were taught to cover their heads because of the threat of nuclear war. Something in the book that I learned was how the reporters were just able to enter into the wives homes. This was surprising because their husbands weren’t home at the time to help them.
Something that I am a little confused by in the book is when it is going to switch to the different astronaut wives. At the beginning of the book, it says other people like “The New Nine” and “The Fourteen” and I was wondering when it would change and why it would change. I also wonder why the book would switch from different topics and not just focus on one of the groups and their wives. Something I like about this book is how they really describe each character, so its harder to get them mixed up with all of the names.
For my independent reading book, I chose When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka. The story takes place in the midst of World War II. A small Japanese family has been receiving letters for a few weeks now instructing them to pack their things and meet for a train on a specific day. The mother, poised and strong, must keep her two children (one boy and one girl) calm while her husband fights in the war. To do so, she tells the kids that they must get ready to go on a vacation. When they ask her where they are going, she simply replies “I’m not sure.” No names are used to describe the characters, only “the woman”, “the girl”, and “the boy.” On the train, it is hot and cramped. At several times, bricks are thrown through the windows by people outside of the train. The children do not understand what’s happening, but do understand that the conditions are terrible. At the end of the first third of the novel, the train arrives at what is a Japanese Internment camp in Utah. The camp is historically known as the “Topaz War Relocation Center.”
Julie Otsuka is a Japanese author that was born in California in 1962. This book is based off of her own family’s history; her mother, uncle, and grandmother were sent to the same internment camp while her grandfather was arrested shortly after the Pearl Harbor bombing. Otsuka’s second novel, “The Buddha in the Attic”, is about Japanese experiences in America as well.
This book portrays a realistic experience of the Japanese internment during World War II that we covered in APUSH. After the Pearl Harbor bombing, Americans became terrified and threatened by Japanese immigrants and Japanese-Americans. So, many families like the one in the novel were sent to internment camps during the war where they lived in awful conditions, even though they hadn’t done anything wrong. I was surprised by how fast the Japanese had to pack up. In the book, the woman had to kill their dog and chicken because they weren’t allowed to take pets with them. This really made me sad; I can’t imagine having to do something like that. I was also surprised at how accepting some of the Japanese were with the situation. If I were in the same situation, I would have been very stubborn and sad to leave my home. The only thing so far that has stricken me as new information is the train; I never knew how the Japanese got to these camps, but now I do.
For the rest of the book, I wonder how the children will adapt to their new surroundings. Will they finally understand what is going on? I also wonder what will happen to the father. Will they ever get to leave the camp? I also hope to learn more about the mother. So far, she seems quite strange and weirdly accepting of the situation. As I read more of this book, I hope to gain a better understanding of what Japanese internment was actually like.
The reading takes a dive into not only the crisis and how it progresses, but also Mendez himself. He spends a lot of time detailing specific people and how they contributed to the crisis or to helping the situation. It starts talking about how Mendez had a passion for art, but progresses on to cannonball into how the crisis began in the first place. The reason for the riots was that the United States had put a Shah guy in power and the Iranian people didn’t like his tyrannical rule. He got sick and fled to the US because the Iranian people wanted him dead, but we took him in and refused to give him back. Apparently students first entered the embassy on the Memorial Day of Iranian students being killed. The embassy was broken into through one unbarricaded window and ended up overtaking the embassy after two men (who tried to compromise with the rioters) were going to die if the remaining safe embassy workers didn’t surrender. Mendez then goes on to talk about how he became a part of the CIA and worked to become chief of authentication. Where I leave off is when Mendez is talking about how they were looking for a solution obviously, and Carter was looking like a pushover for doing nothing while hostages stayed in Iran. Mendez is literally documenting his experience as one of the leaders of the operation, so I think his main theme right now is strength. He’s searching for a strong idea, people to be be strong and lean on in times of need (he is one of those people) and highlights Carter’s lack of strength during this time of crisis. American is viewed as (probably) the strongest nation in the world during this time, and Mendez is figuring out a way to start acting like it.
Mendez was born in Nevada in 1940. His family moved to Colorado after his dad died in a copper mining accident, and he went to Colorado university and studied art. He applied to be an overseas artist for the U.S. Navy, and he then bobbed and weaved his way into an espionage artist for the Technical Services Division where he specialized in identity document forgery and creating disguises. He worked as an officer in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. He served in the CIA for 25 years, and has created three memoirs about his experiences in the CIA.
The Iranian hostage crisis is something we covered in APUSH, so it’s a connection itself. I learned about how there was an attack on the embassy the year before the embassy was taken over, and the embassy works actually believed that the rioters just wanted to “sit and talk” like they were chanting. I was surprised that one of the Marines tried to go outside to reason with the crowd, and that obviously didn’t end well. On top of that, I don’t know how to feel about us not giving up the Shah. Yes we did put him in power, but Iran was ready to have America burn if we didn’t give him up. The final surprise was the fact that Iran never came to the rescue. That’s a bold move considering we may of had a war on our hands, and that could have triggered us to say you know what screw you guys let’s go.
I think all the names he names are confusing so I try not to pay too much attention to them. Their roles are what are important, and repeated characters obviously have more influence in the story. My question is how does this Argo idea spark, and why do people sign off on something that sounds so silly?
Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
The novel starts out with 17 year old Molly, an orphan who considers herself the goth type. Her foster parents aren’t so fond of her, especially because she is on the edge of going to juvie. To stay out, she needs community service hours. Molly’s boyfriend begs his mom, who works for a woman named Vivian, to have Molly clean the attic for the hours. Vivian agrees, and we find out that they are more similar than they think. Vivian was a young Irish immigrant who lived in New York City. As her family died from a disastrous fire, she is forced onto the orphan train. She is then one of the last to be picked, due to her unpopular liking of red hair and freckles. She is then picked by a woman and man who have no desire to raise her as a child, but as an extra helper for sewing. She is brought back to the home, and lives under strict rules with even stricter people. The only thing she can think positive about is that she is at least not sleeping on the streets. I think one of the major themes in the novel is belonging and connection. We see two girls, who clearly do not belong nor fit in with the others around them. Neither really have a choice though, with the strict circumstances of having a “family”. The novel is trying to connect the two and show their similarities, even if they are decades apart.
Christina Baker Kline is a #1 New York Times Bestselling Author. She has written many other novels, such as: Sweet Water, Bird in Hand, and The Way Life Should Be. She is was born in Cambridge, England and had an education at Yale University. She now lives in New York City with her husband, David Kline. They are the parents of three sons, Hayden, Will, and Eli. She writes both fiction and nonfiction, also many essays and articles.
I can connect this reading to APUSH with the waves of immigration. We have learned that immigration the the United States was influenced by both push and pull factors. Some factors were religious persecution, political oppression, and poverty. The first or old wave, relates most to this novel, due to most masses being German and Irish. What I learned from this novel that I didn’t already know was the circumstances in which they just transfer you over to a whole new life. I never really understood “orphan trains”, until I read this book. They just take kids with no family, line them up on a stage in front of a great mass of people, and have adults pick at them like they are buying a house and not a human. Something I was surprised by was how easy it was to just immigrate over to the United States. In this time period, it takes up to years to gain citizenship and live in other countries. It surprised me how back then, in just a second, they could have a whole new home, in a whole new country.
I have some questions about Vivian’s name. It started out as Niamh, then it changed to Dorothy to please the parents. But as an adult now, we see her name is Vivian. So I am wondering if her name will soon change down the line.
a. The first third of this book describes the evolution of national politics before 1796. The author, John Ferling, briefly mentions the 1787 Constitutional Convention, the election of George Washington, and the development of the first federal government. He explains Alexander Hamilton’s Financial Plan and talks about the Compromise of 1790, Hamilton’s compromise with James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, which located the US capitol in the South in exchange for acceptance of Hamilton’s financial program. The main characters in the first third of the book are John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. Ferling vividly depicts the personalities of Adams and Jefferson, explaining their long journey from once being intimate friends to becoming political rivals in the upcoming revolutionary election of 1800. I believe one of the most important themes in this book is showing that even prominent personalities are people with ordinary problems and mundane lives. This part of the book mainly covered the context of that time and the backgrounds of Adams, Jefferson, and other important people.
b. John Ferling was born in 1940 in Charleston, West Virginia but he grew up in Texas. Ferling went to Sam Houston State University, and later received a master’s degree in history from Baylor University. He earned his Ph.D. in history from West Virginia University in 1971. Ferling taught for 39 years, mainly at the University of West Georgia but later retired from teaching to spend more time writing. Throughout his career, John Ferling has specialized in the American Revolution. He wrote thirteen books, all but two deal with the American Revolution and its leaders. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson are the personages he writes the most about.
c. Ferling talked about many notable events that we have studied in APUSH; Some of these events include the 1787 Constitutional Convention, the election of George Washington, Hamilton’s Financial Plan, and the famous Compromise of 1790 between Hamilton, Adams, and Jefferson. The book explained that Hamilton’s Financial Plan was made to pay off American debt and develop American manufacturing and had 3 parts. The first part was the Report on Public Credit called for the federal government to pay off the national debt and assume the war debts of the states, this was known as the Assumption Plan. In order to get this plan approved, Hamilton reached a compromise with Jefferson and Madison which located the US capitol in the South in exchange for acceptance of Hamilton’s financial program. The second part was the high excise taxes (tax on specific items such as whiskey) and tariffs (tax on imports). Hamilton liked this because it would protect American industries against foreign competition and raise revenue to pay off the war debt. The thirds part of Hamilton’s plan was to create a National Bank that would help create a stable, healthy economy and currency. This is just one example that the book covered in detail which helped me expand my understanding about American history.
d. I believe that this book effectively shows the main characters’ backgrounds and personal lives and beliefs. It follows their journey from before the beginning of their political journey to when they became well-known personalities. I like how Ferling portrays the characters because it depicts America’s Founding Fathers in a different light than what is usually used to describe them.
The Help
A. The Help so far is pretty good. It includes three different story lines, Aibileen, Minny and Miss Skeeter, all taking place in Mississippi. Aibileen’s story line is with Miss Leefolt and Miss Leefolt’s daughter Mae Mobley. The novel continues with Minny who was once with Miss Hilly and Miss Walter, but then worked for Miss Celia Foote. Adding onto this, Celia is an aspiring writer, who wants to get her dream job in a popular journalist company in Mississippi. Up until now, I don’t have a evident idea of what the major theme of the entire novel would be. Nonetheless, I believe it could be about truth considering that was a ringing word in all three of the main character’s heads.
B. Kathryn Stockett is a American writer and editor. She was born in Jackson, Mississippi in the year of 1969. She attended Jackson Preparatory School, Murrah High School, and the University of Alabama. After graduating college with a degree in English and Creative Writing, she moved to New York City; there she lived for 16 years and worked in magazine publishing and marketing. Stockett is best known for her “New York Times- Bestseller” novel, The Help, which was published in 2009. This novel was awarded the Goodreads Choice Awards for Best Fiction, as well as made into a movie that became very popular among theatres in the nation. Additionally, Stockett’s other books, which are sequels to the original The Help did not create as much as buzz as her first.
C. Ultimately, The Help connects to the multiple instances of misfair treatment of colored people that we’ve studied in the past. This could be compared to the achievement gap, the specific discriminatory ways of American values and the overall oppression of African-Americans in the country (segregation in neighborhoods, segregated schools, segregated water-fountains, places of work, diners, and many more). I knew that African-Americans usually lived all in one area, were mostly maids, etc.; however, I did not know that white people went out of their way to make completely separate bathrooms in their own homes for their black maids. This as well as the little things they got mad about against black people surprised me and will continue to surprise me forever.
D. I am mostly interested in the storyline of Minny. I am simply curious about how the other storylines will intrigue me in future chapters. Miss Skeeter’s storyline especially bored me. I was not interested in her dreams and aspirations in journalism; however, if her date with William (or Stewart, sorry brain fart :P) went smoother, I might’ve been more immersed in her chapters. Concerning Aibileen, I am in neither bored or pleased. Currently, I wish for the other storylines to become juicer, or I won’t enjoy the book as much as I could. Adding on to this, I wonder how the resolution will become clearer to me, considering how it is not seen at all from the point of the book I’m in right now. Other than this, I have no other questions about what will happen next.
1) The first section of the book discusses the beginnings of the class systems in America, and how there is a history of denial. The author states that often in historical retellings, the impoverished are left out, and only the upper class heroes are highlighted. This issue began in the early days of colonization and the beginnings of the retellings of that time. The north created a mythos of heroism, power, and tough, strong, wealthy settlers. The reality was a highly mixed group, and in many cases weak and poor people. Stories of Roanoke, or John Smith and Pocahontas furthered this neglect of the lower class. The story of Roanoke is basked in mystery, avoiding the issue all together, and John Smith’s settlement was filled with weak men succumbing to disease and sickness. This colonial past created an idea that America was classless, and that everyone was equal. This ideal has prevailed since the beginnings of the country, and still has an impact on the way we view classes in this country.
2) Nancy Isenberg, the author of “White Trash” is the T. Harry Williams Professor of History at Louisiana State University. She received a Ph. D. from University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1990. Her first book, titled “Sex and Citizenship in Antebellum America” examines the origins of the women’s rights movement, and was awarded the annual prize of the Society for Historians of the Early American Republic. Her second book, “Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr” was meant to correct the biased accounts portraying Burr as a villain. It received critical acclaim, was a Main Selection of the History Book Club, and won the 2008 Oklahoma Book Award for non-fiction. Her third book, “Madison and Jefferson” was coauthored with Andrew Burstein. It was a New York Times ebook bestseller and named one of top five non-fiction title of 2010 by Kirkus.
