Michael Oher: I Beat the Odds: From Homelessness to the Blind Side and Beyond

Ben Swift

Mrs. Diamond

Author: Don Yaeger

5 of 5

Michael Oher was a young black kid living on the streets of Memphis who had no place to call home, and had a mother who neglected him and was a crack addicted. But when the Tuohy a white upper class family with a daughter and son took him in Michael could now say he belonged somewhere.

While living with this family he found the love and ability to be a football player, this was just a kid of the streets that had never played before but he was good. He had the size to play and be good. He went through his senior year struggling with school but he found ways to keep his grades up and play football. He was one of the top Offensive Line man recruits and he received offers from University of Tennessee, Louisiana State University, University of Alabama, Auburn University and Ole Miss University where he played his college ball. He played all 4 years and then went on to the NFL draft in 2009 and was picked 23 overall to the Baltimore Ravens. Oher is apart of the starting Offensive line for the Ravens.

Among the Hidden

Dorothy Crowell
Title: Among the Hidden
By: Margaret Peterson Haddix
Rate: 10/10
Pages: 153
This book is about a boy named Luke. At the beginning of the story Luke is mad that all the trees around his house get cut down. The reason why is because there is a law that says families cannot have more than two children. Luke is a third child. He use to be able to go outside because he was hidden enough in the trees but now he cannot go outside and he also cannot go near any windows or anything. Luke thinks his family is being a little bit too careful because they are also not letting him eat at the dinning room table with them.
Luke lives up in the attic and one day he found vents that he could look out to see outside. Through those vents he saw lights on next door and it was the middle of the day so he was thinking that meant there was another third child next door. He was able to sneak out of his house and get next door and he was right. He met another girl named Jen who was another third child. The 2 of them set up a system so that they can meet up on days.
One day when Luke went over to Jens house the two of them start talking about what it is like to be a third child. Jen told Luke that she some day is going to go to do a rally with the government and say that they need to change the law. The reason the law is set is because with the amount of people there are and also the amount of food there is it is set so people do not starve. The thing Jen wants to tell the government is that not every family has a kid or if they do they don’t have two children so if some people have three or more kids they will fill in the spaces for the families without kids.
Luke decides not to go to the rally but Jen still does it. She knows some other third children from the computer and she talks them into doing it. The results do not end up how they wanted it.
To find out what happened at the rally you will have to read the book. I really enjoyed it. It is also the beginning of a series.

Mr. Marcoux: Guest Speaker on Vietnam after reading The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

Hi everyone!

I wanted to provide a place for you to respond to yesterday's amazing guest speaker. We all love Mr. Marcoux, and yesterday you saw another side of this beloved teacher. Please share what message from his talk that you will carry with you forever.

Warmly,
Mrs. Diamond

The Help

The Help
Kathryn Stockett
464 Pages
Kateri Bean

After every librarian and Mrs. Diamond told me over and over to read The Help, I finally did. It looked giant and not super exciting, so I wasn't too sure I'd like it has much as they said I would. But, I did. In fact as soon as I started I couldn't stop reading it.

It dealt with a side of the civil rights movement I had never thought of before. I didn't realize just how horrible the lives of African American maids were. While these women were free and not slaves, they still were treated very much like an animal in the households where they worked. That being said, there were a few houses where the maid was treated as part of the family; these maids were the lucky ones. This book is a real eye-opener to not only how maids were treated, but how they went about their lives.

The way the book was written, you got the point of view from three very different characters. This made the book go very quickly and also made it next to impossible to put down. Another reason the book was so engaging is the way it was written: the characters all have unique voices with accents, and the way it's written you can really hear the their voices in your head. You'll come away from this book talking in a deep southern accent if you aren't careful!

As I mentioned, this book is told by three different characters. Each of them has their own struggles, but together they unite against their shared struggle: racism. The three of them, along with a few followers, manage to change not only their town's point of view, but their state's.

If you are interested in the civil right's movement, American history, or just a heartwarming story, I suggest you read The Help!

