A Series of Unfortunate Events the Bad Beginning

I do not think I have ever been so creeped out by a children's book before. The first line of the book gave a good indication of how the book would go "If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book. In this book, not only is there no happy ending; there is no happy beginning and very few happy things in the middle." The three children the Violet, Klaus, and sunny were some of the unluckiest children ever. Their parents died in a fire and they are taken to live with a distant relative Count Olaf who is only after the money that is left to them by their parents. The first impression that the children get of Count Olaf is that he is a horrible person. "I wish I could tell you that the Baudelaires' first impressions of Count Olaf and his house were incorrect, as first impressions so often are. But these impressions—that Count Olaf was a horrible person, and his house a depressing pigsty—were absolutely correct." 

Count Olaf is horrible from the start. He never hides that he's after the money even after he learned that the money was only accessible when Violet turned of age. The time that they lived in Count Olaf's home was miserable. He forced them to clean his filthy house, only gave them one room to live with one bed. Ordered them to cook a meal for his acting troop then threw a fit when they didn't make roast beef. He then made a plan to get his hands on the money by forcing Violet to marry him by threatening her with the well being of her baby sister. Fortunately, Violet can ford his attempts and save her sister. Still, Count Olaf manages to get away, not without promising to get his hands on the Baudelaire fortune and killing the children.

As I said, I have never been so creeped out by a children's book, but that didn't mean that I didn't enjoy it. It was interesting to see how the children got themselves out of a horrible situation. At the same time it broke my heart when it seemed like no one was willing to help them when they were obviously needing the help. Then the one person in the whole book that cared for them and let them use their library couldn't keep them in the end. I'm not sure how I had gone this long and never read a series of unfortunate events.

Beautiful Child

“Beautiful child was not the epithet I would have given Venus, now that I had the chance to look at her up close. She was neither clean not well cared for.” Torey Hayden wrote this book based on real-life events of the students that were in her classroom. Torey teaches special needs children, and its fair to say that this bunch of kids kept her hands full. Her class had five full times students Billy, Jesse, Shane, Zane, and Venus. At first, most of her struggles revolved around the boys physically attacking one another, then someone getting to close to Venus and her going as Billy would say “psycho.” Venus doesn’t talk or move on her own the only time she does is when she attacks another kid. Torey never gives up on any of her students, especially Venus. Torey spends extra time with her, reading books together, dancing around the classroom. Then when she starts to worry about Venus, she makes home visits. Torey suspects more is at play, and still, she never gives up on this little girl that others just shoved to the side. 

Being a special needs teacher must be hard. I admire the way she handles her “chipmunks” and keeps her classroom together even if its in chaos. She reminds me of a lot of my Aunt Candie, who works as a special education teacher. I’ve heard of stories of students having meltdowns and throwing chairs and desk in her classroom. Yet my Aunt is amazing. She’s always so levelheaded but also doesn’t take crap from anyone. This book is encouraging for future educators even gave me a few ideas for when I become a teacher one day myself. 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows JK Rowling's final book is filled with mystery and suspense as she brings her series to a close. However, she manages to place hope within the book not only for her characters but for her readers as well. Harry is turning seventeen, which in the wizarding world means he's an adult, the charm that protected him from his biggest enemy was about to break, and he was going be in danger. The Order and his friends come up with a plan that disguise 6 of them to look identical to Harry with the use of Polyjuice potion. When they leave, they are attacked, and Mad eye is killed, and George loses his ear. Harry, although for the time, want to leave feeling that his presents put everyone in danger, he is on the hunt for Horcruxes that house parts of Voldemort's soul and need to be destroyed to defeat him. Ron, however, convinces him to stay a few more days so they can be there for when his brother gets married. Not that they must be there but because it gives them hope. 

I always seem to come back to Harry Potter. Mostly because I like to read fantasy and to be honest, I want to write fantasy, and what better ways to get ideas for when you write than to read? J.K. Rowling has always had a great talent for describing settings in her books; she was still able to captivate me and pull me into the story. Now thinking as a writer, I look at details the author uses in the book how she describes settings or people's appearances. 

"Fleur was wearing a very simple white dress and seemed to be emitting a strong, silvery glow. While her radiance usually dimmed everyone else, by comparison, today it beautified everybody it fell upon." 

I would want a student to have the ability to write and give details about settings or characters in their stories that don't seem so one tiered. I would use passaged like this to show them that there is more to someone's appearance then, she wore a white dress or that she looked pretty. Fleur in her wedding gown is beautiful, but it's not because J.K. Rowling said it in such a straight forth manor. As a writer, I want to be able to do the same thing. 