3) This section has a strong connection to the early days of colonialization, and also the idea of different forms of historiography. The main focus of this section is on the early days of America and their effects on the class system. It discusses many key points of our discussions in class, such as John Smith, John Winthrop and his city on the hill, and the founding fathers. It also looks at the different form of historiography that is taken for these retellings, and how it almost always leaves out the class system and people in poverty. We discussed a similar topic in our analysis of different forms of historiography in the blog post from last trimester.
4) There are a couple questions I have after reading this first section. First, how does this issue of class misrepresentation affect us today? What does it mean for our historical education? Also, I’m curious as to how the exclusion of the lower class from history effects the ability to make educated decisions for the future. If people make decisions for the future based on a limited understanding of the past, isn’t that potentially dangerous?
a. Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip, begins with a deep dive into Truman’s final day as president in 1953, as Harry passes his power over to Dwight D. Eisenhower. Harry had invited Ike inside for coffee before riding to the inauguration which was a tradition of over 150 years. The author then flashes back to Truman’s life in 1922 to set a foundation. Truman ran for judge of Jackson county and succeeded in the fall of 1922. This position later helped him win a seat in the U.S Senate. Truman became president after Roosevelt died in 1945. After he left the White House and had officially become an ex-president in 1953, Harry was quite unsure about what to do with the rest of his life. He had no special skills and only had his high school degree. Harry and Bess road home to Independence Missouri to begin their life as regular citizen’s. They moved back into Bess’s childhood home from 1904 and started their journey as plain citizens. The author goes on to describe Truman’s normal life such as driving to work on his own with no secret service and his love for cars. Truman loved his cars even buying his first one in 1914. His most prized car was a Chrysler New Yorker that carried him across the country. Harry wanted to really “try out” his new car by taking it on a roundtrip to Philadelphia after he was invited to attend the Reserve Officers Association convention in June. This was his chance to finally transition from Mr. President to Mr. Citizen and travel “Incognito” as he called it. So, once Bess agreed Truman packed the car full of 11 suitcases and they embarked on their road trip. Along for the ride was also their daughter Margret. Fans passed by their car and were able to recognize the once famous family. As the family traveled across Missouri, the author traveled through history. Remembering the antebellum South and slavery era, the author mentions Missouri was a slave state but never joined the Confederacy. Bus boycotts were also held in Missouri during the ’60s and civil rights movement. I think the author’s purpose or thesis of the book is to uncover who Harry Truman actually was under all the spotlight of being President. Although Harry wasn’t very popular during his term, Truman had another layer to him. He was very kind to the White House staff and was very well liked by the staff. He had a passion for cars and even bought one to impress Bess way back when they were dating. The author is digging deep into the life of Truman after his presidency to uncover his personality as a regular citizen.
b. Matthew Algeo is an award-winning author who writes about unusual and interesting events in American history. His latest book is Abe & Fido: Lincoln’s Love of Animals and the Touching Story of His Favorite Canine Companion. Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip was named one of the best books of 2009 by the Washington Post. His other book Last Team Standing was about how the Steelers and the Eagles saved pro football during World War II. This book won the 2006 Nelson Ross Awards for outstanding achievements in pro football research and historiography. According to Algeo himself, he likes to write about interesting and obscure events in American history. His writing is different from most American history books in which he digs beneath the surface of prominent U.S leaders such as Lincoln and Truman. Matthew is also a journalist who has reported from four continents. His stories have appeared on some of the most popular public radio programs in the country. In addition to reporting and writing, Matthew used to be a convenience store clerk, a gas station attendant, a proofreader and even worked in a traveling circus. His wife, Allyson works for the government as a Foreign Service e Officer. Some of Algeo’s other books include The President Is a Sick Man, Pedestrianism, Last Team Standing and Abe and Fido.
c. While taking APUSH, we studied almost every president in history and their elections. Harry Truman was chosen to replace Wallace for vice president at the Democratic National Convention in 1945. Roosevelt felt as if he didn’t know Truman very well, so he invited him to the White House for lunch. After the death of Franklin Roosevelt in 1945, Truman became the 33rd president from 1945 to 1953. When he was president he was faced with many challenges, one of the biggest included the Korean war and the use of the atomic bomb. Truman had to make arguably one of the hardest decisions in history to drop the atomic bomb on Japan, thinking it would save more lives than destroy them. He also helped to rebuild postwar Europe, fought to contain communism and also lead the country into the Korean War. He won the presidency on his own after he was reelected in 1948, and could have run again (he was the last president that was eligible to run for more than two terms). In APUSH we mostly focused on the part of Truman’s presidency that was negative, such as his decision to drop the atomic bomb. But, we also learned the good things he did for this country such as integrating the armed forces. From the book, I learned that Truman and Eisenhower’s relationship became hostile even after they were friendly with each other. I also learned that there was a 150-year-old tradition of the former first lady and president to have coffee in the White House with the incoming president before the inauguration. There was also a big deal about hats at the inauguration, most presidents wore top hats. I was surprised that Truman’s approval rate was as low as 22% while in office, but he was well loved by the White House staff. I hope I learn more about his personal life because his presidency might have clouded his real personality.
d. As Harry, Bess and Margret travel further and further towards their destination I think the author will uncover more about the president’s life as a new regular citizen. I’m interested to hear more about his personal life besides what he did as a president. I’m wondering if Harry was as different as a person than he was as a president than. I am also wondering if I will discover anything new about Truman that I didn’t learn in APUSH. I want the author to dig deep into the burning decision to drop the atomic bomb because I am interested in learning more about that subject. Harry’s daughter, Margret, has only come up a few times in the novel so far, will she be discussed more as I go deeper into the novel?
a)It is placed in Chicago of 1968, and the racial tensions are high. It focuses on the main character Sam along with his mother, father and brother Steve. This book begins with Sam’s father speaking at a rally for the African Americans, the reader gets the insight that Sam’s dad is a leader of the community with people looking up to him. Sam is an outlier of the family, he is scared to speak up compared to his brother and dad. As the story continues, the reader learns about a new black youth group fighting against the racial discriminations called the Black Panthers. Sam is shocked to find out that his own brother has become a member, due to their relationship prior being completely honest, with them telling eachother everything. One morning, when Sam is looking for a shirt in his drawer, he finds a gun, belonging to his brother. This shows how the black panthers not only speak out, but fight for what they believe. The day before this incident, Sam witnessed his family friend be brutally assaulted by the police due to his skin color. Sam, not being one to speak out, said nothing until he addressed it with his family. Overall, this book has opened my eyes to the struggles many faced throughout this time period.
b)Kekla Magoon, the author of The Rock and The River writes most of her books based on the african american culture. Going to Northwestern University she majored in African and Middle Eastern history. For example, another one of her books is called X: novel. This book is based on Malcolm X and his childhood. Being born in Michigan in 1980, she is only 39 years old. She grew up loving to read and write, and continued her passion throughout her life. She has won many awards based on her writing such as the NAACP Image award for outstanding literary work. Her main audience for her books is young adults.
c)This connects to things we have learned in APUSH, through the longing for equality throughout the United States. This has been a long issue for the US, with the first major step taken being the Civil War. Although today, it still seems as though we are fighting a civil war, based on equality. A court case this connects to is the Brown v. Board of education, with the black panthers requesting the equality of education for blacks to have the same opportunities as whites. The black panthers is also something i have learned about in an extra credit video. I learned how they created a different youth group, that fought back with force, while attempting to improve their communities. Police brutality, killed dozens of innocent blacks throughout this era, and in fact still occurs today. The stigma on race is what continues to divide this country.
d) Why would Sam (the main character), stand there and say nothing while the police were brutally beating his close family friend? What motivated Steve to join the black panthers?
A.(unbroken) Louie zamperini was an American with Italian immigrant parents who was born in the state of California in nineteen seventeen. Louie who was born in to near poverty had grown to have a habit of breaking the law. When he was at the young age of five he began smoking and started drinking alcohol at the age of eight. He would also steal as many things as he pleased including but not limited to food, cigars, money and whatever else he would want. As well as stealing his other crimes would also include running scams on people and vandalism. His older brother Pete bearing witness to Louie’s fall to delinquency took note of louies incredible ability to escaping after he would complete one of his many criminal acts. Pete would then make his younger brother louie join the school that they went tos track and field team. Louie began to tremendously prove his worth as member of the team once he left his life of crime, smoking and alcohol behind him. He even went as far as to gain the nick name the “Torrance tornado”. He began a high school star and later went even to join the American track and field Olympic team. Where Louie would even go to participate in the nineteen thirty nine Olympics in Germany for the American track and field team, he would come close to coming in last place but he still had some energy left in him and he was able to pull through and narrowly avoid losing. Louie had then planned to go participate in the nineteen forty Olympic games in Tokyo japan. This Dream of louies was cut short because world war two began before he was able to. The main characters of book are louie, his brother Pete and the rest of their family. The theme of unbroken would have to be survival and resilience because louie was living in poverty and a criminal which would make him only destine to fail but with the help of his brother louie was able to piece his life back together and become something to be proud of.
B.Laura Hillenbrand was the author of unbroken which was based off the real story of louie zamperini. She was also the author of the book seabiscuit which is about a jock and under sized horse in the great depression.
C.The book unbroken directly connects to Advanced Placement United States History because it focuses around an Louie American Bombardier in World War two fighting against Japan and how the events directly affected Americans and American Historical Events such as pearl harbor and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From this book I learned that no matter how bad things are for you, you can make it through in the end if you just never give up. d.One question I have when it comes to development of the characters is what would have happened to louie if he never listened to his brother and joined track and field team at his school. Would have he still been fighting the war and if he could have fixed things for himself in a different way?
Sarah Luchenbill
Before we were Free by Julia Alvarez
A. The main character in Before We were Free, is Anita, a 12 year old girl who lives in the Dominican Republic. At the beginning her uncles, aunts, and cousins all left for America. Once everyone was gone Anita’s family got a visit from the SIM, secret police, looking for the Garcias family, Anita’s cousins. When they found nothing they stayed guarding their housing complex. The SIM finally left them alone when a family, the Washburns, from the American embassy move in next door. Anita and Sam, the son of the Washburns, become great friends and like to play around the complex. This is when they start to discover Tio Toni, one of Anita’s uncles, had been hiding in the complex. Later Mami explained to Anita that Tio Toni was involved in a plot to take down the government. However, he soon was free from hiding because of the embargo that America placed. I think that the major theme of the book is freedom comes with a cost. Anita had a conversation with her mother and she was trying to explain to Anita why they did not go to America with the rest of their family. This was because they did not want to leave everyone else still under the rule of a dictator but rather fight for everyone’s freedom.
B. Julia Alvarez, was born in New York but grew up mostly in the Dominican Republic. Her parents were both from the Dominican Republic but shortly after Ms. Alvarez’s was born they had to move back to the Dominican Republic. After ten years she moved back to America because her parents were in trouble due to their involvement in the underground. Alvarez’s first book was How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents. Some other novels she wrote includes: In the Time of the Butterflies, A Gift of Gracias, A Wedding in Haiti, and Once Upon A Quinceañera: Coming of Age in the USA. She is most known for writing on issues of freedom and of cultural expectations of women in the Dominican Republic and America.
C. Before reading this I did not fully understand the United States embassy and how it impacts the lives of people in the different countries in good ways and bad ways. Earlier in APUSH we learned about the Embargo Act of 1807, that Jefferson put into place trying to protect US businesses and ships from attacks by the British and French. However, the Embargo against Cuba in 1958 was put in place for a different reason. It was because of the disagreements in politics between Cuba and the US. The US was trying to help people gain freedom. When learning about embargos I did not realize that they could be used for different reasons.
D. I will be interested to see what all will happen to Anita and her family before they go to America. I also wonder that Anita went to an American school in the Dominican Republic. Were these kinds of schools pushed for by America or were they welcomed by the different countries to build them?
(I’m sorry it won’t allow me to italicize the book titles!)
a. The Lynching of Louie Sam is a historical fiction novel about the true events of the lynching of a 14 year old Stó:lō native boy. In this book, there are two main characters, George Gillies (who acts as the reader’s perspective and insight throughout the novel), who’s an immigrant from England; being Scottish by birth, his family is extremely religious and even though they are immigrants, act throughout the first third of the book proud to be Americans. The second main character, Peter Harkness, is George’s best friend and one year his senior. The place the story takes place so far is Washington Territory, which is just on the Border of the United States and Canada. The story begins with George and his siblings stumbling onto the burning home of Mr. Bell, an old man who George and his brother John find dead in the fire, with a gunshot to the back of the head. When the police find out what happened, they assume that this was the work of Louie Sam, a Native American boy whos tribe has been in an troubled relationship with the settlers of Washington Territory. They search for Louie Sam on the way to the border of Canada, only to realize he’s actually headed west, so his tribe can protect him. In a break from the search, the reader learns more about Mr. Bell’s relationship with his family as his funeral is occuring. Mrs. Bell is much younger than him, and many townspeople like to gossip about her, most saying that she only married him for his money, which wouldn’t be far fetched, considering Mr. Bell’s wealth and his estrangement from his ex wife and son. This is most clearly shown at the funeral, where Mrs. Bell isn’t present, but their son Jimmy is. The funeral is the last place that the book takes place in the first third.
b.The author of The Lynching of Louie Sam is Elizabeth Stewart, a woman who lives in British Columbia. Although Stewart has also been a screenwriter, some of her other written works include Blue Gold, which is a book about how three girls lives are affected by the “Blue Gold”, or Coltan.
c. So far, the novel has been very similar in the type of language and actions that are common throughout U.S. History in the way that both settlers, early and late Americans treated the Natives, with very racist talk towards them, and the discrimination. The Stó:lō are constantly spoken about as if they’re animals or savages. Some examples of this are quotes like: “Lying Indians!’ Declared Tom. ‘Is there any other kind?”. I learned from this book that this is the only recorded lynching on Canadian soil, which surprised me that there’s only been one (recorded).
d. This novel is pretty well written, and I think that although the author said she wasn’t going to presume thoughts or feelings of the people who went through this, apart from what has been recorded on the public record, but I believe that this is going to be almost impossible, since she’s writing the book through the eyes of one of the people who was in the situation. I hope that George Gillie will end up being more kind than most people in his town, but so far it doesn’t look as though as though he’s sympathetic to the Natives or Louie Sam, which is disappointing.
