Room 227’s Blog

The social issue in this book is theft and living alone with only the kids. I said it is a theft because Earl and Wayne the big character in tikes to. His book and they steal a bike so they can have money. Each time they steal a bike I think their stupid. They can make 5 or 6 dollar each time. They steal bikes to own money because while these characters went to Aunt Lula’s house, Aunt Lula disappears so they needed to make money by their self. Earl had one little sister and one little brother so he needed to work for him to. I learned that it is hard to live without the adult because if you want live alone you need to do something bad to affect other people.

Also in this book there was a part that I thought it was burring. In this story there is a kid called Frankie that eats a lot. When Wayne and Earl go to ride the bike they didn’t let Frankie go on the bike because he is fat and he can’t keep up with them. In that part I thought it was kind of burring.

I wonder why this author wrote this story. I guess maybe he saw it on the TV or his friend was like this.

I think the author wanted to tell us the reader, that it is hard to live alone by no adults because nobody can feed you or earn money for you to live.

This book is about a girl who named Anastasia , wanted to work, but for some reason, she had to be a maid. Then one day, she met with girl who is thirteen years old. Her name was Daphne. Then they a bag thing to Mrs.Bellingham, because they didn’t like her. She made Anastasia be a maid, and she gave a doll to Daphne on her birthday. But Mrs.Bellingham didn’t know their feelings. But Mrs.Bellingham decided to tell Daphne’s parents, so she told Daphne’s parents what Anastasia and she did. Then they got really mad, that made Daphne cry, because her parents never got mad at her even though she did a bad thing. So she promised that she won’t never, ever do bad things again. But at the end, they became good together.

I think the social issues in this book is humiliating and fairness. I will just talk about fairness. I think fairness is a social isssue in this book, because Mrs.Bellingham made Anastasia be a maid, even though she said she wants to be.

I think the author’s message is the even though you have a person that you don’t like, don’t do anything bad, because it is not good to do a things that is BAD.

The book starts off as two builders discussing about instructions to escape out of the city after 200 years. They kept the instructions inside a box with a timed lock. The first mayor of Ember was given the box and after she dies it was passed onto the next mayor in charge and the next. Not one of them knew what was inside except the builders. One of the mayor in the other hand, stole the box from its hiding place hoping it would be something that could cure his coughing disease. He tried to open it but he was unsuccessful. Too bad he died before he was able to return it back to its hiding place. The box ended up stuck inside his closet year after year, forgotten forever. When 200 years came, the box secretly unlocked itself.

Why was the instructions kept as a secret? Why 200 years? Why was the instructions so important? I had a feeling something bad would happen to the city if no one discovers the instructions sooner or later. The prologue makes me want to find out more.

It was year 241. You can see, it was already past 200 years. As I continued to read, I discovered Ember was a city that was always pitch black even during the day. Only lamps around the city were able to brighten Ember a bit. The city was so old, even they would start flickering or shut down all of a sudden, and Ember would be filled with darkness.

I cannot imagine how frightening it would be not to be able to see in the dark especially when you’re outside on the streets. Of course I can’t since I never lived in a city like theirs. Why isn’t the mayor of Ember doing anything about it? He is suppose to be in charge of making the city a better place for the citizens of Ember. So far no one seems to protest about it.

The main character in the story are Lina and Doon. They are both 12 year old students assigned for jobs. Lina wanted to be messenger but instead she drew out pipe working. Doon draws out messenger and they both asked to switch jobs! In reality, I don’t think its suitable to have a job when you’re just 12. Wouldn’t that be child abuse when you have to work on pipe working?

It was assignment day, and the mayor payed a visit to their classroom to assign the students in the class jobs. He had a bag where students would draw out a paper inside and read what was written on the paper and that was their job. When Doon got messenger he was furious! He crumpled the piece of paper up and thew it on the ground. That is when I learned that Doon can’t control his temper very well. Neither was the mayor.

“Disgraceful,” he said, glaring at Doon. ” A childish display of temper! Students should be glad to work for their city. Ember will prosper of all…..citizens do their best.”

Suddenly Doon spoke up. “But Ember isn’t prospering!” he cried. “Everything is getting worse and worse! The blackouts!”

I agree with Doon. He is speaking for himself. I don’t like what the mayor said though. I don’t understand why we should be glad for our job when we don’t have the freedom to pick what we want to do. Why do we even have to work for the city? I don’t think its fair. These things are suppose to be for the mayor to handle. I think he is so lazy!

The reason why Doon wanted to do pipe working was because he wanted to find a way to save Ember before it runs out of electricity. He even sneaked into the generator room bu he had no idea how it works or how to repair it.

