The Old Man and the Sea Book Review

                                               Small Note

For explaining the plot structure, I will explain the setting of the quote, where the quote is located in the book, and the characters in the setting.

Passage 1

“Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.”

1. The setting of this quote is on the banks from where the skiff was hauled up. This quote is found at the beginning of the story and after the old man was described. The characters are the old man and the boy he taught to fish. This passage is important to the story. The characters are the old man and the boy he taught to fish. This passage is important to the story, because it shows that even an old man has some cheerfulness in him. Also, it builds over why the old man never gives up. It shows as well why the old man always gets destroyed but never defeated. He keeps on trying and staying calm because he has the spirit and he is always cheerful. This is why the passage is important to the story.

Passage 2

“Fish,” he said, “ I love you and respect you very much. But I will kill you dead before this day ends.”

2. The setting of this quote is in his boat which is on the sea. At the moment the old man is lost in the sea. This quote is found in the middle of the story and after the sun had risen higher in the sky. The characters are the old man and the huge marlin on his line. This passage is important to the story because it shows that he respects everything but he will also do anything to accomplish his goals. It also shows how much honor he has because he talks to the fish. A person who had his honor for everything but didn’t have that much would have probably just thought what the old man said. Finally, it is important because it shows how the old man sets goals. This is why the passage is important to the story.

Passage 3

“Then the fish came alive with his death in him and rose high out of the water showing all his great length and width and all his power and his beauty.”

3. The setting of this quote is once again on the sea, getting even more lost and getting pulled by the marlin. This quote is found towards the end of the book and after the old man shoves the harpoon into the fish to kill it. The characters are the old man, the marlin and two fish swimming next to the marlin. This passage is important because it represents all the old man’s goals and dreams. In this passage, it specifically shows how the sea is beautiful and full of all types of power. It shows how the sea can be small as in one fish and the sea can be big as in thousands of fish. This is why the passage is important to the story.

Passage 4

“The shark closed fast astern and when he hit the fish the old man saw his mouth open and his strange eyes and the clicking chop of the teeth as he drove forward in the meat just above the tail.”

4. The setting of this quote is still on his boat, in the sea getting still pulled by the marlin as the sky gets darker. This quote is found almost at the end of the story and after the old man sees the shark. The characters are the old man, the marlin, and the shark which is eating the marlin. This passage is important because the shark represents everything that is destructive. It is a symbol to stop the old man from achieving his goals. Even when he loses the fish he was trying to catch to the shark, he doesn’t get scared because he believes that the sea is beautiful. It mainly shows how the sea can be cruel; stealing a position that took a long time for the old man to get to. This is why the passage is important to the story.

Passage  5

“He pulled the blanket over his shoulders and then over his and then over his back and legs and he slept face down on the newspapers with his arms out straight and the palms of his hands up.”

5. The setting of this quote is on the old man’s bed in his house. This quote is found at the end of the story and after the old man sails back to his home. The character is only the old man. As you can see, in this part of the story the old man is alone because everyone else has gone to sleep. This passage is important to the story because it shows how the old man stays very calm and is always relaxed. Most people after a journey like that, would come back home and cheer loudly because they made it back. Finally, it is important because it shows how simple the old man is. This is why the passage is important to the story.

Lesson learned from this story

People shouldn’t depend on luck. I got this from the old man never thinking luck would get him a fish. He knew he would have to do the hard work to get the fish himself. Other fisherman might have depended on luck and blamed not getting fish to unluckiness. However, instead of hoping for luck, the old man focuses on believing in his ability because he knows it isn’t unluckiness that stops a person from a getting a fish.

Writing Girl(WG)

Old man and the Sea cover page

Hoot Book Review

Name of Major Character:

Roy Eberhardt

One trait of that character(adjective):

Curious

Supporting Quote with page number:

“The running boy was way ahead of him, but Roy figured he could stay close enough to keep him in sight. He knew the kid couldn't go full speed forever. He followed him for several blocks-over fences, through shrubbery, weaving through yapping dogs, and lawn sprinkles and hot tubs. Eventually Roy felt himself tiring. This kid is amazing, he thought. Maybe he’s practicing for the track team. Once Roy thought he saw the boy glance over his shoulder, as if he knew he was being pursued, but Roy couldn’t be certain. The boy was still far ahead of him, and Roy was gulping like a beached trout. His shirt was soaked and perspiration poured off his forehead stinging his eyes.” (part of page 15)

“On two different days, actually, Roy said. I saw you running and I got curios.(part of page 55)

Circle one type of conflict seen in this novel:

Person vs. nature/higher power

Describe the conflict:

Mullet Fingers is trying to stop people from making a building on top of nested owls. But the people who he is against are in a lot more power than him. He is not even supposed to be known about because he is an outlaw. Those builders know about the nesting owls but they don’t care. Mullet Fingers tries to stop them along with Beatrice and Roy, but the children are in less power than the builders who are making the building.