APUSH Independent Read Book Blog
A. The book I choose was Vietnam Book One, I Pledge Allegiance by Chris Lynch. The book is based off a realistic fiction story, set place during the Vietnam War. The main characters are a group of four boys who are best friends; Morris, Beck, Rudi and Ivan. The book begins with the boys in middle school, Morris keeps explaining how he has a repetitive dream on them all being in the war and ending up dying, which becomes Morris’s fault. They then make a pact that they will all never enlist in the war, and if one person gets drafted then they all enlist. Making a pact is a big deal in their friend ship, they call it a Pledge. Morris explains other stories on past pledges they have made over things. For example, they had made a Pledge over a girl Evelyn because they all liked her but decided they didn’t want to ruin their friend ship. The story goes on explaining how Rudi became a part of the group, before it was just the three of them. In elementary school, Rudi got bullied due to being held back a grade. When Ivan say this, he stood up against the bullies and their friendship had begun. They explain how Rudi is very innocent and would never hurt a fly. Eventually, all the boys graduate high school and are celebrating. Rudi arrives to the celebration crying, with a piece of paper in his hand. All their hearts drop as they read the paper saying Rudi is being drafted into the war. This means they all have to enlist because of their pledge. Rudi hopes that he doesn’t pass his physical exam because he will be very changed from the war. The next day they all go to enlist and everyone passes their medical exam. Each boy enlists into a different part of the army. Morris enlists in the navy and the story of the war begins with just him. Morris begins to meet some of his navy friends like Huffnagel, they talk about how the war is their new home. Morris explains how everyone goes by a nickname like Huff or Mo. Morris also says how he can’t sleep at night because he is claustrophobic. The chapter ends with Morris explaining his mission is to change a fuse with his navy electrician knife. Morris says that if he carries out his mission then he friends with be safe because the war will have ended.
B. The author of the book is Chris Lynch, who is an American writer for young people. Lynch is a Printz Honor Award winning author. He teachers a writing program at Emerson college and Lesley University. Chris lives in Boston and Scotland. Lynch has written many other books such as Irreversible, Killing Time In Crystal City, Little Blue Lies, Inexcusable, Freewill, Gypsy Davey, Pieces and Kill Switch.
C. My book connects to the Vietnam War, as the boys get enlisted. The book hasn’t talked that much about the actual war but they have talk a bit about the Vietcong. Also, about putting communism to an end. The Gulf of Tonkin has been brought up, which brought America into the war. Nothing about the war has surprised me yet.
D. My thoughts on the book so far is that the plot isn’t that interesting. I think when we get deeper into the war, it will become more interesting. I think the development of Rudi is going to be interesting because he is very innocent and would never go into the war voluntary. The war is going to change Rudi and he will probably have PTSD. For Ivan, I think he is tough enough to handle the war, he was the only one who seemed excited to enlist into the war. He will handle this situation the best, I think. For Beck, I think it’s a shame that he had to go into the war, he is very smart and could have done something better with his life. However, I think his smartness will be useful for him in the war. Lastly, I think Morris will also be changed by the war and have PTSD, because he already gets nightmares.
My novel, The Whites of Their Eyes, focuses on the American Revolution and how its effects have stayed with the nation for centuries. The author addresses the Revolution’s use in Right and Left politics and how it’s proven to be very successful and moving. This book tells the story of the century-long struggle over the meaning of the nation’s founding, which includes the Tea Party, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and evangelical Christians. Also, she notes the 21st century Tea Party movement, which has ideas such as returning to the truths asserted by the Founding Fathers in order to solve current problems. Jill Lepore, Harvard historian, and New Yorker staff writer, creates an argument against these ideas, which sets up the rest of the book. Her writing is in contrast to the Tea party and uses the past and present as evidence, however, she addresses both sides of the argument and remains mostly unbiased. Since this story is from the authors perspective on history and the present, there aren’t any main characters. The story is in the context of her experiences and knowledge. She uses herself in many circumstances making her the protagonist. I think the author’s purpose is going to be about the importance of history, specifically the Revolution. I believe she will explain how history is meant to be studied to teach people the mistakes and lessons needed to proceed successfully into the future. Throughout the book, I presume she will constantly refer back to the past and interpret the lessons and things we should learn from.
Jill Lepore, a staff writer, has been contributing to The New Yorker since 2005. She is a historian that writes about history, law, literature, and politics. She has taught at many colleges but is currently focusing on writing. She has written 16 books that focus mostly on history with a little mix of politics.
In this novel, the primary historical focus is the American revolution. This is a connection to when we studied the late 1700s in APUSH. In the book, they mention things such as the Tea Party, Boston Massacre, Stamp Act, and other things that led to the war. Another main focus in this book is the Tea party movement that occurred during Obama’s presidency and is still prevalent today. This is something new that I did not know before. The Tea Party movement is a conservative political revolution that pushes for lower taxes and reduction of the National debt. The book constantly makes references to this movement because of its origins back to the American Revolution and the Tea Party that occurred then. Another new thing I learned from this book is that Jefferson believed “the life and soul of history must forever remain unknown“. Jefferson was the main writer of the Constitution which followed the American Revolution, and this surprised me greatly because I did not know that he wanted to keep history a mystery. He seems like the type of person that would want history to be written down so that the future of America could learn from it and do better.
My novel isn’t your topical story with characters, climax, plots, etc, so it is relatively hard to predict what will happen as I continue to read. It is nonfiction and is from the authors perspective on the past and present and how we can learn from both of them. However, I predict that the author will go more in-depth with the Tea Party movement and the American Revolution to make comparisons and contrasts. I also think she will analyze other influences of the Tea Party Movement and explain more of her experiences with the subject. She may also analyze other aspects of American history that can relate to the present.
The book I’m reading is called “September 11: An Oral History” by Dean E. Murphy. In this book the author addresses what type of day September 11, 2001 was supposed to be and what it turned out to be. In the first third of this book Dean Murphy takes us through what his day was like on September 11, 2001. He talked about what he was supposed to be doing that day which was covering the New York City Mayor election primaries. His day took a turn however when he was driving from his home in New Jersey into Manhattan and heard on the radio that something had hit the world trade center. Manhattan was totally shut off which made it nearly impossible for him to get into work that morning. The New York City mayor election was cancelled for that day and all the attention shifted to the september 11th attacks everywhere around the country. Dean Murphy finally arrived at work at 6 PM on September 11, 2001 and it took him 3 hours to travel 15 miles. Murphy takes us into the lives of the first responder at ground zero and people living and working in New York City to those living and working in Washington D.C. and others around the country. Dean Murphy is the author and editor of September 11: An Oral History, he hasn’t written any other books but is an award winning journalist for the New York Times but has also covered Los Angeles, Eastern Europe and been a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. In APUSH we haven’t really talked about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 but we have touched on other terrorist acts in this country. We have talked about the Oklahoma City bombings in 1995 and how they were religiously and politically motivated by right wing extremists. There are some paralleles from that terrorist attack to the ones of September 11, 2001. The Oklahoma City Bombings were done by right wing extremistrs mad about the US government being involved in the shutdown of a religious organization and wanted the government to stay out of there lives. The motivations for the attacks of September 11, 2001 are somwhat the same. They were also religiously and politically motivated. Islamic terrorist were mad at the US government for aiding and supporting Israel and the wante revenge on America for it. So the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda and mastermind Osama Bin-Laden plotted these attacks on the US for their support of Israel. The attacks of September 11, 2001 were much bigger than the Oklahoma City bombing and started a war in the middle east where the US government found and killed the mastermind if these attacks Osama Bin-Laden. Dean Murphy did a really good job explaining how that day was actually supposed to go compared to what happened. When hearing about September 11, 2001 I normally hear stories about what people were doing when the planes hit the toweras or how it imoacted America, but I never knew that there was an election that was suuposed to happen in the city the day of Septmber 11, 2001. I think he did a good job showing how this day impacted him and everyone in the United States.
A. In the novel Fever 1793, Laurie Halse Anderson depicts a story of a young women named Matilda Cook. This story takes place in Philadelphia, ten years after the revolutionary war for independence. The Cook family runs a cafe in Philadelphia, and she has dreams for it to be the best cafe in the whole town. The cafe is currently ran by her mother, Matilda’s father died before the cafe could open. But, Matilda’s grandfather still lives with them in the house. Eliza, a close family friend works at the cafe too, she has been with the Cooks for a long time. While Matilda is trying to get her cafe the best in Philadelphia, people start dying randomly. It started with her old friend Polly, who died unexpectedly. The novel then starts to switch from a happy little story, to a somber story about a plague that ravaged the young country. From here, Matilda faces a crossroads about her future, and her family. I think that the main point of this novel so far is to represent the mortality of 1793. I think that the author is trying to show how rough new America was, and how terrible it was to be living in it. But she is also trying to show the persistence and hard work it took to thrive in the country.
B. Laurie Halse Anderson was born October 23, 1961 in Potsdam, New York. She writes novels for kids of all ages. She is known for tackling tough issues with satire and humor. As a kid, her favorite books to read were historical fiction. She thought she would never be a writer, but instead be a doctor. Although, she then started to see that her hobby of writing could be advanced upon. People would pay her to write reports for them, and she started really getting into the writing business when she wrote a children’s novel for Saudi Arabia. This book gave her a taste of working with other cultures, and she loved it. After that she started publishing some of her own novels. Some of her more popular books are Chains and Speak. She received many rewards for these books, and it got her recognized on an international level.
C. I connected this book to the early creation of America. Although this novel hasn’t gotten in depth with the political status of America, it talks about disasters in the country. There were a lot of disasters in America when it first became a new country. But this was a different kind of disaster, it was an epidemic. I can also relate this to the AIDs epidemic of the 70s-80s. This epidemic is like AIDs because they both swiped widley through all classes of people. The yellow fever disease was acknowledged by the government quick, but the AIDs epidemic wasn’t. I think that, that is unfair. Diseases kill everyone, it doesn’t matter your sexuality or gender. The AIDs epidemic should have been treated like the yellow fever epidemic. By that I mean that the government should have stepped in more during the AIDs epidemic. What surprised me was how deadly the disease actually was. I know how diseases in the past were almost non preventable, but this was a different level. It killed off a lot of people, generations were lost. That was the most surprising subject that I have learned while reading this novel.
D. I currently like the development of characters. Matilda is the main character, I think that her character is developing nicely. But I wish they would get more in depth with her psyche. Right now, all we see is what is on the surface. We don’t really jump into her mind, and she doesn’t really give deeper thoughts in the conflicts. I think the character of Eliza would also be really advanced. She is a free black women in the north, during 1793. This is kind of rare, they don’t really talk about her struggles as a free black women. The story could really be enhanced if they went more in depth with Eliza’s character, and show more points of views of the epidemic from minority groups. Other than that I like the development of the story and it’s characters.
The book that I chose to read for this assignment is “Rise of the Rocket Girls” by Nathalia Holt, and it is about the incredible genius of the women behind a large portion of America’s advances in rocket science. It explains that the term “computers” did not refer to the machine, but rather a group of people whose job was to calculate specific equations given a certain amount of data points. With the data they calculated, organizations such as NASA can make further advances in their programs. In the case of this first part of the novel, the human computers were used to figure out the trajectory of rockets attached to planes with a certain kind of fuel made from asphalt. The vast majority of the human computers in the 1940s, the time period of the novel, were women, as their male coworkers had to take up a job in the military because of the draft. This was a result from the United States had recently joining the global fight of World War II after the Japanese sent kamikaze pilots to bomb Pearl Harbor.
The author of this amazing story, Nathalia Holt, came up with the idea to do further research on talented women behind the rockets when she was trying to figure out a name for her child with whom she was pregnant with at the time. She decided on the name Eleanor Frances for the child because apparently one of the women who was a human computer shared the same name, and she wanted her daughter to share a name with someone of great intelligence.
There was nothing specific that really surprised me when reading this book, per se, but I will say that it was quite interesting to learn about the civilian point of view of the Pearl Harbor bombing. That being how the average American reacted to the incident, According to the book, some very dramatic women even collapsed on the ground and started crying uncontrollably. In our APUSH class we had discussed the political and militaristic points of view regarding that Japanese attack in Hawaii, and the actions taken accordingly, which would be deciding to finally join the war after such a long time of ignoring the conflict that was occurring overseas. It actually brought a subtle smile to my face, as it was very refreshing to be able to read about that in a new context. What was also interesting about Pearl Harbor was that it allowed the computers to be able to put their work to some purpose, that being using their rocket designs for combat in the US Military after they finally decided to abandon neutrality.
The only question I really have about the book is: Why haven’t we heard about these awesome women sooner? I know that the movie “Hidden Figures” brought some attention to them, but I feel like we need to spend more time learning about the human computers behind our modern rocket technology in our history classes in school.