Poppy, Lina’s little sister, discovers an old box in the closet in Lina and her grandmother’s apartment. By the time Lina could grab it out of Poppy, there was already chewed up pieces of paper torn apart.

This must be the instructions out of Ember I thought. How is Lina going to decipher the message when its all messed up? Why was the box in the closet? Her ancestor might use to be one of the mayor that stole the box a long time ago.

She tried asking some of her friends but they didn’t seem to care or know. Together Doon and Lina tried to work the message out. Before they could share their news to Ember, the mayor tries to ruin their plan and put them for prison. Doon and Lina have no choice but to escape out of the city with the instructions since the guards were after them. Before they left, Lina took Poppy with her.

I knew the mayor was a bad person! I can tell by his personality.

Lina, Poppy and Doon escaped from the mayor and the city in a small boat using the informations from the instructions to guide them out. They finally escaped above the ground. It was so different from Ember! There were actually lights coming from the sky!

They never knew that Ember was actually below them, underground. They wrote the instuctions and hoped Mrs. Murdo will find it. The ending was a cliffhanger.

The social issue in this story might be something concerning the environment, loss (since Lina’s grandmother died, leaving Mrs. Murdo to take care of Poppy and Lina.) and freedom. This makes me want to read the 2 sequel of the book.

The book I will be talking about is the book called pacific crossing by Gary Soto. This book is about a kid named Lincoln whose Mexican American, he went to Japan as a exchange student kind of thing to learn and study more of kempo.

me and my group tried to discuss what the social issue is in the book. The most possibility is racism because because when Lincoln first met the sensei( a women or men whose kind of like a teacher of certain martial arts.) He was bragging about his kempo level, but then when Lincoln actually took kempo classes, instead of treating Lincoln as in practice, and not punching, kicking too hard. But then when they were throwing bean-bags at each other, he got injured. We also think it’s racism because Lincoln was yet treated differently. Even though at his house Lincoln was treated like V.I.P, but at kempo class, the sensei was treating lincoln like a doll and she hits hard. Maybe when she is practicing with other Japanese people, she might not throw and hit as hard.

I think the japanese people are polite because when lincoln always punches his friend in arm, Mitsuo , literally his brother, thought that was bad because in Japan, you can’t do that.

I think the aurthor’s message is that even if your beliefs, religion is different, you can still be friends.

My book name is while no one was watching by: Jane Lesie Conly. The main idea of the story is that the 3 kids are trying to figure out where there aunt is and all though that time 2 other kids are trying to find a stolen rabbit.

The social issue in this book is theft and abandonment. I have learned that this is happening in the world as we speak and that we can help these people.

Another important event was when the found there aunt and arrested her for abandoning the 3 kids.

I have no wonderings.

The author was trying to tell us that we can help them, and also I think she wanted use to understand this issue because not a lot of people will know it.

This book ‘The City of Ember’ is about a girl named Lina and a boy named Doon. When their city is about to run out of light, Doon and Lina finds an instruction that might save them from the darkness. But the mayor is blocking their way to save Ember, and they don’t know what it says on the instructions since most of the letters faded.

The social issue of this book is mostly about human population, because the people who started living in Ember first was moved to Ember so people won’t disappear from earth. And what ever is causing the humans to disappear from earth was not caused, the people of Ember wouldn’t have to suffer much. And because of the thing that was or is decreasing the human population the children of Ember doesn’t get to see or learn the things that we see or learn.

I think the author’s message is not to let the global warming get worst because the issue is about human population decreasing and maybe its decreasing because of global warming.

After I finished the book I still had questions in my mind and they were, what really made them live underground apart from my guess, Why didn’t the builders of Ember want them (the people of Ember)to know about the world up above? And why didn’t they bring any animals with them?

Thank you for reading my blog post. I highly recommend this book if you like reading about the affect of human knowledge. If you already read it, there are 3 sequels to this book. And they are ‘The People of Sparks’,'The Prophet of Yonwood’,and ‘The Diamond of Darkhold’

Happy Reading!

I read a book called Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. This book was about a girl named Salamanca on a journey to visit her mom. Her mom went away few years ago. She travels with her grandparents and on the way she tells them about a girl named Phoebe. Salamanca has to be in Idaho (where her mom is) in time for her mom’s birthday to bring her back. But at the end of the book, her grandma (gooseberry) dies of a stork and she finds out that her mom died in a bus crash.

The social issue in the book is loss in the family. I felt bad for Salamanca and her dad because they really loved her mom and they also had really good memories of her mom. One of the good memories was ‘The Blackberry Kiss’. It was about Salamanca’s mom kissing a blueberry tree and when Salamanca kissed her mom, she tasted blackberry in her kiss.