Support quote with page number:

“Here Mr.Ryan interrupted firmly. Hold on, Roy, what do you mean it’s not legal? You need to be careful when you’re making those kinds of serious allegations. Excitedly, Roy explained that the burrowing owls were protected by state and federal laws, and that it was illegal to harm the birds or disturb active burrows without getting special government permits. All right. Fine, said Mr.Ryan, but what does the pancake company have to say about this? I’m sure they got the proper permission-

The file is missing, Roy cut in, and the foreman tried to tell me there weren’t any owls on the property, not a single one. Which is a lie”(part of page 247)

Circle one of the following topics that relate to possible themes in Hoot:

Morality

List three specific moments in the novel where that topic shows up:

1. When Roy dumps out the bag of cottonmouth moccasin snakes on page 51.
2. On page 271 when Chuck Muckle threatens to start the bulldozer when Mullet Fingers is in one of the owl burrows.
3. On page 283 where Kimberly Lou Dixon quit her TV role as Mother Paula, declaring she couldn’t work for a company that would bury baby owls just to sell a few flapjacks.

Supporting quote with page number that shows the topic/moment connection:

“What are you guys doing? Roy said. Skippin’ school,  Garrett replied merrily, but, dude, this looks like way more fun. Roy turned to see that Beatrice had been joined by the entire soccer team, linking arms in a silent chain. They were tall strong girls who weren’t the least bit intimidated by Chuck Muckle’s blustery threats. Chuck Muckle realized it, too. Stop this foolishness right now!, he begged. There’s no need for an ugly mob scene. Roy watched in wonderment as more and more kids slipped out of the crowd and began joining hands, forming a human barricade around Beatrice’s self-buried stepbrother. None of the parents made a move to stop them.”(part of page 271 & 272)

Writing Girl(WG)

Hoot Book Cover

Peace Follows War

Hi, my name is Hiawatha. I am an adopted child. My father Deganawidah adopted me in the south. We have just come to the Iroquois. The Mohawk nation has accepted us. I think their ways are very strange. We live in longhouses built on high ground and surrounded by a tall oval fence. Earlier, we used to live in small teepees out in the open. We eat very healthy though, which is a great thing. Me and my father hunt like twice a week but we only kill what we need. Since we’re newcomers, we have to help wake up the babies after their nap. That’s the job of every new person. The Iroquois eating habits are very strange however. We only eat breakfast with our family! All our other meals we eat alone! At least we still use wampum as money.

“Oh, I hear loud noises to the far side of camp. Must be time to wake up the babies.” I thought. I traveled to the far side of camp to wake up the babies. I ran into the baby longhouse to wake them up, but strangely they were already awake. They were screaming and pointing past the giant boulders onto the battle grounds. I ran toward the grounds and what I saw astonished me past my worst dreams. The nations were fighting.

“Why are our nation's fighting?” I screamed into the sky! Deganawidah came up beside me. “I don’t know, but we’ve got to find out. Will you help me find out?” Dad asked.

“I shall--I shall join you”, I said to my dad. I prepared to run into the battle but my dad hesitated.

“What if we get killed?” he asked.

“Then we do,” I replied and jumped past the boulders and onto the battle grounds. I looked back when I was on the grounds waiting for my father to jump but he never did. I did see however some of the babies in the baby longhouse sitting up in their diapers and clapping. I rushed into the battle and grabbed a sword from one of the people who had died.

The battle grounds were jam packed and I nimbly rushed under legs and threw out a stab whenever I could. After a while, I realized my plan would not work. I rushed out of battle and picked up wounded soldiers from my nation. I dragged them back up the boulders and Deganawidah met me at the top. He hugged me in his relief. “Go and jump down while I take care of the wounded”, I screamed to him. He hesitated but then jumped down and screamed “STOP!”. I ran to the sick longhouse and grabbed the herbs I needed. While I was working, I saw the medicine woman. She told me she’d take over while I ran and grabbed more wounded. I silently agreed. I ran back to the battlegrounds but what I saw astonished me. The battle had stopped and Deganawidah was right in the middle of the nation's, telling them about peace.

