The Help Trailer

The Guardian Vs. Dear John

I read the books Dear John and The Guardian both by Nicholas Sparks. One I really enjoyed and one I did not. They are totally different from each other on so many reasons and I’m here to explain why.

                Dear John is a very cute sappy love story about lost love. John is in the army and while on leave, he encounters this cute little southern belle who has a great heart named Savannah. Their love is like a flower- it needs water to grow and a little TLC. After he goes back to war they must have a relationship through only letters and see each other every couple of years. They always end the letters with “I’ll see you soon then”.

                John is definitely the hero in this story. He is in the army so that is pretty obvious. He is just a really kind and gentle man. “The saddest people I've ever met in life are the ones who don't care deeply about anything at all.”   Who loves so hard and he realizes when Savannah moves on and gets married to someone else that all if he really loves her, which he does all he wants is for her to be happy. She was his first “real love” so that is very difficult to do but he knows it’s what he has to do.

This was a really different angle that sparks took and I really enjoyed it. I loved, well I wouldn’t say loved that’s kind of mean, but it was interesting how you got to see a totally different view. A point of view from someone in the army and learn about how a relationship might seem in the army how difficult they are and it’s really a good thing and what true love truly is. “So there's something else I wanna tell you. Right before everything went black, you wanna know the very last thing that entered my mind? You.”

Next, I read The Guardian, you think when you pick it up, and “it’ll be a love story”. WRONG! It’s about this hair stylist named Julie who has a late husband and he gave her a dog who watches over her who is “her guardian”. She then dates this psychopath named Richard and when she breaks up with him her life becomes endangered.

Richard is for sure a villain. He seems to be a really nice guy and the begins  begin! When Julie breaks up with him for her husband’s best friend Richard becoums enraged and starts stalking her and it gets very bad it seemed as though he may rape her or do something terrible like that. Well, it gets really bad so they flee and of course he finds them and through the investigation we find out he is someone else and that he killed both of his parents, his wife, his roommate, Julie’s dog , and almost killed Julie’s coworker and all he wants in the world is to be with Julie but that isn’t enough.

In conclusion, they were totally different even though they were written by the same author and also, its  kind of weird that John knew to let Savannah be happy and “Richard” wanted to h ave Julie even if itt meant hurting her.  I really thought that was cool and I can’t wait to read more Nicholas sparks.

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When Richard met “A” from Pretty Little Liars.

When Richard met “A” from Pretty Little Liars. Richard and “A” are both stalkers but in VERY different ways but at the same time they are two TOTALLY different people. Richard stalks Julie, his ex-girlfriend, Julie always appearing wherever she is. Meanwhile, “A” is an unknown stalker. It’s kind of weird how these characters act. They are not very good people and I don’t like them. Both characters are obviously villains. A is a villain because he is blackmailing the girls and watching always knowing what they are up to and texts that are saying stuff like “I know your secrets” and it’s really weird and very creepy and they don’t know who this “A” person is. Julie dumped her ex -boyfriend, Richard and he is basically stalking her 24/7 and he has a bad reputation in the town and its Julie’s job to find out what that may be. She is now currently dating her late husband, Jim his best friend, Mike and Richard is determined to ruin their relationship. Obviously, they are very similar and different and both have similar themes. If Richard and A ever bet the world would have ended and we wouldn’t know what to do. Plus, the world would just be very terrible and everyone would turn evil and peace would be nonexistent.

Embellishing?

A book that is a memoir definitely be one hundred percent true. If it isn’t true than you don’t know if you can trust the author or not. I am reading The Glass Castle and after learning about this I am wondering if all of these terrible things are true or if she is embellishing . No, half-way truths are NOT okay! You have to think sometimes do you want to tell a true story or a good one? Yes, a good story may be more interesting but you never know, the truth may be interesting to someone else. What one person hates, someone else loves. This is the same concept. What someone who lived this experienced it thinks their life is boring to someone else it could be glamorous. Frey and Mortenson shouldn’t of bent the truth I would have liked to know the real truth. No, I don’t think we need lines between genres. That’s why we know what we like. We should keep things very simple because everything else is so complex that we shouldn’t need to make choosing a book so complex. Yes, we do need to label thing non- fiction or fiction because we want to know if we are reading a true story or not.

What should schools do?

