Germania

A protagonist is the main character. Who is the protagonist of your

2005-05-24T17:49:00.000-07:00

The main character of this book is Holden Caulfield. He is 16 years old in this book and he is also the narrator. He has a history of failure at many different prep schools because of his abnormal behavior in which he can't intitutionalize himself in the real world. He eventually suffers an emotional breakdown as the result of his recent expulsion from Pencey Prep School and a series of other bad experiences.

9th reading day blog

2005-04-10T19:27:00.000-07:00

WHO?
There are actually two main characters to this story, whose names are Brendan and Gary. Gary and Brendan are two complete strangers when the book begins, and they both move to Middletown in different grades...and eventually become good friends. They are both said to be really nice guys at the beginning of the story, but they are also 'outsiders'. They begin to build up hatred for all the jocks and preps in their school, as they say that all of those 'types' of people are complete asses to them. Throughout the book they become more and more angered, and eventually reach the boiling point.
WHAT?
The novel is about a school shooting at Middletown High School. It is pretty much a collection of quotes from the victems of this shooting, the student body at MHS. It starts out talking about how Brendan and Gary were nice boys and how they moved from different towns and had previously moved many times in their lives. There are also bits of both shooters' suicide notes at times throughout the book, and you can tell that they are about to reach their boiling point. Eventually on the night of a school dance, they snap. The school dance doesn't end in hugs and kisses between measly couples, it ends with life and death from two 'outsider' high school kids who were hated and didn't get any attention from anyone else in their school.
WHERE?
This story takes place at Middletown High School....wherever that is. It is based on a collection of true stories that all have to do with school shootings. It takes place in the late 90's or early 2000's. This is easy to tell because school shootings were not overly populated until after the ones in Colorado. It is mostly set in the school, at different times and days. This adds to the story because different things happen every day to add 'fuel to the fire', as some might say, to Brendan and Gary's short tempers. I like this setting because it basically explains what happens each and every day at school from the minds of these two young men, and also puts thoughts in the readers' head as to what they might make certain people go through each and every day.
WHEN?
The climax of this story occurs when the two boys burst into an open fire at the school dance. They first fire random shots into the air and run around the gymnasium as they force the people at the dance into the middle of the gym. They shoot some people including a teacher. Eventually things get really slimy and they both end up shotting themselves.
WHY?
The author most likely wrote this story for various reasons. In my opinion, the main reason that the author wrote this story was to give people a better understanding of how some people feel and what some people go through in every day life. He also wanted to get the point across that people shouldn't think that they are better than others, because it makes some people feel like nothing. Sometimes, when people feel like nothing, they tend to do really stupid things that result in really bad endings. The theme of this story could very easily come back to "The Golden Rule: Treat others as you would want to be treated." I believe this could very easily be a theme of this story because if everyone did that, I highly doubt that there would be any school shootings at any time and place in the world ever again.
I rate this story at a 6. It is a good book as it gets the point across clearly and it uses real-life situations to explain itself. However, I don't like that the book is just a collection of quotes. Although it may be easy to read, it doesn't really have a good flow to it. It is a little bit bouncy back and forth from day-to-day situations. Even though I only rated this book at a 6, I would recommend it to almost anyone who was in need of a book to read.

6th Reading Day

2005-03-17T10:10:00.000-08:00

The scene on page 118 when Brendan calls Emily and tells her not to be at the dance...from Emily's point of view:

I was sitting at the dinner table eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, I suppose it was around noontime or so, when Brendan called me. This was completely out of the ordinary, because I hadn't talked to him since the end of ninth grade year. Anyways, he asked me what I was doing and what I had planned for the night, you know, the usual conversation between people when they have absolutely nothing to talk about. I told him I wasn't doing anything and that I hadn't had any plans for the night. Then, he asked me if I was going to the dance, as if I'd EVER been to a school dance. I told him that I wasn't, but I was very curious as to why he would ask such a question when he knows that I had never been to a school dance before, and neither had he. Anyways, we just kept talking, you know..... about stupid stuff that really had no meaning at all. And then I asked him,
"Why do oyou want to know if I am going to the dance, I mean, neither of us have ever been to a dance before?"
And he was like, "Well I just wanted to make sure, because I was planning on going to the dance, but I am pretty sure you wouldn't like it so I was just being sure that you weren't going to be there."
And then he told me that he has always had a crush on me and that he would always love me, like in a romantic way. This was weird, and then we said bye....but it wasn't a normal goodbye, it felt more like a long-lasting goodbye.