Crash

Crash by Lisa McMann

“Don’t do drugs,” he said seriously. “Our family has enough problems” It’s a little strange and hear this line within the first few minutes of a book. Lisa McMann has written one of my favorite book series to date, so when looking through a selection of books, the name stood out to me. This book is written in the first person of Jules Demarco, a sixteen-year-old girl who works in her family’s pizzeria in Chicago. Jules is not your average girl. She sees a vision of a snowplow crashing into a side of a building resulting in an explosion resulting in nine body bags lying on the floor. The image is something only Jules can see and its roles on billboards and in advertisements on TV. The vision becomes more intense and happens more often to the point that all she sees are these visions. Jules can identify one of the bodies as the boy she is in love with names Sawyer but also works for a rivaling pizzeria. Throughout the book, Jules is trying to find out when this accident happens and how to stop it to save the person she loves. There are other elements of this book that touch on some touchy subjects, like her brother is gay, her grandfather committed suicide. Her father suffered from depression and had trapped their family in his hoarding habits. Of course, there is also the cliché “Romeo and Juliet” dynamic that Jules and Sawyer have. Forced to stay away from the other because of the bad blood between the families.

I did like that she didn’t shy away from these real everyday problems in her book. It doesn’t matter what age a child is. There is a chance that they can deal with some of these situations, and it touches on a lot. A child could either be the one in these situations dealing with depression or abuse first and or they could be like Jules and see it when her father suffers from it. “Crash” may be too advanced for younger children, but for young adults and teens, it would be right up their alley. It allows the reader to experience real-life scenarios with some supernatural as well.

The Outsiders

“When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.” This quote is the first and the last line of the book The Outsiders. From the first time reading this line to the last, the meaning becomes increasingly different and more meaningful. S.E. Hinton is a talented author who writes about the socioeconomic status between the working class known as the greasers and the upper class known as the Soc. The story follows Ponyboy talks about his family and friends. When his older brother slaps him, he runs to the park with his friend Johnny. They get jumped by a group of Socs. Johnny stabs and kills one of the boys who is attempting to drown Pony in a fountain, afraid of the law they seek advice from Dallas, who tells them to hide out in an abandoned church and gives them a gun. They hide out, cutting their hair reading gone with the wind until Dallas shows up days later telling them the incident has raised tension between the two gangs. Johnny decided to turn himself in, but before they go back, the church catches on fire with some school kids inside. The boys rescue the children, but a part of the church falls and hurts Johnny in the process. They get back to town, and they are now delinquents turned hero’s for saving the children. The two gangs have a rumble to solve to end the end of their feud between opposing sides when Pony and Dallas go to the hospital to tell Johnny he tells Pony to sty golden and dies. Dallas, stricken with grief and anger, runs off robs a store and gets himself killed by threatening cops with an unloaded gun. Pony feels the loss of his friends, and his grades suffer. He writes a theme for his English that starts “When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.” S.E. Hinton was only fifteen when she started writing The Outsiders, and it wasn’t the stereotypical book that I would expect a girl to write. I was impressed the first time reading this book. The way she was able to write about things that I knew nothing about something I felt she didn’t know much about either. As a teenager, I was encouraged to know that this amazing author was my age when she wrote this fantastic book that we were reading in our classroom. It was a story that appealed to a wide range of people from all walks of life, and even the author was impressive in her own right. I feel that this book shows the youth that anything is possible. That no matter what life throws at you things can always get better you can do what you want if you put your mind to it. " You still have a lot of time to make yourself be what you want. There's still lots of good in the world." Ponyboy if effected by the events in his life just as all of us are its what you do with those experiences that make you into who you are. 