Also when Phoebe’s mom went away I felt bad for Phoebe, Prudence (Phoebe’s sister) and her dad. Phoebe’s family was a strict, respectful kind of family. They didn’t pay any attention to Phoebe’s mom at all. They treated her like a slave and told her to do anything. And when she does something wrong they all blame her and gets really mean. And that’s why I thought Phoebe’s mom ran away. But the truth was that she went away to look for Sergeant Buckle (Phoebe’s mom’s old son that she had to give up for a adoption). Phoebe went to see Sergeant Buckle and saw her mom kissing him on the cheek. She misunderstood her and thought that her mom was cheating on her dad. But at the end it all worked out.

When Salamanca and her grandma (gooseberry) dies I felt really sad for her because now she knows that her mom is never going to come back. I can’t believe that her dad lied to her about her mom when he already knew that she had died. The social issue is also family member running away because Salamanca’s mom ran away. She ran away because she had to figure something out on her own.

This book has a lot of social issues in it. There is more than one if you understand the book. I really enjoyed this book because there was a lot of things happening and a lot of surprises at the end. At the end, suddenly her grandma and she finds out that her mom died. I think this book is good for readers who like realistic fiction and like loss or dead in the family. This book was really realistic and the author described it well so that the reader could visualize what was going on.

In this book, there is a teenager called Jake. He smokes, swears, and does other inappropriate stuff. Jake really cares about his hair and likes the style of it. In fact his parent went to jail because his parent planted a drug in their basement. Jake just goes to school. Also in school, he gets suspended in a lot of them. His record was to get suspended in 3 weeks. And he gets sent to the Applewhites family, and changes. In this book, the social issue is probably juvenile. I think that because Jake is not yet old enough to smoke and probably also not old enough to swear. Also nobody is ever old enough to burn your school down. I wonder how the author thought of a character like Jake, and the actions he did that fit his characteristics. Maybe the author’s message is that you can change your characteristic from any situation.

Hey! It’s me Tim.My book club and I have just finished reading our second social issues book. The book is called The City of Ember. In the city of Ember, there is no sun. Just light bulbs. The people of Ember think that Ember is the only light in the world and beyond is all darkness. The book is about a girl named Lina Mayfleet who is the book’s main character. Her mother and father have died so Lina lives with her grandma and her little sister Poppy. In Ember, when every kid turns twelve, they graduate and are assigned a job. Lina really wants to be a messenger but unfortunately gets the job of a pipeworks laborer. Doon Harrow on the other hand gets the job of messenger and asks Lina to trade. Doon wants to be underground because underground is where the generator is and Doon has ideas to fix the lights in Ember which are starting to flicker and go out. When Lina finds a paper in Poppy’s mouth, it is torn and Lina decodes it. Lina shows Doon the message after Lina’s grandma dies and they move into their neighbor Mrs. Murdo’s house. They soon find out that it shows how to go out of Ember into another city. They follow the instructions and are in the surface world. They soon find a hole and see their city and discover that Ember was underground the whole time. They send a message explaining everything and how to get to the surface world and they drop the message down the hole.

I think the end of the book was my favorite part because it stood out a lot and made want to read the sequel to this book.

Mrs Murdo, walking more briskly than usual to keep her spirits up, was crossing Harken Square when something fell to the pavement just inn front of her with a terrific thump. How extraordinary, she thought, bending to pick it up. It was a sort of bundle. She  began to untie it.

I think the social issue(s) in this book are:

loss- when Lina loses her grandmother.

laziness- the citizens of Ember are just too lazy to change the lights of Ember and they think nothing will happen.

I think that the moral of this story is do something right away instead of waiting until something bad happens or when it’s to late.

In this book a kid named Palmer lives in a town where every year the do this festival that boys that are 10 or older wring the pigeons for money. And he hangs out with this group of kids Beans, Mutto and Henry that are mean to his other friend Dorothy. The book starts off at Palmer’s ninth birthday and he hangs out with the guys. Months later this Pigeon steps up to Palmer’s window. Palmer keeps it as a pet which he names Nipper. He tells Dorothy and tells her about Nipper. For months everything feels good. Then Palmer’s 10th birthday arrives and that’s when things get real interesting. There is adventure, laughs and friendship. I think the social issue is animal rights and bullying because they shoot and wring the poor pigeon’s necks and because Beans, Mutto bully Palmer and Dorothy. At Palmer’s tenth birthday Beans does this speech about how he hates pigeons and I wonder why does he hate pigeons? And when Palmer is being chased by Beans and Mutto I would think that he is very brave because I wouldn’t do that because I would be too scared. I wonder if Jerry Spinelli will make the sequel to Wringer because it is very good. I think what the writer is trying to tell you that you should be careful to see if you are in a click like Palmer.