Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children Part 2

I just finished reading "Miss Peregrine's" this weekend (along with another great book) and my overall thought of this book is that, it had it all! Personally, I like books more when they have a lot of action and romance. "Miss Peregrine's" had romance, action and even a plot twist that caught me completely off guard. I mean really I wasn't expecting it. So let's talk about what happens in the second part of the book. So, Jacob, the main character, learns that his grandfather had come across the peculiar children when he became a refugee during the Jewish genocide. However, the only reason he had stayed in Miss Peregrine's home was because he was in fact peculiar; which makes Jacob peculiar. Jacob crosses "the loop" which leads to September 3, 1949 a place and time where the peculiar children are in hiding. He learns that the whites and hollows are after the peculiar race so he decides that in honor of his grandfather, Jacob will stay to fight against the hollows and whites. However Jacob is afraid that he won't be as strong as his grandfather. 

The theme in "Miss Peregrine's" is not to let fear take over your life. In the book the theme presents itself in the form of encouragement. Jacob is the only person who can truly fight against the hollows and whites. His unique gift which allows him to see the hollows, allows him to protect the other peculiar children. However the question is, what happens when you can't put the fear of your grandfather's killer behind you, a killer that is now after you and people you love? In the book Jacob says to himself, "What if I'm not as strong as him. I'm not as brave or as strong so how could I ever protect the people I love the way he did?" Obviously conquering the fear of your grandfather's killer is a hard thing to do but what Jacob later realized was that he didn't have to be like his grandfather in order to achieve in over throwing the whites. Jacob is a strong and brave person but just in his own way. 

American Indian Response

American Indians have been marginalized for quit sometime. Ever since the day people came to live in America, American Indians were treated unequally. In the article "Would We Be Killed" the author wrote, "By 1879, settlers and the U.S. Army had forced most tribes off their lands, and "white man" diseases had devastated the native population." This quote shows that "white men" didn't care about the health and the lives of the American Indians who were forced out of their home.

In Shanice Brittons's essay, "Life on the Rez It's Not What You Think", Shanice describes her life on the Rez. She tells the reader about how her life isn't as different as people might think despite her American Indian ancestry. Shanice describes her desire to help American Indian traditions from disappearing like the  language sometimes used in her community. She tell the reader about her life in order to help the reader understand that they aren't that different and how she wants her community to prosper. 

Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children By: Alma LaFay Peregrine

I have only read half of this book so I'll only be writing a summary of the first part. The main character in the story is a sixteen year old boy named Jacob Portman. As a child Jacob grew up with fairy tales about children who could disappear in mid air and monsters with eyes the color of coal with tentacles springing from their mouths. As a child Jacob believed the stories told by his grandfather but soon grew to doubt them. Until the day that Jacob's grandfather died suspiciously. As his grandfather slowly faded away his last words were a confusing quest for Jacob. So off Jacob went to find the truth about his grandfather's past, a past hidden with in a remote island. What Jacob didn't know was that the fairy tales once told to him as a child would reveal themselves to him as being true There is indeed a girl who can make fire from within herself and a boy who is completely invisible. These children are known as peculiar and have been in hiding for thousands of years from monsters known as the hollows.

The conflict in the story is that the hollows have been threatening the existence of the peculiar race. All these children who have been separated from their non peculiar families are being hunted down. The monsters "Awful hunched-over ones with rotting skin and black eyes" had killed the only person that Jacob truly felt that understood him, his grandfather. 

Count Down By: Deborah Wiles Part 2

After 3 weeks of reading Count Down, I finally finished it. Since I've already did a summary of the first part of the book, I'll just do the second. It seems like every time the book switches to the historical part the author always mentions the Cuban Missile Crisis and how President JFK and the Russian president are tempting each other. Then in the historical fiction, which is Franny's story, it seems like the family is falling apart. Franny's mother is always upset and distant, while Franny's father is always at the military base ready to fly off to protect his country. Then her brother is all depressed because he's obsessed with "Our Friend The Atom", a book that tells him that atoms are supposed to be used for good, yet atomic bombs are made of atoms and are being used to hurt people. So things are pretty messed up but as the days go by they seem to help and rely on each other despite their differences.

I honestly love the way the author developed the main character, Franny. In the beginning all I could do was roll my eyes at the ignorance Franny seemed to always show. She acted as if she only cared about her image, even though she truly loved her family. In the beginning as Franny and her friend walk home from school and saw that Uncle Otts was scaring people as he acted like everyone on the street was a soldier. Franny hid behind a bush and said, "I just can't. I don't want them to make fun of me. I'm going to be the laughingstock of the neighborhood, if not the whole school, on Monday." Honestly, I get where she was coming from, but she chose to save herself even though her uncle needed her. I believe if Franny would have stood up for her uncle she wouldn't have been laughed at but looked up too. Then as the story goes on and Franny learns to be more considerate and mature I learned to love her character and the way she saw things. Franny and Margie (ex-friend) get into this big argument but instead of leaving Margie to run around in the woods, Franny goes to help her even though she has every right to be angry. In the text it says, " I can help. I don't want to. I will. I turn myself around and run into the woods."