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

"The thing about growing up with Fred and George," said Ginny thoughtfully, "is that you sort of start thinking anything's possible if you've got enough nerve." Moving onto the sixth book in the Harry Potter series you can really start seeing the changes in the maturity of the characters
. From the start of the book, we are aware of how much these kids are growing, physically, and emotionally. Harry is still coming to terms with the loss of his godfather and inheriting all of his belongings. On top of that, puberty is taking a factory, the boys both grow afoot, and Hermione tells Harry that girls are noticing him because he's getting better looking. The same goes for Ron many times while he is in the hall's girls walk by and giggle or smile at him.
Then there is Ginny. From the beginning of the series, Ginny is portrayed as Ron's younger sister, who is obsessed with Harry. As she ages, she comes more into her own. She back talks her mother, makes fun of her older brothers' fiancé, hexes other students for being rude, she starts having a very outgoing personality. It could be that J.K. Rowling now had to replace the personalities of Fred and George that they were no longer at Hogwarts. It may also be because the author is setting Ginny and Harry up for a romance.
Having read the books and watched the movie before, I know that Harry and Ginny end up married with children. But when did their attention start drawing towards one another? There may have been some small hints in the last book, but I felt like I discovered the clue in chapter nine of the Half-Blood Prince. Harry is in potions class gets a whiff of a love potion that is supposed to give off the scent of what that person is drawn to. Harry smells a floury smell that he knows he has detected someplace before. He believes he recognized the scent from the Burrow (The Weasley home) then later smells the same scent when Ginny sits with them.  I have always been a sucker for a romance story, and finding small clues like this is exciting.

The Boxcar Children

I have always loved the first of The Boxcar Children series, to be honest, I didn’t even know it was a series until I had grown into an adult and I was looking for it in the bookstore. The story revolves around four siblings Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny, all orphaned very young. They are supposed to live with their grandfather, but they run away thinking that he would be mean since he never came to visit them before. To avoid living with their grandfather, the children make a home in an old boxcar and take care of each other. They make a home for themselves in the boxcar. They gain a dog named Watch, and Henry works for a doctor doing chores in the nearby town so he can get by things they are unable to come across. They work hard to keep their family together and safe until violet gets sick, and they have to rely on the doctor for help; eventually, they are introduced to their grandfather and go live with him.

I’ve been drawn to this book ever since my fourth-grade teacher read it allowed to us. I’m not sure what had initially attracted me to the book, but it could be multiple things. The fact that the older kids showed such maturity taking care of their younger siblings, the idea that they had run away and living on their own, or even just having the same name as one of the characters. I felt like Henry and Jessie were more like parents, then older siblings. They were always more concerned with the well being of the two younger children, especially Benny, that they didn’t act much like children themselves. I identified with Jessie even more because of this. As a mother, I saw my son as Benny doing silly things like pretending to be a cub to wash up in the creek or eating all the blueberries that he picked.

“For a while, Jessie watched Benny and Violet picking blueberries. ‘most of Benny’s blueberries are going into his mouth,’ she thought with a laugh.”

I felt more mature than many of my classmates due to events that had taken place in my life. Looking back, I think that these books were geared for more mature children, while I do love the fantasy genre, I liked the escape that the boxcar children were able to give us while showing them taking care of responsibilities. That although we are mature and have responsibilities, it a reminder that we have a choice in how we act.

Escaping Hogwarts

Many times, children feel like they are helpless or trapped because they are kids. Books have always been an escape. A way to vent their anger and frustration out on the villain or to sympathize with the hero. Throughout these blogs and rereading Harry Potter, I have been able to relive these books as an adult. Some of my feelings have not changed since I was 15 years old, but some have become more intense. When Fred and George start setting pranks within Hogwarts after Dumbledore is forced to flee to mess with Delores Umbridge, I couldn't be happier. Not only were they personally messing with a character the I have completely hated since I first met her, but they also encouraged others in the school to make her life as hard as possible. The twins behaved as long as Dumbledore was still the headmaster at the school, I'm sure it was out of respect for him, but the moment he was gone they no longer had any intentions in completing their schooling. They wanted to open a joke shop, and taking some swings at Umbridge on their way out was just a cherry on top of their triumph exit.

'George,' said Fred, 'I think we've outgrown full-time education. '

 'Yeah, I've been feeling that way myself,' said George lightly.

 'Time to test our talents in the real world, d'you reckon?' asked Fred.

Not only do they jump on their brooms and fly off, they tell everyone of the shop they are opening offer a discount to any Hogwarts students if they promise to use their products to "get rid of this old bat."

Fred looked across the hall at the poltergeist bobbing on his level above the crowd.

 'Give her hell from us, Peeves. '

I had a verbal outburst at this point, and I was ecstatic; they had done something that I had wished I had the power to do. To be able to stand up for myself when I was being bullied when I was young. I feel that the twins, although they may not the best role models when in, comes to doing well in school. They support their friends and are loyal to their beliefs; they happen to do it while being a couple of jokesters. The fact that they were born on April first is just a little fun fact that I adore. I wonder if J.K. Rowling planed that the biggest jokester in the book would be born on April fools day (also my son's birthday). Of course, this is just a small part of a long book but I felt this was the beginning of the end for Umbridge. She was unable to control much before this but after it just became increasingly harder since others took after the twins example. 

Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix Part 2.

I’m still reading the 5th Harry Potter book, the story is still progressing and my hatred for Dolores Umbridge is still growing. Although while Umbridge is doing more to gain power over Hogwarts and torturing the students Harry and his friends start to rebel in the ways that not only defy Umbridge but to fight back against Voldemort and his followers. Harry’s school life seems to get worse when Umbridge continues to make rules as the “High Inquisitor” basically this is her way of changing things that she doesn’t like by going over everyone’s head and taking full control. She abuses her power first she gives Harry a ban from playing Quitch, she observes the teachers determine if they are adequate and capable of teaching. She puts bans on clubs and allowing teachers to talk to students about anything other than class material. On top of this, she does not teach her class the way she should assume that all students need to know can be read in a book and not by practice. When Hermione recommends that Harry starts giving Defense against the Dark Arts to some students in secret, he is a little apprehensive at first, but eventually gives in. The members of the DA al seem to have their reason for wanting to be taught, the group ends up becoming important to Harry as it becomes an escape for him. When I was a teen reading this for the first time, I wanted to join them to be able to fight back the things in my life that was giving me a hard time. of course, seeing them break the rules just to say "up yours" to Umbridge is just as satisfying to a 16-year-old as it is to a 28-year-old.

Love and Hate

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

I’ve read to chapter nineteen in J.K. Rowling’s fifth book in the Harry Potter series. I know this seems to have been a lot but there are thirty-eight chapters in this individual book. I read this book when I was in middle school shortly after it was released, and I was a teenager at the time.  Now I’m twenty-eight and a mother. My mindset has changed while I still adore some characters, I have found a new appreciation for characters that I didn’t pay much attention to before. One such character is Molly Weasley. Molly is the mother of some of the main characters and surrogate mother of Harry himself. Chapter nine the Woe of Mrs. Weasley while the majority of the chapter was happy with the family celebrating an event that happens within the chapter the part that affected the most was when Molly faces off against a Boggart. Boggarts are magical creatures that take the shape of the thing that the person fears most. A witch or wizard had to think of something funny recite a spell and the Boggart is defeated by laughter. So, when Harry is walking upstairs, he hears crying from a room and discovers Molly facing off against a Boggart.

'R-r-riddikulus!' Mrs. Weasley sobbed, pointing her shaking wand at Ron's body.

Crack

Ron's body turned into Bill's, spread-eagled on his back, his eyes wide open and empty. Mrs Weasley sobbed harder than ever.

'R-riddikulus!' she sobbed again.

Crack.

Mr. Weasley's body replaced Bill's, his glasses askew, a trickle of blood running down his face.

'No!' Mrs. Weasley moaned. 'No ... riddikulus! Riddikulus! RIDDIKULUS!'

Crack. Dead twins. Crack. Dead Percy. Crack. Dead Harry...

 She sees a dead Ron (her youngest son) faced with her fears the Boggart takes the form of dead versions of every member of her family and Harry. She was unable to overcome her fear and had to be rescued by Lupin. I cried my eyes out during this part. I knew a part of it was because I sympathized with Molly my greatest fear would is the same to be helpless to save my family. She fears that the upcoming war is going to take her family from her. That would be any parent's worst nightmare. Now that I have grown I feel that I have become more like Molly.
               Now that I talked about a character that I fell in love with now ill talk about one of my most hated characters. If anyone has read this book, they can probably take a wild guess and still know I’m talking about Dolores Umbridge. First of Harry describes her as looking toad like the first time he sees her, then multiple times after that.  She works for the ministry of magic and has her agenda at the school and its safe to say it's not teaching. She seems to target Harry from the first day and her detention methods result in forcing him to cut the words “I will not tell lies” into the back of his hand using a magic quill. She is out to change how things are done at the school but in a bad way. Forces teachers and students to follow her rules by going over everyone’s heads. Treats some of my favorite characters like they are morons, and it gets worse because it's not even to the really bad stuff yet. She is arguably the most disliked character in the series and Voldemort murders people. My hatred for Umbridge is something that seems to have evolved over time. As a child, it was just because I didn't want her to have her hold over Harry and his friends. Now I can't fathom an adult let alone a teacher hurting students the way she does. The fact that the J.K. Rowling describes her looking toad like you get the feeling that she is not meant to be someone that you will like. But it has evolved to more than that its just disgust.