Wait Till Helen Comes

Reader's Journal #1                                                     6/19/2011

I just finished reading Wait Till Helen Comes by Mary Downing Hahn.  This is one of the best books I have ever read.  When I read the blurb right away I knew this was the perfect book for me.  I read the reviews which made this book look like a really good book.  This book was also winner of 11state book awards.  The quote on the back was very interesting.  The quote is “Just wait, Molly.  Wait till Helen Comes”

Before reading this book I read the synopsis.  From reading the synopsis I learned that Molly has a younger brother, Michael and they have a younger stepsister, Heather.  Their parents get married and move near a graveyard.  Heather talks to a ghost named Helen.  Heather warns Michael and Molly Helen is after them.   Also I looked at the cover and this helped me visualize how Helen and the graveyard looked like.   While I was reading the book I would always read a few sentences I already read to remember what I read before. Plus I asked a question, would Heather and Molly like each other at the end, my answer was yes.   Two strategies I use after reading was answering the question I asked while I was reading the book and I was right that Heather and Molly were got to like each other. And I thought about the plot of the story.  The exposition would be Heather, and Dave meet Molly, Jean, and Michael.  Rising action is they get married and move to a church near a cemetery and Heather meets a ghost named Helen.  Climax is heather tells Helen to do something to Molly, Michael, and Jean.  Then Helen destroys their rooms.  Falling action is Helen tries to kill Heather by dragging her into the pond so both of them could be together forever.  And last the resolution, Molly doesn’t let Helen take heather even though Heather wants to go.

A great topic for this book would be Helen’s coming because Heather is constantly telling Molly and Michael “Just wait till Helen comes” and a shorter way of saying that is saying Helen’s coming.  The main idea of this book is Molly and Michael try to be nice to Heather but she always twists things around.   The main idea is implied because it wasn't in the passage I had to figure it out.

The genre of this book is fantasy, because it's a ghost story.  Molly is the protagonist because she saves Heather (the antagonist) when Helen is about to drown Heather in the pond near Harper House which is where Helen used to live.  Helen and her mom died because Helen knocked down an oil lamp and it caught on fire.  Helen’s mom looked  for her but Helen didn’t say anything when her mom was looking to get her out of the fire.  After a while Helen didn’t hear her mom calling her.  Then they both died.  Helen would always drown people so when they die they could be with her and she wouldn’t have to be lonely.   Heather was the first one who wanted to die and be with Helen.  Michael, Jean, and Dave are supporting characters.   Helen and Heather are antagonists at the beginning of the story but then change.  They are both alike because their mom died because of a fire, they have the same initials, are the same age, and they understand each other.  At the beginning heather hates Molly, Michael, and Jean but then everything changes when Molly saves her and tells Heather that she would have never saved her if she hated her.   Now heather was the nice, sweet girl her dad Dave thought she was.  There are three conflicts in the story. Character vs. character, supernatural, and self.  Character vs. character represents Michael and Molly against Helen and Heather (this is the main problem and it is external).   Character vs. supernatural stands for Molly fighting with Helen to let Heather alone.   Character vs. self is a problem heather has with choosing to die and be with Helen without her father who she loves or live and be with her dad. 

I think the author feels bad for Molly and Michael because their mom Jean doesn't believe Heather hates them, neither does Dave nor he doesn’t know the truth about Heather.   I feel scared because Helen is a ghost and she scares me because she is friends with Heather and she is evil and mean.  The theme of this book is Heather and Molly are enemies and then become friends.  The moral of the story is you shouldn't hate anyone no matter what.   The point of view is first person because it says the key words like I. The author's purpose is to entertain.   Author’s perspective is objective and the author is unbiased.  Five different types of figurative language that are in this book are similes, metaphors, oxymoron, cliche, and personifications.   Heather is similar to Ariana a girl that used to go to my school because they are both mean and say lies.  I would rate this book 9, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest because sometimes I don't know who is talking and I would have to reread like 3 times.

              I really enjoyed reading this book.  I loved it so much I read it in four days.  I enjoy reading books by Mary Downing Hahn.  She is the best author I know.

Sincerely,

                                                                                                                                    Erika Alban

Go Ask Alice

Dear Mrs. Zrihen,                       Reader’s Journal #2                                    08/06/11

I have already finished reading Go ask Alice by anonymous.  On page 31 there is a quote that says “They’re trying to poison me!  Why would they try to poison me?” is important to me because that day (July 10) is the day she started to drink LSD.  Two strategies I used before reading this book were reading the synopsis and the review, also I skimmed and scanned and realized it was a diary.  Two strategies I used while reading were looking up words I didn’t know and I visualized picture of what I was reading.  After I finished reading I thought about the summary of the story and I read the epilogue.  The epilogue was very sad because she dies.