The reading I did ver this past week was very thoughtful and interesting. The subject of the book is the Oregon Trail. Although we learned a lot about the Oregon Trail in class, the book really went in depth. Whether it was from describing the certain parts of a wagon, or developing the story further. The Oregon Trail is becoming a book I would like to read more of. The author’s theme he is trying to portray is probably hardship. Many things such as a wheel breaking, food shortages and native Americans came in the way of many of the travelers during this time. The year is 1846 and Francis Parkman and friend Quincy Shaw, embark up the Missouri river to start their trek to the Rockies. First they traveled by railroad and then by carriage up the river’s side. They met many emigrants on the way including Nick and Phillip. Instead of using horses all the way through, they traded their horses for mules. They explain that mules are a better source of transportation because they don’t tire easily and can withstand the heat. At the end of my reading, they come across Narcissa Whitman’s trunk from her earlier excursion. Narcissa Whitman was the first white women to cross the Rockies. She had a great impact on making the trail what it was at that time. They looked through the trunk because they realized that it had a lot of potential to have things they needed on the rest of the trip. Rinker Buck, the author of The Oregon Trail, always had a knack for history. In this book, Rinker acknowledges his brother as being a person who crossed the Oregon trail at some point and has been a great team driver. One of Rinkers other books, Flight of Passage, has received many awards and is about the mid-sixties where people were a lot more adventurous. One thing that connected to our learning in APUSH is the fact that you need to have a lot of extra supplies. Their are a lot of forts that you can stop at along the way, but Francis and Quincy decided to go another route at the beginning making them get of track. They encountered a struggle in where their trail Pup flips. A trail pup is a type of Wagon that was used back then and is the one frequently seen in movies and pictures. In the book, they show a picture of a wagon and all its key elements. It goes over where the brake, tongue and brake handle are. At the beginning of the book, we are able to see a map that has all the forts, cities and place where bad things happen to them. On the map, one of the things listed is that their trail pup flips. Another thing later on is when their wheels break. I want to see how they deal with their wheels breaking and I wonder if they’re going to have extra wheels. I want to see how every character reacts to the hardships that come along during the trail and also how they might fix them.
In the first ⅓ of the book Ghost Soldiers, it goes in the present in the prologue and then back in time in ch 1 and the into the present again. It starts off when American soldiers have been captured into camps run by the Japanese. The Japanese are killing the American soldiers because they do not have enough resources to keep them alive. Only a few stay alive like one of the main characters, Dr. Emerson Hibbs. After this, they go back in time to fighting between the Japanese against the Americans, and Filipinos. The American side is losing hope. Then they go to when the American prisoner is still in camps. They come up with a plan to free the Americans and Filipinos. They start the long treacherous journey trying to not be seen by the Japanese. Some of the other main characters are Colonel Henry Mucci, Staff Sergeant Abie Abraham, General Walter Krueger, and Colonel Henry Mucci. I think the author’s main theme so far is to not give up and try your best even if it may end in death.
The author Hampton Sides is an American author. He is the author of Hellhound on His Trail, Ghost Soldiers, Blood, and Thunder, On Desperate Ground, and other bestselling works of narrative history and literary non-fiction.
Something that surprised me in the book was how the American soldiers couldn’t just leave the Philippines if they wanted to retreat. The Americans would have to go through the Japanese before the islands to get back their soldiers. This showed me how war is even more dangerous than I thought. I learned that the Americans didn’t want to fight on more than one front so they kind of abandoned the soldiers in East Asia to fight more in Europe.
How do the characters keep their mind straight fighting in such harsh conditions?
I am reading “The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. The book is a memoir of Bill Bryson, the Author, so it isn’t set up with a direct plotline, and the beginning just gives context and explain the culture of the 1950’s, and gives stories that explain Bryson’s background. His father was a sports journalist, and he explains how the US was obsessed with the world series. He describes life at home with his mother, and her not so great cooking. The economy at the time was also booming and technological advancements were being made everywhere, from the kitchen to the dentist. He and the other neighborhood children often have nothing to do, as life went by slow for them, so they did everything in search of entertainment. Bill also has an alternate personality, the thunderbolt kid. He decides he is adopted and is a superhero who can make anyone vaporize, and is also from another planet.
Bill Bryson, the author, was born in 1951 in Britain. His first book, “I’m stranger here myself” was made from newspaper columns that Bryson wrote for a British newspaper. He and a few friends once walked the Appalachian Trail, and he wrote a book titled “A Walk in the Woods”, which would later be adapted into a movie in 2015. All of Bryson’s books have been non fiction, and vary in subject. He had won many awards, and even received the key to the city of Des Moines, the location of this book, and the day of October 1 would be known as Bill Bryson, The Thunderbolt Kid Day.
This book relates to Apush as it depicts the fifties right after WWII. The nation is in complete economic prosperity after the win, during the baby boomer time period, and the book shows this through all the new inventions. Bryson mentions his family buying a new refrigerator, and they show it off to all their friends. The restaurants all use new technology and ideas, and Bill sees a magazine that says in the near future there will be flying cars and crazy tech, as this era was filled with hope. Nuclear inventions are also talked about, which relates to the dropping of two atomic bombs in Japan, which sparked a “nuclear era of technology”. Suburbs were just becoming popular during this time period, and it is really shown in Bill’s struggle to entertain himself. His family is in a nice suburb, and him and all the other kids would play and get into mischief. His parents would have nice dinner parties with neighbors, and this was the first time in US history that neighborhoods were actually common. The Cold War is not talked about for that long, but it is hinted at that there is a prominent and constant threat of annihilation. He describes a raid in which a whole city had to all go to “shelters”, basically any building with a roof and four walls, and what a large spectacle it was. Bill is still only a child, so the extent would have been learning drills in school.
1. The Thunderbolt kid is Bill’s alternate personality as a child, but would he have still made the book if he hadn’t had this idea?
2. Was his childhood overall bad or good? He doesn’t specify, and mentions some good and some bad things/events.
3. Did he have some sort of mental illness or event that made him act like a superhero, or at least make him believe that he was one?
A. In the first ⅓ (74 pages) of The Plots Against the President by Sally Denton, it starts by summarizing Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s upbringing and rise to power, Herbert Hoover’s presidency and the problems that came from it, and Roosevelt’s presidency and how he tried to solve these problems. It follows him through his privileged childhood in New York, his marriage to Eleanor, his entry into politics, his illnesses and his ambitions. The books primarily follows FDR but isn’t exactly a narrative. Its primary purpose is to get insight into the life of one of the most influential people in American history, the events leading up to his presidency the Great Depression, and the time period in general. This section is leading up to a story about a plot against FDR to which the thesis would likely be that the Great Depression and Roosevelt’s ideology in resolving the crisis led to an emergence of the extreme right that exists today.
B. Sally Denton is the investigative journalist and author who writes about things that aren’t prevalent in today’s media. She is behind the books The Pink Lady, Passion and Principle, Faith and Betrayal, American Massacre, The Bluegrass Conspiracy, and The Money and the Power (with Roger Morris). She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico and is a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center. She is also a Guggenheim fellow.
C. The book touches on things that we had learned this year in AP U.S. History such as Tammany Hall, Hoovervilles, Huey Long, and, of course, the New Deal. The corrupt political group, the Tammany Hall was referenced as something that FDR took a stance against as young, democratic politician in New York. Herbert Hoover’s self-named, ramshackle towns, Hoovervilles, were used to show the conditions of the Great Depression and Hoover’s failure to get America out of the crisis. This is followed by Roosevelt’s ideas for a New Deal, partially inspired by his 5th cousin, Theodore’s, green deal, for the government to help the suffering American people. Nearing the end of this section, a chapter is dedicated to Huey Long, or “the American Mussolini”, and how Roosevelt planned on dealing with him. One thing that I did not know about that surprised me was that Franklin and his wife, Eleanor, were actually distant cousins. Another thing that I had never heard about was the Category 4 hurricane that hit Miami in 1926 which was the biggest that had hit to that point (bigger than the one that hit Galveston in 1900).
D. I am very interested to know exactly what the titular “Plots Against the President” are. I am guessing that the perpetrators are right wing and angry about the extreme spending that the Roosevelt administration was doing to put the country back on track. The extreme right really didn’t exist before this so I’m unsure what class it would consist of. I am also very interested in seeing what the plotters were intending on doing, whether it was an attempted assassination or an attempt to bring him down politically.
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
A. In my reading through the first third of the novel, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, by Bill Bryson, I learned the experiences and realities of growing up in the early 1950’s. Bryson’s novel is a memoir, and is all true, leave some names left out by the author to keep some anonymous. The novel starts with a recollection of the authors early life, as he reflects on the ways in which society was so different from the times. A part that really struck me here was that Bryson’s father was a sports reporter, so he was able to take his son across the country to see games, and what I found interesting was how close players were with the fans back in the mid 1900’s. Bryson recalls sitting with countless famous athletes, and several anecdotal stories he learned from them. The novel is a memoir, and follows the author as a young boy learning about life, teaching the readers from his own experiences and stories. Another recurring figure in the novel is Bryson’s father, who is often a central figure in the authors life, providing steps in character growth along the way. The authors major theme in the novel is that things were better in the past. Through wry humor, anecdotes, and detail Bryson keeps the novel flowing and the experiences of the 50’s as vivid as a 4d movie.
B. Bill Bryson was born on December 8, 1951 in Des Moines, Iowa, and has since then lived in numerous states and countries including both the United Kingdom and New Hampshire. Bryson has published countless books, including The Lost Continent, Mother Tongue, Neither Here nor There, Made in America, A Walk in the Woods, and A Short History of Nearly Everything. Bryson is an author in almost all genres, but specializes in travel, language, and comedy.
C. In my reading of the novel, I noted the repeated message of new inventions and the progressions of time. For example, I linked the talk of economic boom and growth the APUSH because this novel takes place in the 1950’s and references the baby boom often. As well as this, Thunderbolt Kid references the new inventions and easy accessibility of things such as fridges, toasters and radios on a widespread scale. I was surprised by how quickly times have changed. Bryson’s memoir made me feel sentimental for an era in which my parents were not even alive. This novel surprised me more so because of how much I related to it. This novel, despite being set 50 years prior to my birth was something that is almost timeless
D. I wonder what will happen as the story progresses. Currently in the novel, the author is a child still learning about society, and I wonder if he will grow up or if the novel will progress as the character ages. I hope that Bryson becomes closer with some of his peers and finds more about himself in his journey of discovery. Overall, I have enjoyed the book thoroughly, and I find the nature of the story to be extremely intriguing and original.
Dead wake by Erik Larson blog #1: Currently it’s talked about the history of the boat and how and when it was built. The author focuses a lot on the captain of the ship captain Turner. Captain turner was a sailing veteran with decades of experience in hard waters. He was known for being the captain of the carpathia, which was the boat that save the titanic survivors. It talked about his life as a captain aboard the Lusitania, they said he was an antisocial man that loved the people although he didn’t always want to interact with passengers. they talked about how he gained his skills as a captain and how these skill became better over the years. he had broken countless records with the Lusitania for speed and class. The Lusitania has broken countless records at the time, it was able to cruise at up to 25 knots and could clear the Atlantic in a little under two weeks. It often docked in Liverpool but was capable of sailing all across the globe. Captain turner had countless stories of how he managed to navigate an ice flow by slowing the ship and precision steering. The most terrifying thing to turner was fog, he was often frightened by the lack of visibility but that never led him to and accidents or collisions. He also had encountered a 100 foot rogue wave while making a voyage to Liverpool. The wave completely covered the ship and he managed to ride the ship over the water. He claimed that he had never experienced something like that but he simply added it to his list of tales at sea. The book also begins to bring the tensions of WW1 into it. It talks about Wilson and his conflict over getting into the treaties that were happening in Europe at the time. Larson talks about the German U boat Captain, captain schwieger. He worked his way up the military ranks in the navy and began to work on one of the only functioning deep sea U boats off the coast of the British isles. It talks about what life was like for the men in the submarine and how it was compact and could be extremely nauseating. He was a merciless killer that would kill any ally ships without orders.
2.Erik Larson has written many award winning books over the years such as in the garden of beasts and the devil in the white city. he has sold over 6.5 million copies of his books and uses lots of historical details to keep readers in. Something I noticed while reading was that he constantly broke off from the main plot to add detail and context to the story, it kept the reading very interesting and I actually wanted to read which is funny because I don’t like to read.
3. This book relates a lot to the post World War One tensions we learned a lot about. It talks about Wilson’s involvement with the decision to join the allied powers in the war. the sinking of the Lusitania was one of the things along with the Zimmerman telegram that sparked America’s interest in intervening with the German attacks in neutral waters off the coast of Ireland. The use of U board was highly controversial in the war and led to many arguments whether they should be considered a war crime or not. The U boats sank normal American passenger ships along with supply lines to the UK.
4. I wonder how capitan turner and captain schwieger will cross paths, I wonder if the U boat the sinks the Lusitania is the U boat that schwieger captains.
The author Timothy Egan was born on November 8, 1954, he went to Washington University and became a national enterprise reporter for the New York Times newspaper/author and has received many rewards for the books he wrote: The Good Rain. 1990, Breaking Blue. 1992, Lasso the Wind. 1998, The Winemaker’s Daughter. The name of my book is The Worst Hard Time. The book’s subject is the dirty thirties in the Great Plains when America was on the move to expand into unclaimed territories where cowboys roamed and had adventures while bringing in the dough. Or so everyone thought but it turns out the Great Plains isn’t as romantic as the stories go as Timothy reveals the truth of the old west and the suffering and sacrifices the people who lived there had to go through with the stories of the people who actually lived there.