Defiance

Author: Nechama Tec
Pages: 296
Rating: 7-10

Defiance is an amazing book about a group of four brothers trying to survive the Holocaust. The brothers are Jewish farmers that live in the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. The country is currently called Belarus and borders Russia, Poland, Ukraine, and Lithuania. Early in the book the parents of the boys are killed by the SS death squads during the early days of the invasion of the Soviet Union and the brothers decide to hide in the woods with the other survivors. The oldest brother Tuvia Bielski becomes the leader of the small group and his younger brothers, Zus, Asael, and Aron, and they build a small camp in a forest in Western Belarus. Their survival is difficult and they survive by hunting and stealing from those who cooperated with the Nazi invaders. Eventually they meet a group of Russian Partisans and agree to help them fight the Germans. The newly formed Bielski Otriad and the Russian Partisans do not always agree and there is a lot if internal disputes but Tuvia's leadership brings the groups together. The reason that I chose this book was because I have been to the country of Belarus and I love to learn about the history and culture of the country. I cant believe that I may have been in the same place that these incredibly important historical events happened. I don't even know how to describe how much more important and realistic these events feel to me after understanding the culture of this country, and meeting possible family members of the Bielski group. By the end of the war Tuvia and his Bielski Otriad had saved hundreds of Jews and their descendants now number in the thousands. His story is not well known but if you are interested in learning about the Second World War or the Holocaust then I would highly recommend this book. It is a different story than many other Holocaust books because the Jews in this book not only survive but they fight back.

Sing You Home by Jodi Picoult and Trouble by Gary D. Schmidt

I read two books over vacation. The first was recommended to me by my childhood best bud Aimee; she knows I love Jodi Picoult and music. You can imagine how happy I was to learn Jodi included a CD of music to accompany her latest story. The books starts with couple (Zoe and Max) trying to conceive. Their heartbreaking ordeal leads to life changes that allow new people to weave into this gripping storyline. The story brings up dramatic questions about loving others and how we learn to forgive.

Mrs. Culkin and Mrs. Bogert have been encouraging teachers to read books by Gary D. Schmidt, our visiting author this year. After reading background on a few of the books, the storyline of Trouble stood out most. Henry endures a crippling loss that ultimately teaches him significant lessons about himself. He has to face the truth about those he should know best, and learns to befriend others to help him heal emotional wounds. Our teenage protagonist, Henry, seeks to climb Mount Katahdin…and come on the other side stronger. I enjoyed the read and believe it would be something each of you would enjoy for different reasons. :)

The Lovely Bones

Alice Sebold

328 pages

Rating 8 out of 10

The Lovely bones is no ordinary book. The book starts out with telling about a girl named Susie Salmons life. Then all of a sudden someone she least expects, kills her. Life can be full of mysteries. Her father, mother, sister, and brother are left wondering what happened, who committed this horrible act to their loved one. What makes this story really different is Susie, after death still can't move on she is stuck watching her loved ones from this place. She even can see her killer, and desperately wished that she could tell someone she knew who did it. This person took everything from her at the young age of 14. The book shows how much a family struggles and the impact that Susie's death had on each one of them. No one would have ever even thought that this could happen to someone so close to them, yet it did. While viewing what is happening on earth Susie discoverers just how much she is missing out on. She would never be able to grow up, how was that the least bit fare, she also didn't understand why her killer hadn't been caught yet, why no one didn't look into the guy just a little bit more. Yes he was very smart but if investigated they would find something on him. There were many mixed emotions in the book. Anger, no one knew who did it and they were angry that there really wasn't anything they themselves could do about it. Hurt, the salmons would never be the same. Happiness, the family couldn't stay sad or even upset all the time, they had to still find happiness in the world. The Lovely Bones shows that things happen in your life that you can’t always control, it may hurt for awhile, but you have to try and stay strong, and learn to live and smile again. In Susie's case she had to come to terms with her own death in a way. One thing that i really got out of ready the book is the life lesson that you should pretty much live like there is no tomorrow, you never know how short your life will be. I would recommend this book to anyone, it seems like the kind of book that anyone could pick up and enjoy it.