The genre of this book is documentary.  The topic of this book is drugs.  The main idea of this book is that Jay started drinking drugs and now she can’t stop and she hates Bill and all of them.  The main idea is implied because I had to use supporting details.  If I had to give it another title it would be “Drink and die or don’t drink and live”.  I chose this title because it’s the main idea of this but in a shorter way.  There are lots of supporting details.  One, but in the meantime I’m not going to answer the phone or step off our property.  Two, I hate this rotten place and I hate Bill Thompson and all that crowd.  Ill get Gran to buy me a plane ticket to go tomorrow.  She wants to go home because she started drinking drugs ever since she got there.  All three supporting details are .  I think the essential message is don’t do anything for anyone to be something.  I think this is the essential message because she drank LSD instead of soda because she wanted to be cool.  She went to her Gran’s house to visit her old friend, and then they invited her to a party game and gave her a soft drink laced with LSD.  I think her new school is better because they are nicer and the people in her old school drank drugs often. Some text features in the text are dates, bolded letters, footsteps, drawings, and headings.  The dates helped me know the order things happened in.  The dates were bolded so I would read it.  The footsteps helped me understand the meaning of a word.  For example, DT, which meant detention school.  There’s a drawing on the front cover.  And the dates are the headings.  This book is in chronological order.  I know because the dates are in order.  The author’s purpose is to share Jay’s life when she was fifteen and sixteen.  I think Jay believes she should have never went to the party game.  The book is told in first person.  One type of figurative language I found was a simile.  An example of one is I raced home from school and helped Mom clean house like the King of the World was coming, and I made sure we had all the ingredients for orange yeast rolls, my one specialty. 

Five vocabulary words I didn’t know were phony, asparagus, hostility, amphetamines, and eternities.  Phony means not what something is truly meant to be.  Asparagus is a plant of the lily family.  Hostility means unfriendliness.  Amphetamine is an addicting drug.  Eternities means unending times.  And I used a dictionary to figure the words out.  

The text doesn’t relate to me because she drank drugs and bad stuff started happening to her and I never drank drugs.  The text and the world have something in common.  It is that thousands of other people died because of the same problem.   

If I was Jay I would have never went to the party game.  I would rate this book 8, 1 being bad and 10 being excellent.  This book was a great book but it sometimes wasn’t interesting.

                                                                                                            Sincerely,

                                                                                                            Erika Alban

                                                                                                        

A Child Called It

Dear Mrs. Zrihen,                Reader’s Journal # 3                       08/07/11

I just finished reading A child called “it” by Dave Pelzer.  There is a quote that his mom made him say which was on page 30.  It was “I’m a bad boy!  I’m a bad boy!  I’m a bad boy!”  I picked this quote because this is what he had to say when he was a bad boy.  I think this quote is important because his mom liked to hear him say it.  Two strategies I used before reading this book was look at the cover of the book and skim and scan.  Two strategies I used while reading the book was reread things I thought were typed wrong like when his mom said “The boy”.  Also I read each chapter and made sure I understood it.  After reading the book I told my friends a summary of the book, and I made a readers journal.  The summary I told my friends was “First, David gets rescued because the police office calls his mom and says he is going to juvenile for a day, but the office actually lets him free.  David used to have good times like being able to eat and wouldn’t get beaten.  But when he was a bad boy his mother would make him sit in his bedroom in a corner, but his mother thought that that punishment wasn’t enough so she would drag his to his room and slam his face against his mirror until blood came out of his nose.  Also she made him take of his clothes will she turns on the stove and he would have to lean over the flames but he got lucky that his dad was opening the door. So she pushed him telling him to put on his clothes.  David’s mother wouldn’t feed him breakfast or dinner so he would steal food from other first grade classes.  Then he got caught and his mom beat him up.  After, he stole lunch from a store during recess.  Then the manager called his mom and he got beaten again.  Last he stole from school lunch.  One day he went home and his mom wondered why he wasn’t hungry so she took him to the bathroom and made him put his finger on the back of his throat.  He threw up hot dog in the toilet.  His mother made him take it out of the toilet and put it in a bowl.  She told his father and he told her then why don’t you give him food then.  After she yelled then eat what’s in the bowl which was his vomit.  And he ate it and after his mother threw newspapers warning him he will be sleeping under the breakfast table and the newspapers were his blankets.  Then he went to houses saying I lost my lunch box can you make me lunch.  Then one day he asked one of his Mother’s friends.  Of course she called his mom.  When he got home his mother would follow him do his chores.  After, she made him drink a spoon of ammonia.  For a week his mother would threaten him saying I will kill you with a knife in her hand.  And that day the knife accidentally flue out of her hand and stabbed him in his stomach.  Then his mother would cry and then she told him he has 30 minute to clean the dishes instead of 20.  He went to his dad who was his hero and told him mom stabbed me and he didn’t do anything but say do the dishes.  He finished the dishes in an hour and a half and went to the garage to change.  His mom changed his clothes that were full of blood.  While his father was away she made him bath in cold water and she would push his head underwater.  Also she made him clean the bathroom with ammonia and Clorox.