The style of writing in this book is very interesting due to how the story plays along with the main character Bam White and his family had decided to move to the great plains and take a shot at farming which despite its hardships was said to be very successful so Mr. White and his family move from Colorado to Oklahoma to Texas on their way to Littlefield where Bam hoped that that’s where they would find a new home. Sadly his dream had yet to be realized due to his horses dying at a small yet ambiguous town called Dalhart and decided that he’ll make his living here. Now the interesting part about this book is all the side stories that arose from Bam and his travels each one with different views about the Great Plains from misery to bliss the side story tell more and more of the plains that i hardly care for the main story which might’ve been the idea. One story that I found lovely but dreadful was about a feeble woman named Louise Walton who always had an oxygen tank as her companion. So Louise’s doctor told her to go to the great plains and living there for two years her condition got better and another year later she had gotten married and started a family with a lovely daughter named Jeanne. During these times dust storms got worse and worse and her daughter was diagnosed with dust pneumonia and was told she won’t last long. What gave Louise freedom was the demise of her daughter.
This book connects to what we’ve learned with why people started to move to the west the Transcontinental Railroad, Homestead Act, the dream of Cowboys. Most of these stories start with that the land was super cheap and since there was so much of it you could own land so far that you couldn’t see where it ends. The sales pitch for all this land was that you get to be your own landlord which appealed to many and to make it even more tempting the government gave free train tickets for anyone willing to live there. What I learned from the book is all the level of difficulty living in the plains constant dust storms; making something simple like taking a breath a death threat, the brutally hot days, the shivering cold nights, living in a dirt house, having to deal with vermin and snakes, the unreliable source of rain and if your crop slash animals will survive until they’re sold off.
Questions i have about this book is for one is Bam a real character or is the fictional and the side stories are the real stories about the plains and was it really that bad living in the plains. Follow up question is with all the negative and so few positive why did so many stays in the west it seems unbearable to live in compared to the urban life.
Sunrise over Fallujah Blog Entry #1
Summarize your reading for the first third of your book. Identify the subject of the book or main characters. Be sure to identify what you think the author’s thesis or major theme is in the book.
Sunrise over Fallujah is a book by Walter Dean Myers. Sunrise over Fallujah was published 2008. The subject of the book is about the Iraq War. The book starts off introducing readers to Robin “Birdy” Perry. Birdy is from Harlem, New York and just joined the army although he isn’t sure why. He meets interesting fellow soldiers like Darcy, Captain Coles, Sessions, and Jonesy. They are all apart of a specific division of the United States Army called the Civilian Affairs Battalion. They are primarily tasked with helping build relations with the citizens of Iraq and helping them with whatever they need. I think the author’s major theme of the book is war and relations. Through the first third of my book, the author talks primarily about war and building relations with the citizens. The author also gives a contrast between different sections of the army like special forces and the Civilian Affairs Battalion. So far, I think a major thing might be bravery. The characters get into conflict and there was a discussion about how brave they are, and how they fear getting blown up by IEDs or they fear being shot to death.
Provide a biographical sketch of the author and his / her other books.
The author of Sunrise over Fallujah is Walter Dean Myers. Walter was born August 12, 1937, and died July 1, 2014, at the age of 76. Walter loved to write books as a child and loved reading. Walter had a very hard childhood, his mother died when he was two, and his uncle was murdered and his family started having problems with alcohol abuse and grief. Walter wasn’t the best student in school either, he had a speech impediment and often got into physical altercations because he was made fun of. Although he dropped out of high school, Walter’s English teacher in high school recognized his extraordinary ability at writing and advised him to continue writing through his lifetime. Walter went on to join the army on his seventeenth birthday. While in the army he began to write at night time, he wrote short stories for local tabloids and for men’s magazines. As his writing career progressed, Walter started to write books for all different types of audiences and genres. Walter has written books for young children. He has also written books in the genre of nonfiction, historical fiction, historical nonfiction, action, adventure, and realistic fiction. He also has dabbled in poetry and fables. Some examples of books that Myers has written are Monster (1999), Fallen Angels (1988), and Autobiography of my dead brother (2008).
Connect your reading to something we’ve studied in APUSH. What did you learn from the book that you didn’t already know? Were you surprised by something? If so, what?
Sunrise over Fallujah takes place during the Iraq War. We have talked about the Iraq War in APush. We have also talked about Saddam Hussein’s dictator rule of Iraq. What we didn’t talk about that was discussed in the book was the role of certain soldiers. The soldiers in this book are apart of the Civilian Affairs Battalion. We didn’t learn about this specific unit and APush. I wasn’t really surprised because it would make sense to have a Civilian Affairs Battalion.
What questions/thoughts do you have w/ regards to the direction of the book development of the characters?
I’m wondering why the author spends a lot of time developing Jonsey’s character. I also wonder why the author portrays these soldiers as weaker than other soldiers just because they aren’t very eager to fight.
a. In The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, the novel follows the story of Tom Joad and his family along their journey to California from the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression. Tom Joad has recently been released from McCallister (a prison) on parole after killing a man in a bar fight. He hitches a ride with a judgmental truck driver for part of the way to his parents’ house and decides to walk the rest of the way. On this walk, he runs into a man named Jim Casy, who was a former preacher but stopped because he felt hypocritical doing it. They decide to continue the journey to Tom’s parents’ house together, as Casy wants to do something different with his life just the same as Tom. Once they arrive at the house, they find it to be empty and learn from Muley Graves that Tom’s parents are going West to California to find new work and a new place to live. The reader late learns that their house was taken by the bank because they were behind on payments. Tom and Jim Casy decide to go to Tom’s Uncle Joe because he thinks that his parents will be there. Sure enough, Tim gets there just in time to start the journey with Ma, Pa, Granma, Granpa, and Tom’s siblings to go West to California. There is some reluctance and worry about the journey, but they go anyway with barely enough cash in a beat-up truck. They travel along Route 66 and experience interesting encounters along the way, including being accused of begging instead of being willing to pay for gas. A major theme in the novel is overcoming hardships. Tom has to overcome the fact that he will always be a criminal and has to learn how to start his life back up again. His family has to pack up their entire life and move away to completely start over, as their house and belongings are mostly gone. Jim Casy decided to completely abandon his career choice as a preacher and now has to figure out what to do with his life, and he is struggling to do so.
b. John Steinbeck was born on February 27, 1902 in California. He studied English Literature at Stanford University, but dropped out in 1925, moved to New York City, and tried his best to pursue a career in writing. Through working odd jobs and getting assistance from his family and welfare, Steinbeck was able to write and publish essential novels to the 20th century. His most famous pieces are Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, and East of Eden. In 1962, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature “for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception.” Steinbeck’s pieces usually take place in California and involve themes of injustice and fate. He died on December 20, 1968 of congestive heart failure, but will always be remembered as one of the greatest writers in American history.
c. This novel takes place during the Great Depression and Tom’s family comes from Oklahoma. We learned a broad version of the struggles that Americans faced, such as unemployment or losing belongings, or need for migration, but we never tuned into a specific family and their personal struggles. This book gives a true insight into the underclass American family that struggles to make ends meet while being optimistic about a new future in a new place. In the novel, Tom’s parents mention being sent flyers that advertise the availability for great work in California, but as we learned, much of that was propaganda to get people to move. Tom’s family gives a specific and personal connection to the Okies and Dust Bowl that we learned about while learning about the Great Depression, but didn’t dive deep into.
d. When Tom and his family were getting ready to leave Uncle John’s house, Granpa was very reluctant to leave, to the point of saying he would stay home and Ma having to drug him to get him to come. I wonder if his earlier reluctance will cause more problems along the journey and once they arrive in California. I also wonder what life will be like for Tom’s family once they arrive in California. Will it be crowded, as some have warned? Will Tom and/or his father be able to find work? How will Tom’s criminal record affect his career and life endeavors? Also, does Jim Casy have any specific plans for his future besides being somewhat of a deadbeat?
The first third of my book, The River of Doubt by Candice Millard, started out kind of slow. The story’s beginning detailed President Teddy Roosevelt’s life before and soon after his presidential campaigns. Roosevelt had battles severe depression throughout his whole life, starting in his early years from events like the death of his first wife Alice. While Roosevelt appeared to be a fearless and courageous man, his was also very emotional, leading to these sorrow feelings. Roosevelt soon learned how to cope with his emotional struggles, through boxing in his younger years and his love of nature, leading to the progression of the story. A man named Father Zahm had contacted Roosevelt after his failed 3rd presidential campaign to see if he wanted to travel to Brazil with him. After years of hesitation from Roosevelt, he finally agreed, leading to extensive planning to make the trip as safe and worth as possible. Zahm hired many survival professionals and explorers (such as the failed North Pole explorer Fiala) to help safen and ease the trip, while another man named Chapman sent even more help for personal interest, as Roosevelt’s survival kept his profession thriving. Eventually, the plan was set, and the whole gang set out to Brazil, where the leaders gave them one of their best guides, Rondon. Soon enough, the group set on course to their exploration and sightseeing, only to be met by the River of Doubt. Unexplored and not part of their trip, Roosevelt’s fully lived life (in his mind) encouraged him to want to be the first to successfully map out this area, regardless of the hundreds lost who previously tried doing the same. Due to Roosevelt’s confidence, everyone soon agreed to explore this dangerous area, most likely leading to issues in the near future. Personally, I do not think that this book has a set theme so far, as it is mostly a documentary of events regarding Roosevelt’s expedition.
Candice Miller is an American author and journalist, currently 51 years old today. She was a previous writer for National Geographic, New York Times, and Washington Post. Her two main titles were the River of Doubt and Destiny of the Republic, each winning several literature awards. Today, she currently lives in Kansas City, Kansas.
In APUSH class, we had learned a lot about Teddy Roosevelt that was mentioned and important in this book. For instance, we had learned that Roosevelt had ran for a third term, almost splitting the republican party in two. On top of this, we had also learned that Roosevelt had a very big interest in wilderness, which was his largest point of interest aside from politics. While reading, I learned that Roosevelt had struggled with depression his whole life. I was surprised by this, as I would have thought his fame and success from the army and politics would have satisfied him.
Overall, I am understanding the book better than expected, as it is a pretty easy read for me. I was a little troubled with why it was so easy for Roosevelt to get his whole group to agree to explore the dangerous River of Doubt so easily, regardless of its catastrophic history.
The first third of Vietnam- Book 1- I Pledge Allegiance by Chris Lynch starts off with the four main characters in middle school. Morris (the narrator), Ivan, Rudi, and Beck are best friends and they have a strong pledge that nothing gets between them- girls, college, even the draft. They all agreed they would never go to the war voluntarily. Rudi was selected to go into the Marines and passes the test easily. But, when Rudi gets drafted into the Vietnam War, Mo (Morris), Beck, and Ivan all enlist with him. Morris has multiple nightmares that the war will be the end of his friend’s lives. Ivan, who has always been a big brother figure to Rudi, enlists in the Army, Beck in the Air Force and Mo in the Navy. Mo is indifferent about his experience with the Navy thus far. He like being out at sea on deck and the new purpose he has been given through the war. But he cannot stand the enclosed space of the quarters below deck and only can get about two hours of sleep a night. Throughout this whole ordeal, Morris feels the responsibility to watch over his friends and make sure that all four of them come home alive, even though they are all in a different branch of service, which I think is the overarching theme of this book.
Chris Lynch, the author of Vietnam- Book 1- I Pledge Allegiance, is an American writer born in Boston, Massachusetts. Lynch graduated from Emerson College and he currently teaches in the Lesley University creative writing MFA program and spends his time in both Massachusetts and Scotland. He has written over 45 books, including the 5 book series of Vietnam and the 4 book series on World War II. Most of his books are historical fiction with a few completely fictional. Lynch’s books range from short stories to kids books, to young adult/adult books.
This book obviously connects to the Vietnam War which we studied in APUSH. It went over the brutalities of war pretty graphically, even in just the first third of the story. It also fully encompassed the families feeling toward Rudi getting drafted and Mo, Ivan, and beck enlisting on their own terms. Even though we had learned and I had known that the kids leaving for war were really just kids and were giving up their lives, their situation really sunk into me while reading this book. Especially with the seniors just graduating, the story put into context that if we were living through the Vietnam War or during a drafting period, any of those who just graduated could have been eligible for the draft.
One major aspect of this book that I did not understand was the fact that Morris, Ivan, Rudi, and Beck all join a different branch of the military. If they wanted to stay together to protect each other and make sure that they all come back alive, I feel like it would have been more realistic for them all to try to join the same branch.