He had done it! The nations all backed away and the healthy people battling in our nation lifted my father on their shoulders and walked away into the camp cheering. I grabbed more wounded and walked them to the sick longhouse. On my way there, I met the people who were carrying Deganawidah. The parade was so cool but my father deserved it. He was a hero!

Later in the day, Deganawidah told me what he had said during the battle. He told the nations that all of us were brothers and that our ways of killing and scalping should stop. He told them we should form a League of Iroquois that could punish anyone who stopped peace. I told him it was a good idea and that if a League was there, he could represent the Mohawk nation in it.

After me and my dad had our discussion, it was time for me to take a bath. Now I must explain to you how we take a bath around here. We take baths outside our oval fence in a small sweathouse. We heat stones and put water on top of them. We stay in the room for as long as we can stand and then go outside and rub ourselves with sand. Then we jump into the nearest lake and wash ourselves. We have a bath once or twice a day.

After my bath was over, it was time for prayers. We sleep at 9:00 PM and wake up at 5:00 AM. We have prayers at 8:00 PM. In prayers, we always honor anyone who was a hero in that day and repeat our laws and rules and beliefs. Then we pray for a good night and go off to bed. This is basically how prayers went off today. First, Deganawidah was honored for stopping the battle. Then me and the medicine women were honored for helping with the wounded. We then repeated our beliefs and rules out loud and this time there was one more belief. “I believe that we should have a League of Iroquois and a great law of peace!” Finally, we prayed for a good night and went off to bed. I went to the longhouse I share with 50 other families, and the bed I share with Deganawidah. I slept.

In the morning when I woke up at sunrise, I went and did the cooking with 35 other girls. Deganawidah was already awake. When I was eating breakfast with him, he told me, “I am going to talk to our leader Lakota to make the League of Iroquois I was dreaming about.” I said to him,

“It’s a great idea. Can I join you in your journey to make peace?”

“Yes”, he said. “Come with me to our leader’s longhouse.”

After breakfast, me and Deganawidah walked to our leader’s longhouse. When we knocked, he said “Come in.” Me and my father explained to our leader our idea for the League of Iroquois. Unfortunately, Lakota didn’t like the idea. He said,

“It will be too much work.” Although he did said “I will agree if we get 500 signatures of people in our village.” Deganawidah tried to argue that it would be too hard but Lakota wasn’t budging. He just sent us out of there with a large numbered paper to have people sign. My father told me,“we better get started if we want this League to be there”. “There is one issue though. Only one nation can’t start the League.” So in the end, we both realized we needed to go into the other nations to see if they would agree.

After a while of discussion, me and Deganawidah decided to do one nation at a time. After we got 500 signatures in this nation, then we would move on to the next. We started getting signatures immediately and after 5 minutes flat we had about 20 signatures. Soon it was time for lunch. Me and my father sat together at lunch instead of each alone. It turns out we had 33 signatures already. It seems like a lot of people wanted a League of Iroquois and peace. After lunch, me and Deganawidah started up again on the signatures. We went to our neighbors. Some of the competitive ones said they would not sign but most of them did. We spent our whole day getting signatures. Me and my father slept well that night, knowing that we had 111 signatures.

The next day we woke up and had breakfast. We traveled to the south side of camp, near the battlegrounds, to see if we could get more signatures but we saw not people but warriors. Another battle had started.

Me and Deganawidah immediately launched into action. I did the same thing I had done the other day and brought wounded people up the boulders. I put them in the sick longhouse and then ran to join my father in the battle. I walked between it asking people in tribes “Why are you fighting?” It turns out the nations wanted more land and were fighting for some of the Mohawks. Me and Deganawidah asked them

“Why are you killing people for land?” That would just mean less people to help feed our nations.” They just laughed and said it would mean less people to feed as well. Me and my father knew we would not be able to stop this battle. We needed more people. We did the one thing we could do. We ran back.