This book is a memoir.  The topic of this book is child abuse.  The main idea of this book is that he is getting abused by his mother.  If I would change the title of this book it would be “The boy!”  I think this is a good title because she always calls him that.   Three details that support the main idea is that she beats him up for no reason, makes him drink ammonia, and makes him bath in cold water and she pushes his head underwater so he wouldn’t be able to breathe.  The essential message is probably don’t hide things.  An example of a cause and effect is he didn’t say anything about getting child abused so he had to do chores and get beaten.  His mother and father were different because his mother beaten him, made him do chores, let him starve, and made him suffer, and his dad did the opposite.  He would sneak scrapes of food and didn’t do anything his mother did to him.  A few text features from this book are table of contents, italics, titles, photos, and bold print.  The pattern of organization of this book is classification order.  The author’s purpose is to share about his life from age of 4 to 12 while he got abused by his mother.  I think the author’s perspective on child abuse is parents exerting their “right” to discipline their children and letting it get a little out of hand.  The author is subjective and bias.  The story is told in first person.  Five words I didn’t know while I was reading were futile, frantic, mundane, nurture, and ammonia.  I looked up the words in a dictionary.  Futile is a useful result.  Frantic means wild or distraught with fear.  Mundane means lacking interest or excitement.   Nurture means to care for.  And ammonia is a colorless gas with a strong smell.  The text doesn’t relate to me because my mom would never do those things and she never did.  The text relates to the world because thousands of other kids get abused by their parents.  I would rate this book a 10 because it’s my favorite book and it was the most interesting book I have ever read.

                                                                                                Sincerely,

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Erika Alban

The Tale of Despereaux

                      

Dear Mrs.Zrihen,                  Reader’s Journal #4                                08/15/11

I just finished reading The Tale of Despereaux by Kate Dicamillo.  My favorite quote is when his father says “The last one, and he’ll be dead soon.  He can’t live.  Not with his eyes open like that.” Because the fathers wrong because Despereaux doesn’t die.  I read this book because my mom made me.  Two strategies I used before reading the passage were skim and scan, and read the title.  Two strategies I used during reading were read the captions and look at the pictures.  Two strategies I used after reading were thinking about the book and write a reader’s journal about it. 

This book is a fairy tale because a mouse can talk and talks to people like Gregory and Princess Pea.  The characters in this book are Princess Pea, King Phillip, chiaroscuro, Florence, Despereaux, Antoinette, Toulese, Merlot, Furlough, Alfred, Lester, mouse council, rats, Miggery Sow, pony, queen, soldier, Roscuro, and more.  The two main settings are in a dungeon and castle.  The exposition is that he is born.  The rising action is that he starts to break rules.  The climax is that he goes to the dungeon cause he would still break the rules if they gave him another chance.  The falling action is he gets help from a rat and gets out of the dungeon.  Then the resolution is he lives with his family and is able to talk to the princess.  The main conflict is that he is in love with Princess Pea and he talks to her and talking to human beings is not supposed to be done.  The conflict is internal and character vs. character.  I’m happy that Despereaux got out of the dungeon.  The theme is that Despereaux isn’t able to talk to Princess Pea but then he is allowed.  The moral of this story is you should be yourself.  The authors point of view is in third person.  The author’s purpose is to entertain you.  The author is biased.  There are similes, metaphors, onomonopea, oxymoron and hyperbole.  I knew this was a fiction book by just reading the title.  I would rate this book 8, 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest.  I say eight because I had to skip a few pages. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Sincerely,