In the book “The Rock and The River” by Kekla Magoon, the protagonist Sam Childs, a 14-year-old boy, the son of civil rights activist Roland Childs is faced with troubles between his father, his brother, society, and himself. In Chicago, 1968, Sam is standing by his brother Steven (17 years old) , which Sam calls “Stick”, in a demonstration held by their father Roland Childs. Sam and Stick decide to ditch the activist knowing their father would be disappointed, as they were leaving a fight broke out, witnessing an old woman getting knocked to the ground by a white man. Stick steps in and ends up getting stuck to the head with a broken glass bottle leaving stick bleeding and brought to the hospital. Roland their father was disappointed in them for leaving the demonstration but was even more disappointed in Stick for using violence. While in the hospital Sam goes to the gift shop to buy something but a white man behind the desk yells at Sam accusing him of stealing but Sam tries to explain himself, with all the courage Sam had he still motions to purchase the mittens but in the end Sam is scared of what he had encountered. Bucky one of Sticks close friends sneaks into Sam and Sticks bedroom and starts to discuss the Black Panthers the militant political organization devoted to fighting back against police brutality.A couple of plans of the Blank Panthers.Roland Childs does not associate himself with the Black Panthers nor does he want his family to be associated with them because they use violence instead of nonviolence for change, which he followed alongside with his close friend Martin Luther King Jr. Maxie invites Sam to a breakfast which is hosted by Black Panthers but Sam had no clue. Stick is there helping to run the breakfast, then Sam later finds out Stick and Maxie’s brother are apart of the Black Panthers. Maxie and Sam become closer and walk with each other to and from school, one day they were walking and saw Bucky was being beaten by cops and Sam stood their witnessing. Thinking about how he should do something but he couldn’t because he wasn’t as brave as his brother and father. Weeks go by winter turn into spring, Stick sneaks out more and more, then on April 4th Martin Luther King Jr is assassinated, the streets go wild, hell breaks loose. Sam in the middle of the street frantic soon finds Maxie and they run off together to get home safe. A few days later after the assassination of Dr. King the whole black community gathered in honor of his funeral. The night of the funeral Stick comes home but is having an argument with his father than is kicked out, Sam is frustrated with his brothers actions and feels betrayed because he and his brother have always been close and now they are distant. I think the authors major theme in the story is Civil Rights, the author is showing blacks trying to achieve equal rights as a white person. The violation of civil rights and the efforts by various groups to change that drives the majority of the action within the story.
Kekela Magoon is an american author famous for her young adult novels “The Rock and the River”, “How It Went Down”, “The Season of Styx Malone”, and “X”. Magoon was born in 1980 in Michigan and attended Northwestern University where she majored in history and got her bachelor’s degree and Vermont college of fine arts for her masters degree for fine arts . Magoon writes novels, short stories, historical, socio-political, and economy-related non-fiction.
The connections to the book to what we’ve discussed in apush is the civil rights movement. Throughout the story the characters are protesting for equal rights including groups like the Black Panthers and individuals such as Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X and more.
So far in the story I think Maxie could have a bigger role in the story but she might end up sharing more of her life with Sam. Maxie could share how she feels about how her brother is in the Black Panther and her fears of him either being arrested or could end up dying.
Orphan Train Blog #1
This is a story about two immigrant girls in two different time periods. Molly is in more present time, and Niamh is more from the past. Molly’s dad died, and her mom has mental issues. This caused her to go into the foster care system. She constantly feels unwanted, left out, and like she doesn’t fit in. Dina, her foster mom does not care about her and Molly can see that. Her Foster mom Dina is constantly complaining about the amount of work she has and gets annoyed with Molly easily. Molly tries to steal a book. Because of previous trouble she has been in she has to go to juvie. Luckily, her boyfriends mom gets her a job to clean out an old lady’s attic to count as community service hours. When cleaning out the attic the story transitions to Niamh which happens to be who Molly is cleaning out the attic for. The story then starts with Niamh starting to explain her life. Her life begins with her also as an orphan. Just like Molly, she feels unwanted by her foster parents. This is a major theme in the book. Both characters are constantly being treated as outcasts. They both feel unwanted by their foster parents and feel they never find their place in society. The author Christina Baker Kline was originally born in England then moved to Maryland. She became an english teacher at Yale. She actually went to Yale herself. She then started teaching at New York University. She lives there with her husband and sons. She has written many other fiction books. A way this relates to APUSH is the aspect of immigration. Niamh one of the protagonists came to America to have better opportunities in life. She grew up in Ireland around the time of the potato famine. Her family was very poor before and came for better work and living conditions. Also, this novel so far exposed the true treatment of orphans and immigrants in greater detail. Before, reading I did not know they were often treated as less. They received little from their foster families, and treated poorly by the people around them. I wonder that as this novel progresses if Molly will finally find her place as NIamh eventually did. I also have a prediction that could be totally off. I feel like NIamh is going to end up adopting Molly. I am also excited to see more of NIamhs relationship with Molly. I am wondering if she will open up to her more and share experiences.
The Money Men, written by H.W. Brands, consists of the life of Hamilton while in government, times prior, and his relationships with other government members. Hamilton believed that economics ruled the world, and that the economic arise for the colonists in America was too slow. Many colonists rebelled in 1775, known as Lexington and Concord, and Hamilton assisted the battle indirectly, including with the aid of cannons and weaponry. His abilities led George Washington to request Hamilton to join his entourage. However, Hamilton wasn’t wealthy, and soon afterwards, married Elizabeth Schuyler, which fixed his monetary problems. Although he fixed his problems, the colonists were growing hungrier for money from the British due to their extreme taxes. George Washington’s army was facing monetary issues, which led to discussions over a strong central and national bank. Hamilton believed that Congress should have complete authority over this issue. He knew this was the best choice for the nation; however, many people began to believe this was the reason for which they had began to fight the American revolution in the first place. The central government for Britain was too strong, allowing them the ability to tax without hesitation. The Articles of Confederation was a key contradiction to this belief, as it was failing in many areas, including payments to farmers, and also unpaid soldiers who fought in the war, known as Shays rebellion. These events exposed the inability of the Articles of Confederation to succeed long-term. At this time, a new document to govern the country was being developed. It was first proposed that the national government should have complete authority and serve for life, as a monarch would. However, this was the reason for which they had overthrown the rule of Britain. The conference gave the idea of the executive serving for four year terms. They also discussed ways to improve Congress based on population. Hamilton served as one of the main congressmen to develop this new government, known as the Constitution.
H. W. Brands is an American author and a historian. He holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr. Chair in History at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned his Ph.D. in history in 1985. He has currently written over 30 other books, the most popular being The First American. This is a story about Benjamin Franklin and his life as a colonist in the new world.
As stated above, Washington’s continental army was facing extreme monetary issues, which led to many problems while he was under its rule. The continental army, as we studied it in APUSH, was the American army in which through a series of battles, including Lexington and Concord as a pre-wartime battle, was able to defeat the monarch rule of the British and able to establish a new system of government. Given this, Washington’s army couldn’t pay his soldiers, which led to a plethora of rebellions fighting for their wages. The most common one was led by Shay, and also known as Shays rebellion. I didn’t realize, though I feel as if I should have, that the issue of not having money was also an occurrence before and after the war. These issues, now according to my knowledge after reading, are based off of the problems facing the Articles of Confederation dealing with states rights first before the government and extreme taxing under British rule. I also didn’t realize the large role of Hamilton in the founding days of the United States. He was in the council for a newly proposed bank, and made many benefits to the war cause, including supplying Washington with cannons rescued from the British use. To my knowledge, I had only remembered him for his views on the national bank; however, he played a much larger role than I would have imagined.
I have several questions to the point of my reading. It stated that Hamilton had many abilities, which led Washington to request him to join his army as a chief, though it doesn’t go into further detail. What were these abilities, and how did they affect Washington’s decision. Additionally, how did Washington’s and Hamilton’s friendship increase over time? The novel didn’t go into much detail about it. Lastly, how were Hamilton and Madison great friends in government, as they had differing political views?
A.) Idiot America is an analysis of the far out ideas that Americans develop. It shows many conspiracy theories, and strange takes that take root in the public mindset. The author, Charles p. Pierce shows examples of individuals who he calls “cranks”, or people who will go against common sense or experts and develop strange beliefs. Pierce claims that the American crank is an essential part of the experiment that is America. they force skepticism and imagination into the minds of Americans, however the advent of technology like the internet gave these “cranks” too much influence over Americans, creating huge groups of people who hold “ …opinions that test the outer boundaries of the crazoid”. Pierce provides examples ranging from creationists who believe evolution is fake and humans coexisted with dinosaurs, to a man who believed he discovered Atlantis from his home in an abandoned city in Wisconsin, conspiracy theorists claiming that the freemasons and knights Templar run the government in secret because the knights found Jesus’s daughters body in the temple of Solomon, and people who believe an international highway across the middle of America from Mexico to Canada will take away jobs and turn America into “Mexicana”. He provides slightly humorous deconstructions of these beliefs and arguments and explains the issues they can cause for the country
B.) Charles p. Pierce writes articles in magazines for sports and politics, he has written for publications discharge as the New York and Los Angeles times, and is currently a political blogger, he appears on radio shows like npr and the Stephanie Miller show. Pierce has written four books in total, two on sports, being moving the chains: Tom Brady and the pursuit of everything in 2006 and sports guy in 2000. The other book he wrote was a look at the causes and research of Alzheimer’s disease in hard to forget: an Alzheimer’s story. His fourth and most recent book is idiot America
C.) I can’t think of any specific connections between the book and what we’ve learned in class, the author touches on how “cranks” are important to insuring people maintain the idea of self government, and also states that the founding fathers intended for the country to have these types of people in it, but because most of the examples are on the less impactful side of American history, or more recent than what we have covered I can’t point out many connections to the class. The book mostly outlines the stupidity of some incredibly strange beliefs, so it’s not really easy to connect to our class. But I was surprised by how crazy some of these conspiracies are, I knew there was a museum for creationists that depicted dinosaurs among humans but I didn’t know that people seriously believed that people rode dinosaurs and that Noah brought baby dinosaurs onto the ark, or that people think the plot of national treasure is real. It’s crazy how many people believe in crazy stories like this and how much influence these conspiracies can have on the country.
In my book, Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry by Mildred D. Taylor, the main characters start the story by going to school. The story takes place in the time during the great depression and the Jim Crow Era. The main characters are the Logan Family, a black family living on 400 acres of cotton farmland. The family has four kids: Cassie, Stacey, Christopher-John, and Little Man. At the beginning of the book, while the kids are walking to school, a bus for the school for white kids passes the Logan kids and their friend TJ and blows red dust onto their already-worn out clothes. It can be inferred that the school for black kids doesn’t have buses, and the kids have to walk to school every day, sometimes even a 3.5-hour walk. Once they get to school, they receive their books. It is a big deal because many of the kids at the school had never handled a book before; however, the books cause some controversy because according to the front of the book, as soon as the book was in poor condition it was given to the black kids. The racism wasn’t just limited to school. A poorer black family, the Berry’s, were almost fatally burned by a white man. Apparently, Mr.Berry had been flirting with a white woman at the store. The white man chases him to a house, then dragged him out and burned him. The burning was the talk of the town and even push the Logan kids’ father to come down from his job working on the railroad to send someone to protect his family. He sends Mr.Morrison, a very large black man who bonds with the Logan kids. The night before Mr. Logan laves, the kids overhear the adults talking about some nightmen who were coming around that night. Confused, they went back to pretending to sleep, but they start to worry because whoever these nightmen were pushed the adults to hold their rifles close to them and watch by the door.
Mildred D. Taylor is best known for her book series about the Logan family, most popular being Roll of Thunder Hear my Cry. Taylor’s grandparents were slaves, and many of her stories are based on the stories passed down in her family and real events in her life. The books start from the time of slavery and go all the way through to the jim crow/segregation era.
This book is very centered on segregation. The lives of the black community in the book reflect real life feelings and events from this country’s past. Similar to what happened to Emmet Till happened to Mr. Berry in the book. He was supposedly flirting with a white woman and (almost) killed for it. We also see segregation in the school system. The black school is poor and get run down items and building, where the white school gets buses and nicer things. I didn’t know that feathering and tarring someone was still a thing during his time until one of the characters in the book went through it.
I think this book will introduce more characters going through things very similar to what the Logan family is. I do wonder why Mr. Logan couldn’t find work close to home and why Mr. Morrison is willing to work to protect the Logans for free.
My book is called 102 minutes. It’s about the first 102 minutes before the towers fell. Within those 102 minutes it describes the characters and what they were most likely doing when the towers fell. In order to do paint a picture of what that character is doing you need to know what there routine is so the book talks about them and what they did around the time the attack came. I think the subject of the book is to really educate the reader on 9/11 on an emotional level, people get to know these characters and begin to really feel for them. Once they die it hits harder because you know more about them.
My book actually has two authors Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn. Jim Dwyer is an American journalist who is a reporter and columnist with The New York Times, he’s also the author or co-author of six non-fiction books. He’s also won a Pulitzer Prize. He’s covered 9/11, 2004, The Iraqi War, and law enforcement surveillance. Thomas Flynn is an American author, journalist, novelist, executive director of the Council for Secular Humanism, and he’s also the editor of its journal Free Inquiry.
I can connect this to what we’ve learned today. We’ve learned about 9/11 in class so this is like a real life experience of it. It’s actually perfect that we’re learning about the 90’s while I’m reading this because it’s like while we’re learning about what happened and why it happened. And I’m also learning about real life people who have experienced what this and went through it . I feel like I’ll have a better grasp on it because I’m learning about what happened on 9/11 two different ways. I didn’t know the exact times that the planes hit the buildings I do now 8:46 and 9:02. I also know when the buildings fell which I didn’t know before. The North Tower at 10:28 and the South at 9:59. And I know how many people were killed and injured when the buildings fell. Not to mention the names of some of the people who died in the attack. I was surprised that even though the North Tower was hit first it fell last .
I have no qualms with the direction the book is going in. It’s describing each character, what they did on that day and it’s also progressing in time. I think it’s better the way the book is going now as oppose to something else. I’m not sure if it’s just me or not but it seems like with each character the book gets more in depth with them. I also like that it doesn’t just talk about the main characters in the book, the people who died but it also talks about the people they were close to or worked with. Like for DeFontes they don’t talk about just her but also about friends she had that worked in the building and even her bosses. And that makes sense because it’s probably where the author got there information from. All in all it’s a emotional look and I’m enjoying it.