Me and Deganawidah ran to our neighbors houses and ushered them out. Then we asked, “Who will help us stop this battle?” Half of the people said they didn’t want to get killed in battle so we gave them another job. “Go to the other tribes and get more people who are willing to help stop this battle,” we said. About an hour later, 389 eager people who wanted to stop the battle had arrived. They all jumped into the battle; me and Deganawidah in lead and started making the nation's stop fighting. We spoke to them about what war did to people and how peace should begin. We asked the nation's leaders to come forth and told them about our idea of a League of Iroquois. Out of the five nations, three of them liked our idea. They said they would go for peace for all.

Two of them said they didn’t like our idea, including Lakota, who had said that earlier. Both of them said it was hard work and didn’t know if their aggressive tribes would like the idea of peace. Our leader specially wouldn’t budge and he only said he would agree if we had gotten those 500 signatures. The other leader who disagreed was of the Oneida nation and she was a bit more open-minded. She said, “I will agree to peace, if you get 200 signatures from people in my tribe.” At least that was a lot easier than 500 signatures. Me and Deganawidah then left all the nations to leave in peace. Now that we knew what to do to start our League, me and Deganawidah set right to work.

By prayers, we had 488 signatures! So many people wanted to sign after they knew what we did during the battle. Me and my father decided we needed to plan this our a little more. We estimated that it would take about 2 weeks to start our League. At prayers today Lakota made a new rule. He said he would be allowed to punish anyone who was too aggressive no matter what the cause. That of course, started a riot between so many of our aggressive people. Lakota, however, said, “That is the rule”, and then prayers ended.

That set us back a little bit. Some of the aggressive people who had signed our sheet came up to us and said “I want my signature erased.” Reluctantly, we had to erase about 20 signatures. By the next morning, me and Deganawidah had our 500 signatures! We came up to Lakotas longhouse and told him we had our signatures. He studied them for about 10 minutes then said “Ok, I’m in.” As soon as he said that, he went outside his longhouse and told everyone who was an adult to gather around the high rock his  longhouse was located on. There, he made a small speech. “From now on, our tribe shall be part of the League of Iroquois. I shall choose two representatives from our tribe to represent us in the League. I shall choose the people who started this League. Our representatives will be Hiawatha and Deganawidah!”          

Me and my father were so proud! After that was decided, Lakota said “Everyone, you can now leave.” He then told us “Meet me privately in my longhouse.” We did just that and then he allowed us to go to the Oneida nation to get the 200 signatures we needed there. It turns out many more people in the Oneida Nation wanted to sign. In only that one day, we had gotten our 200 signatures. We were then lead to the leader of the Oneida nation’s longhouse. Her name was Little Blossom. When she saw our signatures, she laughed and said, “I will now agree to the League of Iroquois”. Me and Deganawidah went back to the Mohawk territory just in time for prayers. We were so happy! The League of Iroquois was about to begin!

The next morning a meeting between all the tribes and me and Deganawidah was organized and the League of Iroquois was started in it. Me and my father were so proud that our dream of peace had finally come true!

The first meeting of the League of Iroquois took place today. All of the representatives from all the nations met by the river. There we had a meeting about peace. Now that the League was formed, there were never any battles about anything. Instead, if their were any reasons to battle, the League discussed and decided how to solve the problem. Everyone in the League had to agree to make the decision final.

This League of Peace lasted very long. Indeed very long, until the Iroquois had all disappeared from this earth. Until then, peace was there in all the nations and everyone agreed on one thing; peace will give more happiness than war.

Writing Girl(WG)

Peace for America

Maybe a Typical Day

It was a sunny day yesterday. When I came back from school, I saw a plastic bag. I tried to make it fly, and at last it flew really high. I went inside to finish practicing my piano and to get ready for my swimming class. When my mom arrived, I ate my sweet potatoes and hurried outside to fly my bag again while my brother finished his sweet potatoes. Right when it was time to leave for swimming, my bag flew over 3 rooftops and landed in a bush. Wow, I said to myself. I went into the car and waited as my brother was dropped off for basketball class. I arrived just as my swimming class was starting. Everyone swam 6 laps of every stroke. When we finished, it was time to dive. I first did a racing dive, then a original dive, last but not least, a pencil jump. That jump blasted me to the bottom of the ten feet deep pool. I hopped into the changing room, took a shower and changed into my clothes. My mom and I then went to the grocery store to pick up food. Then we picked up my brother from basketball class and went home.

Yeah, What's Your Typical Day??