5th reading day

2005-03-03T10:15:00.000-08:00

This book takes place at Middletown High School in Middletown. One of the main characters, Gary, has moved from school to school throughout his life. The other main character, Brendan, has also had a rough life due to moving from place to place. However, both of them have good loving families. Anywyas, usually the kids make fun of Gary and Brendan at this school, and they are both 'outsiders'. As a result, they become good friends and form their own sort of 'clique' with themselves. This is part of the reason they end up doing what they do, and destroying the setting of this book by shooting up the school.

2005-02-17T09:56:00.000-08:00

"Sam Flach will die slowly. I will shoot him in one knee, then the other, then a gut shot so he'll have no friggin' doubt where he's going. And he will stare up at me with a fear in his eyes he has never known, and I will put that friggin' barrel right against his forehead and say, "Gee, sorry, Sam" then blow his friggin' brains out." This is said on page 41 by Brendan.
I think this quote says a lot. It shows what Brendan is really feeling about his classmates. They continuously make fun of him and Gary and this quote pretty much sums up how they feel about it. It also is a bit of foreshadowing as to what will come later in the book.

"I could have just gone and offed myself quietly, but that would have been an even bigger waste. If I go this way, taking the people who made my life miserable with me, then maybe it will send a message. Maybe something will change, and some other miserable kid like me somewhere will get treated better and maybe find a reason to live."
This quote also says alot. It shows how Gary is really feeling about his classmates. They make fun of him all the time and they are getting sick of it. It shows how Brendan and Gary are feeling about the people who make fun of them and how their are probably millions of other kids feeling the way they do....alone. It pretty much tells people that making fun of someone is not necessary, and can really get inside a person's head.

character analysis

2005-02-10T10:13:00.000-08:00

My characters name is Brendan. He is crazy. The author hasn't really presented him yet, but he kind of has also. People have been talking about how Brendan was treated in middle school and high school. He was involved in the school shooting. Brendan used to be a good kid when he first moved to the new town, but then he changed. He held everything inside, but him and his friend were about to do something really bad, and get involved in a school shooting. The way they have been treated throughout the book so far is really bad. I am just about to the part where the school shooting happens. So far they have started to plan their school shooting and who they were going to take out first. Mainly, the first people on the list are the people that treated them the worst.

First 30 pages

2005-02-03T10:15:00.000-08:00

This book is kind of crazy, but the main characters are Brendan and Gary. They are the two that end up doing the shootings at the school. The book basically is a bunch of people from the school that are telling different things about the two characters, starting from middle school and working up into their high school years. It basically tells about how they get made fun of all of the time and how they are 'outcasts'. They both are in a group of friends that is only a group of about 5 to 10 kids. They always get made fun of by the 'jocks' and the 'preppies'. Throughout this part of the book so far, Brendan has been giving little hints about him taking the school shooting into real action, but nobody has really gotten the hints yet.

first reading day

2005-01-27T10:37:00.000-08:00

Title: Give a Boy a Gun
Author: Todd Strasser
Number of Pages: 203
Publisher: Straight Arrows Publisher Company
Copyright: 1999

This book looks like a good book because it's about people taking hostages in their school and that has really happened so it applies to a real life situation. It looked like a good book because the cover has CRIME SCENE tape on it and its got people with bullet holes in them.

Testing

2005-01-27T09:56:00.000-08:00

¿Donde esta en la biblioteca, Pedro?