1. The Freedom Summer Murders is about 3 Civil rights activists (Andy Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner) that were killed by police and members of the KKK while driving to Mississippi. None of them were originally from Mississippi, but they went there to promote equal education rights. They went to talk to someone outside of town for the day, and on their way back were arrested for no valid reason, and it was just because of the fact that they were civil rights activists. The police took them to the station, where he could only hold them for a few hours, and called some members of the KKK and told them what he had done. A few hours later he let Andy, James and Michael go and they only got a few miles from the police station before the police pulled them over again and made them get out of the car. He and some other members of the KKK shot all 3 men and took and buried their bodies. It was not uncommon back then for civil rights activists to be abused and taunted in the south, so when the 3 men did not return, their friends and family knew something was up. The author then goes into detail about each of the men’s lives, where they came from, how they were raised, etc. Not going to lie, after the murder part is over, the book starts to get really boring because it’s just quotes and facts and it’s not really a story, and rather a history textbook.
The author of this book, Don Mitchell, is known for his non-fiction books. He has written many other non-fiction books, most about other events in history.
I learned that lynching not only happened to African Americans but also some of the white civil rights activists. I also got a deeper understanding of the intensity of the racism in the south, and the difference between them and the north. I still don’t understand their reasoning behind discriminating people based on their skin tone, and I doubt I ever will. Nothing can justify what some of these people did too so many innocent men and women. As I said earlier, I’m not the biggest fan of the writing style of the book. It’s more of a textbook or a really long research paper with vague details and quotes from specific people. I think they could have written it in more of a story and it would have been more interesting to read, and I think it could have expressed the author’s ideas more. Maybe he could have written it in the perspective of one of the 3 men. Or maybe the perspective of the police officer. Or both. I think the author just glosses over these murders to get into their backgrounds and their childhood. It’s a very small portion of the book even though that’s what I was expecting when I picked it out. If it were in first person, I think it would be more touching and make people think more about their choices back then.
The book X : A Novel, By Ilyasah Shabazz, details the early life of Malcolm X, the author’s father, and his involvement in the civil rights community. The first third of the book provides an adequate backstory into the early life of Malcolm Little, which covers his father’s death, his own urchin-like interactions in Lansing, and wraps up by dealing with his mother being taken away to a mental institution in Kalamazoo despite not appearing to be mentally-ill in the eyes of Malcolm and his immediate family.The earliest third of the book also introduces Malcolm to the neighborhoods of Boston, where he is staying with his step sister. So far, the author makes multiple references to the idea that characters should stick together in order to not be taken advantage of, or suffer a loss of life. With the consequences shown to Malcolm as early as age 6 with the ‘accidental’ death of his father, being cautious and sticking together are both common themes that are represented through this section of the book.
Ilyasah Shabazz is the daughter of Malcolm X, and the middle child of the family at 57 years of age. Many of her books are tied to the subject of her father or mother, and she has mainly written biographies about them. She has her own website dedicated towards her writing at this link, http://www.ilyasahshabazz.com/ . All four of her biographical works have received their own awards, and she has received 5 awards for both her works in literature and her humanitarian efforts.
This book most obviously ties into the units that touched on the civil rights movement, but X also discusses race relations during and after the Great Depression in the 1940’s. The story likes to hop around a lot between backstories and the ‘current’ day that Malcolm is experiencing, but similarities in relations are both noticed through Malcolm’s character as well as to the reader. One thing that did stand out to me was that interracial communities had existed in Boston, specifically that of Sugar Hill. In the book, Malcolm’s character himself is amazed at the fact that such a community where interracial couples could exist, which is a stark contrast from what he had experienced in Lansing, where he was treated as insignificant despite being highly successful in school.
I believe that the book is heading on a good path, with Malcolm gaining a hold of all the different things that he could do in Boston. This book has shed some light on many things that I didn’t even know about Malcolm X, such as that he grew up in Michigan, or that both of his parents were taken away from him in rather violent manners. And since a majority of the first third of the book takes place while Malcolm was still somewhere around my age, 15 or 16, his character is relatable as he expresses sentiments towards his situation that a typical teenager would show if they were confronted by an entirely new city, or a new home to live in
In the first third of the book Detroit ; A biography, it talks about the very beginnings of the city. It was a French trading post off of the Detroit River. The French would trade with the native Indians in the area. They would get valuable fur from the native Indians. Then comes the British who took over Detroit after the French and Indian war. The British were much more hostile towards the Indians. The were lots of fighting between the British and Indians. Then nothing much happens in Detroit until the 1800s where Michigan becomes a state and Detriot begins to grow.during the civil was Michigan joined the union and Detroit had sent a lot of soldiers into war. After the war, the industrialization help sparks a new boom in Detroit. The book is a nonfiction book so there is no characters or theme in it.
Scott Martelle began his career as a journalist and has written many books throughout his career. Right now he works in the editorial board of the LA Times. One of the books he wrote is William Walker’s Wars: How One Man’s Private American Army Tried to Conquer Mexico, Nicaragua, and Honduras. He enjoys writing about his favorit topic American history. He wrote Detroit because he spent a lot of his life living in Detroit and writing in the Detroit press. He has almost 25 years of professional writing everything from local papers to nationwide books.
My reading so far has a lot of connection the fist is the French and Indian war which helped shape who took over Detroit. Then it mentions the war of 1812 where Detroit was used to go to Canada and where the Pontiac rebellion happened. Then it talks about the lead up to the civil war like how Detroit was in a northern state and was against slavery. Then it goes into the civil war and showed how Michigan was a part of the union and how Detroit helped play an important role in sending men to the military from Michigan. After the civil war and industrialization were booming Detroit really began to grow into a big city. Factories were showing up everywhere across America and Detroit was no excuse. It also talks about the opening of the Erie Canal and how that helped bring people to Detroit. I did not know that most of the time Detroit was a very farming and trading town. I also did not know that Fredrick Douglas visited Detroit many times. I was surprised at how it is not much about Detroit in its early history.
I dont have very many questions. I am just excited for when the book gets into the 20th century and things in Detroit finally get interesting. I already know a lot of what’s going to happen next but it would be cool to get a more in a detailed description of the following events. The book right now is building up to the huge population and develo[ment spark that is going to happen in the early 20th century.
Assassination Vacation Blog Entry #1
The beginning of Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell starts off very slow. The novel is about the complicated and intricate assassinations of different Presidents. The author has a slight obsession with the assassination of American Presidents. Sara Vowell in her free time enjoys the numerous assassination memorials across the country. So far through the first third of the book, the subject has strictly been on the assassination of the Presidents. In fact, the author does an exquisite job of going into detail about the deaths of each President. Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley are all of the President’s she has a interest in. Lincoln is her favorite, which can be seen through her heavily expressed interest in his specific assassination story. I believe the major theme of the book is definitely the amount of time and energy it takes into killing a President, and also how once they are killed their legacy gets forever sanctified.
Along with being a trusted American Historian, Sarah Vowell is also a renown author of many award-winning books and New York Times bestseller. Born in Muskogee Oklahoma, yet raised in Bozeman Montana, Vowell received a B.A. from the University of Montana. Most of her books are either politics or Historical American literature. Overall, Ms. Vowell is very qualified to be called an expert in American History. Vowell doesn’t stop at books and also makes short films as well on different historical topics.
Even though our APUSH class never truly learned the entire history of Presidential Assassinations, we did somewhat cover Lincolns. One thing that did surprise me was the extensive planning it took these men to plan the attempts. John Wilkes Booth, for example, spent around three or four weeks on just planning his flamboyant attempt at Lincoln’s life. Another thing that puzzled me was the different motives these men had for going all the way to take another man’s life. The characters deep devotion for these specific Presidents surprised me because it is not something that you see every day.
Going forward I would rather the book take a more enjoyable turn because at this rate the book won’t be a pleasure to read. Also, a question of mine is what will happen once the topic of assassination is exhausted and where will the storyline fall then. Something I’d like to see is if an explanation is given for the sanctification of these Presidents, despite if they’re worthy or not. Also, another good direction for the book could be detailed descriptions of the different landmarks mentioned and how they feel in the present time. Some details I would like to receive are why exactly does the author have such a deep devotion and interest in Presidential Assassinations, and history.
A. I am reading Back to our Future by David Sirota for my independent reading book. This book goes into the world of the 1980s and how they influenced us today. The book starts with an introduction describing the time period. The way he does this is he uses his brothers and shows us how they communicate and how the 80s leak themselves to their conversations. The rest of the chapters delve into specific issues of the 80s and how the time periods differ from the 80s. It talks about Michel J. Fox and Back to the Future, E.T., the Breakfast Club and other iconic movies from the 80s. He expresses the different views of the hippies from the time period and its surrounding time periods. He talks about Nike and how they became very big and coined their motto “Just do it”. On top of all the fun aspects of the 80s, he talks about politics. He talks about the 1980 election and other pivotal points in politics such as, debates over who was to blame for the defeat they took in Vietnam. One of the points that Sirota repeatedly mentions is that the 80s still have a major influence on the decades that followed it. He often compares aspects from the 80s to aspects now and explained how their similarities outway their differences.
B. David Sirota was born in Connecticut and moved to Denver. He is a political commentator and radio host based in Denver. He is also a nationally ranked newspaper columnist. He has published columns in The New York Times and The Nation. He has written two other Books in the past. He wrote The Uprising which is about the protests on Wall Street and was published in 2008. He also wrote Hostile Takeover which is about how greed and corrupt the government is.
C. Throughout this section but primarily near the beginning Sirota constantly talks about the Vietnam war. He is mostly talking about the defeat of Vietnam and whose fault that it had gone so poorly. I remember learning about the Vietnam war in class but specifically the home front. I remember talking about the fact that many people wanted to pull out of the war but LBJ wanted to keep them in and refused to let them home. The news and media were also saying the whole time that we were winning because we had a higher body count but, we were drastically loosing yet we never brought our troops back to help us. One thing that I learned from this section was how much culture from the 80s is in today’s society. This is the author’s main point but as I kept reading and getting farther the more I realized that so many of these things my family will talk about or use in our everyday lives. This also surprised me because at the start of the book he said this but I didn’t realize how much was actually embedded in our society.
D. The only question/thought that I have from reading this section was, why have none of the other decades influenced us this much? With the 90’s so close I feel like as if they should have left a bigger imprint on the decade now. If not this I feel like some of the older generations should’ve left that much impact because they know that they are going to shape everything after.
The Big Short
a: The story begins with Michael Lewis recalling his experience on Wall Street as a young, underqualified employee of Salomon Brothers. He eventually quit due to his belief that his employment was unsustainable and went on to write a book called Liar’s Poker in an attempt to expose the irresponsible and self-destructive business practices ofWall Street and more specifically the bond market. His book does little to change how people operate and comes to believe that Wall Street is invincible until he hears Meredith Whitney’s exposure of Citigroup and prediction of a large crash. After the crash in 2008, Lewis contacted Whitney to discuss the people who predicted the crash with the most prominent one mentioned being Steve Eisman. Lewis decides to tell Eisman’s story and starts back in 1991 when the then lawyer transitions into becoming a broker at Oppenheimer Securities. Eisman is characterized as someone who is insightful and lacking a filter which helps him rise through the ranks rapidly due to the company valuing employees who would say what they believed. Eisman starts to study the growing industry of mortgage loans many of which in years past were backed by the government. Now many of the loans were not backed or were home equity loans in which high-interest-rate loans were converted into low-interest rate ones, both of which were not reliant on the quality of the person the loan was being given to. Eisman’s infant son is killed by a night nurse who rolled over him in her sleep making him grow more jaded and cynical. After getting over the grief this death caused Eismen hired a new employee named Vincent Daniel and together they figured out that many of these loans allowed many to live above their means but we’re not making any real money. Eisman attempts to fight the finance industry by exposing a company called Household Finance for lying about its interest rates but eventually lost. We then switch to the perspective of Michael Burry who used to be a Medical Doctor but transitioned into finance. We sought a way to bet against real estate mortgages. Him betting against subprime mortgages was unheard of and resented by his many investors but he purposely did not allow them to pull their money out. He eventually went directly to banks and found the loans that had the highest chance of defaulting and bet against them. Eventually, the banks came to him wanting his bets back making it very clear to him that the whole system was about to collapse.
b : Michael Lewis was born to J. Thomas Lewis and Diana Monroe Lewis in New Orleans, Louisiana. He went to Isidore Newman School, Princeton University, and the London School of Economics. While he initially wanted to be an art historian he quickly realized that there were almost no jobs in the field and the ones that did exist were low paying. Lewis briefly worked as a bond salesman for a few years but eventually quit and wrote Liar’s Poker. Lewis eventually went on to write many critically acclaimed books like Moneyball, Blind Sense, and The Big Short.
c: Though we have not yet covered the Great Recession the events leading to the Great Recession are quite similar to those leading to the Great Depression. Both were caused by out of control debt and low-interest rate speculative loans. I never understood exactly what a credit default swap or exactly what a subprime loan was before reading the first third of this book. A credit default swap is when you pay someone to pay for any losses when a company defaults for a premium and reduces potential losses to the total price of the bond. They also did not exist until Michael Burry wanted to purchase them. A subprime loan is simply a loan made to someone despite an increased probability that they will not be able to pay it back for some preexisting issue.
D: I feel that the framing of the book is a bit square with so many characters living through often overlapping time periods but it still works regardless. It is nice to know that the author actually went to the London School of Economics and the way he explains economic concept makes sure that it shows. I like the development of the characters on a more personal level despite the fact that it may be slightly inaccurate it helps to make the book feel more like a story. It is also clear that Leis has a specific perspective on the economic industry due to his time spent working in it which he explores using these characters.
