Revision Response

Over the summer, I read a book called "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand. It is a true story about a man named Louis Zamperini. It starts out when Louis is a young boy. He was really mischievous and stole stuff from people and was just in general, a bad kid. Later in his life in high school, he discovers that he loves to run. He joins the track team at college and keeps progressively getting better and better at running. He runs a qualifying race for the Olympics and makes the Olympic team. The Olympics are held in Berlin, Germany which at that time was ruled by Adolf Hitler, leader of the German Nazi Party. I think that this book is called unbroken because Louis never gave up. He stood strong throughout the story and I think that is a huge part throughout this great book.

 Louis was drafted into the Air Corps as a bombardier during World War 2. He met his crew and became good friends with the pilot Phillip. There was one type of aircraft that no one wanted to be the crew of, it was the B-24 bomber. Of course, Louis's crew was assigned to that type of aircraft. The crew kept flying missions, because the war was still raging, until one mission where Louis's plane, "The Superman" was shot by an enemy plane through the fuel tank and only just made it to a friendly base. “The Superman" was not going to fly again, as it was filled with holes bigger than a man's head.

Louis's crew was assigned a mission to go on a search mission to find a plane that had gone down in the Pacific ocean. Louis’s crew was then assigned a new plane named "The Green Hornet", they knew this plane to be unsafe and requested a different plane, but were declined because the plane passed inspection. The crew took off in the new plane and flew for a while looking for the plane that went down. Two of the engines in their plane broke and they started going down over the ocean. I think that this part of the story really proves Louis’s ability to stay strong. For example, he is one of the only survivors when the plane crashes. I thought that Louis was prepared for the crash and that is why he made it out alive.

After the plane goes down, Phillip, the engineer, Mac, and Louis realize their provisions bag is gone.  At this point Louis struggled away from the plane to find Mac and Phillip. This is another example of how strong Louis is. He immediately took control of the band of survivors. He caught food for them, he fixed their raft after an enemy plane came and shot at them and was attacked by sharks in doing so. Obviously, as you can see, he took the role as leader because he was the strongest both physically and mentally.

Mac dies on the raft and eventually Phillip and Louis drift to an island, but it turns out to be a Japanese island and they are taken into captivity. The POW camp they are taken to is called Ofuna. There were other POWS there with them and they endured beatings daily from guards and were served little food. Eventually Louis was transferred to a different camp called Omori, where Louis met the “meanest man he ever knew”. The POWS referred to him as "The Bird". The bird was the leader of Omori and he especially liked to beat Louis whenever possible, because Louis was a famous Olympic runner. International POW laws were regularly broken, by the guards at Omori. The bird was transferred to a different camp to terrorize POWs. Un luckily Louis was transferred to the same camp as the Bird and was eventually rescued after the war ended. This shows Louis is strong because even though he got transferred again to the same camp as “The Bird” he was able to stick it out till the war ended.

I thought the book was really good because of a couple reasons. Firstly, the author, Laura Hillenbrand makes really diverse characters. Louis is a great example of one of these characters. He is strong and inspiring and enjoyable to read about. I hope she continues to write stories about heroes like Louis.

Reading Response

                I read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I liked the book and saw the whole inner meaning.

                           In the story the main character Nick moves to Long Island to a small little house. His neighbor had a giant house, and was very wealthy. The man is always having extravagant parties where many people come over. Nick has never seen or met the man but, has heard of him and knows his name is Gatsby. He sees a silhouette of him on his balcony one night. Nick is eventually invited to one of Gatsby's parties and meets Gatsby there. Nick keeps hanging out with Gatsby and meets Gatsby's friends which in turn become his friends. Nick eventually finds out that Gatsby is in love with Daisy who is married and Daisy is in love with him too. Nick just tags along with Gatsby and goes where he goes. Daisy eventually hits someone in her car who happens to be the woman her husband is having an affair with, naturally she would get accused of doing it on purpose, so Gatsby took the blame.




   This book showed how all the upper, middle, and lower classes all stay within one another. Nick was never rich but got to witness all the upperclass men staying together and not venturing into other classes

Reading Response

         
         Over the summer I read Animal Farm by:George Orwell. I enjoyed the book and would read it again.

     In the book animals can talk and walk on their hind legs and can do most human functions. In the beginning all the animals were living in the barn on the farm. They were fed up with the conditions they were living in, so they planned a revolution.
      They kept planning, and planning until they saw their opportunity and went for it. They attacked the farmer and drove him out of the farm. They took down the state flag and put up their own. They made their own wall of rules. They would grow crops and eat them, and were able to survive on their own.
      Then the farmer came back and brought his friends, who all had guns. The animals saw their chance and attacked the humans, some animals were killed, some injured but they drove the humans out again. This made them feel superior. The two leaders of the animals (Snowball and Napoleon) were having a debate, Snowball wanted to build a windmill to grind grain better, but Napoleon was opposed to the idea. Napoleon to win the debate, decided to slander Snowball and turn everyone against him. Napoleon even got dog bodyguards to attack anyone who disagreed with him.
    The pigs(highest of the animals) started to break the rules of the Animal Farm. Another animal would notice and go check the rule board where there was an add on to that rule giving some exception in the pig's favor. Napoleon decided to build the windmill, which brought this madness on, and said it was a great idea. He also claimed it was his idea and it was stolen from him by snowball. Napoleon even started making deals and trading with humans.


I thought this book was about how power can take people over. Napoleon had someone he had lived with chased by dogs out of town. He had rules bent in his favor, the power in my opinion got to his head and that took over. The Animal Farm went from a democracy to a dictatorship with no warning. The book seemed innocent but really had underlying issues about politics.