The Help is set in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi. The first third of this book is focused on development of the characters and giving us an extremely low key foreshadowing idea. We meet all the and learn their stories and their views on “the help” aka slaves. Aibileen Clark is in charge of taking care of a child Mae Mobley. Minny Jackson reminds me of myself with her sassy way of life. She always says her thoughts and speaks her mind. This is not accepted by many of her places of work, resulting in her being fired from many jobs. Skeeter is the daughter of a plantation owner. After coming home from college, her mother wants her to get married even though Skeeter wants to be a writer. Skeeter’s mom does not see that education is the most powerful weapon. Skeeter’s childhood care taker is nowhere to be seen when she comes home. When asking around, people act as if this never happened and will not give her the truth. Skeeter soon realizes how unfair black people are treated in the line of work and decides to write about it. Her writing is starting but seeing trouble from the start. I think Skeeter will be successful in her writing. The help will become angry, like they did in so many protests, and revolt. They will spill everything.
Kathryn Stockett was born in 1969 in jackson, Mississippi (where the book takes place). She is most known for The Help. Stockett was very close with an African American domestic worker, who helped her through the journey of writing her first book. Ablene is a real “help” who used to work for Stockett’s brother and filled a lawsuit against Stockett herself for using her likeness in the book. This lawsuit was thrown out the window by a judge.
I knew that african americans were not equal and it is still something we struggle with today, but seeing the truth and these stories told from the view of an african american is very sad. White people thought they were so much better because their skin burned in the summer time. This book surprised me with some of the actions taken against african americans and how against them white people were. As I talk about below, I was surprised at how people can love themselves even though they are so cruel to other human beings. Reading this book is bringing this topic in history to such a different prevalence to me. It is making me angry at my past but also makes me think because what are we doing now that people think is okay but we will back and say God what were we thinking?
I just want to know why people thought this was okay to do to people. I don’t understand how people can look in the mirror and love themselves then go downstairs and smack an african american because they didnt like the way they put away the dishes. I also would like to know why it took so long to develop the characters. Was this for us to build a bond to them? If so, I think it was really successful because I felt connected to the characters by the time that the book was in full swing.
Assassination by Sarah Vowell
It’s a historical journey Sarah Vowell begins her book Assassination Vacation. Vowell occupies herself with different presidential assassinations, focusing specifically on Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley, all of whom were shot while in office. This book takes a look at a strange form of patriotism presidential death artifacts.
Vowell describes herself as “obsessed with death,” she often drags her friends and family members to see the different statues, homes, displayed in various places all over the country. The review on her personal feelings about politics and the history of the United States is what makes the book even better, uniting the past and present in an attempt to discover what makes the death of major influencers so interesting to us today. John Wilkes Booth was convicted for complicity in Lincoln’s death; he is not redeemed by Vowell, despite the family’s determined “lobbying” to clear his name (p. 59-60).
Vowell starts her tour at the Ford Theater, where Lincoln was shot. Lincoln does seem to take up a lot of the book so far, but he also has most drama surrounding his death, which started out as kidnapping and ended as an assassination.
The assassinations of Presidents Garfield and McKinley are definitely not as well known as that of Lincoln, but there are still a few artifacts associated with them. Garfield was shot by Charles Guiteau, a slightly delusional man who was upset when he wasn’t appointed an ambassador to France. The inflated self-esteem it requires to kill a president than I am astonished by the men who run for president. These are people who have them to believe they can fix us and our debt, our fossil fuels, our racism, poverty, our potholes, and public schools. The confidence required to be president or a presidential assassin makes the two very ambitious people.
Sarah Vowell has other books like The Partly Cloudy Patriot which is “A collection of essays on the conundrums and amusement of being American.” She also has Take The Cannoli Which is “ A place in Vowell’s hilarious collection of personal stories.” These are other I stories I would probably read because the novel I am reading right now is very well written and I would read more of her work.
This connects to APUSH for an obvious reason, the assassinations of our presidents, which we learned about. We learned more about the Lincoln assassination than any other ones mentioned in the book.
The only question I have is what got her intrigued with the death of presidents, and why are her favorite ones Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinnley? Why did she decide to write a book on it?
Wise Guy by Nicholas Pileggi Blog
a. My book begins by explaining how difficult it was to meet the notorious Henry Hill. There was lot’s of security due to Henry Hill becoming an informant. Then it goes back to Henry’s childhood. Hill was born in 1944 in Brooklyn. At the time many gangsters lived around him and he would watch how happy and successful these men were. This intrigued Hill a lot, and at a young age, Henry started to work across the street with the Vario family. In the Vario family, Paul Vario sat on top with the most power and respect. There was also Vito “Tuddy” Vario who was Paul’s go-to man. Another gangster with much respect was Jimmy Burke. These three men started to take Henry under their wing and help him join the life of a wiseguy. Paul took Hill under his wing and had him do errands for him until he became older. Paul also had Hill look out for his sons in case of any trouble. Jimmy taught Hill how to do cigarette heists’ along with many other heists, because Jimmy was known the master at heists. These men helped Hill become a wiseguy, and as Hill explains it, his dream job and goal. They then describe some of the ways the gangster get money/live. When gangsters go out, they hand tips out everywhere, they believe they’re made of cash, and it seems like they are. They have car heists, cigarette heists, stolen credit cards, and they never stop getting money from them. They also live completely off the books; no name under a credit card, social security card, no tickets, and no taxes. They have it all figured out how to do so, and if they do get caught, they can usually pay off the cops. I think a main theme in this book is corruption. It is seen in cops, judges, and politicians getting paid off very easily. Over and over again it explains how the gangster can live smoothly without a doubt even with police trying to get them because of the corrupted society. But after Hill 17th birthday, Hill decided to join the paratroopers in South Carolina. Hill loved every bit of it. He enjoyed the training and practice, but most of all he enjoyed the money he could make. He had a big loan shark business among the other paratroopers, and could smuggle untaxed cigarettes back to New York and make a great profit. Hill was a paratrooper until he was dismissed for getting in a bar fight and went back to the wiseguy life. He still loved every bit of it. He got better, smarter and more experienced and was living a great life. One night he had a double date with his friend and some random girl. The date was awful, Hill didn’t care about her and Hill then stood her up on the second date. Karen was pissed that she was stood up by Hill and went to find him and yell at him and had Hill take her out on a real date. They went on a real date and fell in love. They were together all the time and then decided to get married; Karen’s parents disapproved, but that inspired Henry and Karen to love eachother even more. They eventually go married after 3 months and moved into together. Now Henry is living with Karen in her mother’s house and they start to get annoyed with each other.
b.Nicholas Pileggi was also raised in Brooklyn and became a journalist. He had a profound interest in the mafia and started to research it. He eventually got the interview with Henry Hill and wrote his first book Wiseguy, and later the screenplay for Goodfellas. After that he wrote 3 more books all gangster and mafia related.
c. Wiseguy connects to what we’ve learned in Apush because these gangster were most likely the main reason for crime, yet people of color were blamed and hurt for crime, but eventually the Organized Crime Act was passed under Nixon and was supposed to stop the gangsters, but the gangsters explained how easy it was to get around the act.
d. The book format is pretty confusing because it jumps around from Henry’s and Karen’s point of view and sometimes show quotations that skip randomly. I wonder where the development of Henry Hill will go because he seems very happy with his life, but then when he’s married he stops spending time with his wife and becomes more sad.
Book Assignment #1
My book “Lincoln How Abraham Lincoln Ended slavery in america” is an autobiography detailing Lincoln’s life and how he came to be one of the most influential Americans in United States history. It starts with describing his early home life where he was born in Kentucky to a poor farmer, Thomas Lincoln. Thomas Lincoln was too poor to own slaves, but even if he was wealthier he still wouldn’t have, and this idealism that God did not give the right for any human being to own another rubbed off on Lincoln. Then they moved to Indiana, where Lincoln was still illiterate and worked as a farmhand making barely any money. Lincoln’s mom died in 1818 and soon after, Thomas married again, bringing more wealth into their family, including books. He began to read everything, including the bible, where the Jewish slavery story in the Old Testament left an impression on him. Then, Lincoln had his first experience with slavery, he went down Mississippi river to sell cargo, and ended up in new orleans. Here he was exposed to the slave market, and witnessed people of color of all ages being abused and sold away from their families. Years after he decided he wanted to become a politician and taught himself to be a lawyer. He fought in battles after, then returned to get a seat in the Illinois assembly. Then when he moved to Springfield, he met Mary Ann Todd and got married.Lincoln then decided to head home by Steamboat, and witnessed another thing that would solidify his perspective about how horrible slavery was, he saw slaves chained together, but cracking jokes and singing and saw how cruel this whole system was. Years later, Lincoln became more invested in politics, and the book describes what is happening during that time period including the Kansas Nebraska act which nullified the Missouri compromise which infuriated Lincoln and many other abolitionists. Another key event was the Dred Scott case where a free slave in the North was recaptured and put back into slavery which sparked even more outrage. And eventually started Lincoln’s run for office and his fierce debates against senator Douglas.
The author, Harold Holzer, is one of the leading historians on civil war era culture and politics who has one five awards for his books that are extremely detailed on Abraham Lincoln, and other civil war era conflicts. Holzer has authored, co-authored, and edited 52 books, and contributed more than 550 articles to magazines and journals which makes his books, including the one I’m reading now, accurate on Lincoln’s life story, and how he came to be the one that defeated slavery.
This connects to the entire civil war era we just learned about and how the issue came to be, and I was surprised by Lincoln’s young life and how he was affected by slavery at a young age which imprinted on him to become an extreme activist against it.
I’m wondering how he gains so much support on a topic that is so stifled by things like the gag rule and in general a topic that didn’t come up in politics often, ands how against all the odds, he still is able to make great change in such a conservative time.
The book I am reading is Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides. The book starts off in a japanese internment camp, describing the lives of the American prisoners of war. The first 20 or so pages is describing that one day the japanese tell the Americans that they are getting attacked and that they should go back to there trenches. All the Americans go back to there handmade trenches, where they expect to be safe from the upcoming American Attack. What ends up happening is the Japanese lied and told the Americans to get in there trenches so they were easy to kill. The Japanese would throw gasoline into the trenches that were filled with American POWs and would light them on fire, the Japanese would toss grenades into the trenches to try and kill as many Americans as possible. Then the author describes the escaping of one soldier in particular and his name was Eugene Neilson. The book describes the horrific things that these Japanese soldiers were doing to the POWs that escaped. One instance is the Japanese had found a hiding POW and dragged him onto the beach where they then lit his feet on fire with gasoline and when he had dropped down in pain, they dowsed his head in gasoline and lit it on fire as well. The main theme of this book is to show the struggles for American POWs during World War 2, especially the survivors of Bataan. Wade Hampton Sides born in 1962, is an American historian, author and journalist. He is the author of Hellhound on His Trail, Blood and Thunder, On Desperate Ground, and other bestselling works of narrative history and literary non-fiction. Sides is editor-at-large for Outside magazine and has written for such periodicals as National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, The New Yorker, Esquire, Men’s Journal, The American Scholar, Smithsonian, and The Washington Post. His magazine work, collected in numerous published anthologies, has been twice nominated for National Magazine Awards for feature writing. A native of Memphis, Sides attended PDS Memphis and Memphis University School, and graduated from Yale with a BA in history. In 2017, he was awarded an honorary doctorate in humane letters from Colorado College. Sides lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with his wife Anne Goodwin Sides, a journalist and former NPR editor. I very much enjoy the way that Sides is able to articulate his writing. It makes it easier to read and understand.One thing that I can connect this book back to what we have learned is just the topic of World War 2 in general. I think the topic is very very fascinating and I love reading about it. One thing that I learned is actually the March that the POWs take. I have never ever heard of this march before I started to read the book. One thing that surprised me was how the Japanese treated the POWs. It surprised me because it was horrific. I don’t really have any questions but I am very interested to see the progression of the characters and there travel through Bataan.
A.) My book is X by Ilyasah Shabazz. The first part of my book begins with young Malcolm in Lansing, Michigan, he is about take a bus to Boston in order to live with his half sister Ella. All of his other siblings come to the station to say goodbye, they don’t see each other much because they are all in different foster homes. The book then goes back in time to when his family was very poor and had little money for food. The reader begins to see the things that Malcolm remembers like when his mom got taken away by social services, that’s when the family got split up all the kids gto sent to foster homes. Throughout most of the beginning, it is mostly flashbacks from his life and significant events that he remembers from his childhood. I think the subject of the book is segregation, the main character of the book is mainly just young Malcolm at this point. I think that the main theme of this novel is racism and the struggles that Malcolm had to face.
B.) The author of this novel is actually written by Malcolm X’s daughter, Ilyasah Shabazz. She has written many stories about her father and that time period. She currently lives in Mount Vernon and has worked there for many years now has many different directors. Many of her books were nominated for various awards, X won most of her awards for it’s outstanding literacy.
C.) I honestly didn’t learn much more from the stuff we learned in APUSH, besides a closer look at the life of Malcolm X, most of the racist events that have occured in the book are things that we covered this year. I was really surprised though on how his father died because it gave a closer look at things that the KKK used to do to African Americans. I may begin to learn more as the book goes on because right now not much has happened.
D.) Some things that I have noticed about the characters is that they are very mature for their age due to the things that they experienced in their childhood, I think that they’re very curious in things that go on and sometimes get drawn to things that they shouldn’t be going to. I think that the book will start leading deeper into his life and things that have happened to him, the characters will begin to find themselves and figure out who they want to be.