• If Gallagher’s argument is true in Readicide, should we continue to teach literary fiction so exclusively? • Should we add more genre fiction to the curriculum? o No, we should NOT continue to teach literary fiction so exclusively. We shouldn’t do this because all the books we read tend to do the same thing for us and most people don’t actually read the book. If we read more genre fiction, then people would do better and actually enjoy the book and maybe read more often. • Are you good with swapping out Of Mice and Men for Twilight, for example? o Yes, I am okay with swapping Twilight for Of Mice and Men. The book I absolutely HATED it. Twilight was okay not my favorite but the concept is much better. I would like reading it despite the length. • What should a 21st century English class reading list look like? o A 21st century English class should look like: if the class is on trimesters, you would read two books : one genre and one literary fiction. If the class is on semesters you would read three books: two literary and one genre. If the class is on quarters: you would read one book: it would be literary and it also should have a independent reading book as well. • Is literary fiction relevant to our current culture? o No, literary fiction isn’t relevant to our culture. We aren’t able to relate to it and forced to say” “I don’t understand this book.”, and therefore it concludes that we “hate” the book. • Is it preparing students for the job market you are about to enter? o No, I have no idea what I want to do in my life. If I want to be an English teacher this would help me, obviously. If I was a nurse this wouldn’t help you don’t necessarily have to know how to read to be a burse. Those are some possibilities. • Why should we want kids to read books anyway? We should want kids to read so that they get away from the TV. TV is really bad for you and they should not want to do that as much. Books do the same thing but is better for you. Look at the quotes below from authors and writers. Use them to help you make your case, whether you agree with them and they support you or you disagree with them and want to explain why they’re wrong.

The Help adaptation

The main challenge would be that it is taken from different point of views so, the movie would be pretty out of order which could be confusing especially to someone who already has read the book. Minny is very sarcastic but not in a disrespectful way so, the actress would need to portray that to make it believable. All of the characters, who have help aside from Skeeter, are mean so those actresses need to have a mean side to pull it off. Three scenes that are essential are: 1.) When Minny takes Hilly her “special pie”. After she gets fired by Hilly she makes her this pie with something extra special in it. This is important because it is the reason of her fear of Hilly. 2.) Another one is when Skeeter interviews the maids to write her book. Her book is about the help of Jackson, Mississippi from their perspectives and in their words and it the words of the maids so people would know what it is really like and it is also one of the main points of the book. 3.) Lastly, the bridge club scene. It is important because you can hear the gossip between the ladies and how they feel and also what the help who also attends to tend to them, how they feel about it. Three unnecessary scenes: 1.) The scene when the colored man got shot Inn town. This could be cut because it wasn’t necessary yes, it was sad but he wasn’t even involved in the story. 2.) Another scene that could be cut was the confrontation between Hilly and Skeeter at the pool they were arguing over nothing so it wouldn’t be a loss to be cut. 3.) Lastly, you could cut the scene about Celia and her tree that she hates. It is really pointless that she hates the tree if she wants it cut cut the tree don’t drag it on forever!

Book 1 Project: The Hunger Games

My first idea is to create a Team Gale vs. Team Peeta shirts. I know that this sounds very twilight like, but I think it’s actually a pretty good idea. I think this connects because lots of people that I know that have read The Hunger Games some liked Gale better, but some like Peeta better and have gotten into some arguments over it. Therefore, I think that this would be relevant and would be really fun for all Hunger Games fans to connect and have discussions over it. I think someone who hasn’t read the book (especially Twilight fans) because there the whole Team Edward vs. Team Jacob thing going on with twilight. It would get other readers intrigued and want to pick a side. Personally, I’m team Peeta. I think this will work because Twilight is a BIG hit and the Team Jacob vs. Team Edward thing is very popular and lots of people are fans of The Hunger Games, so I think it will be very well received. “The star-crossed lovers… Peeta must have been playing that angle all along” (pg.247) My next idea is collectibles of Katniss, Gale, Petta, Haymitch, and Cinna. I think this would be really cool because people could either reenact the scenes, or they could just keep them nice and pretty and keep them in the box. The reason I picked this idea was because this was a very popular book and the characters were well received and being able to make up the story I believe would be very appealing. Also since the book is all about fighting I could imagine that fans would like to act out the scenes it would bring the book alive, like a movie would do except you would be using the collectibles. For preservation, you could clean it daily and put it on display very nice and neatly. I don’t necessarily think people who haven’t read the book yet would want to buy them because they won’t know who the characters are or what they do. They may not even know the story line so it is specifically for only people who have read The Hunger Games book. I really think they should make it because it would do well and big fans could act them out rather than wait for the movie to come out since the movie doesn’t come out until March 23rd.” ‘ He made me look weak!’ I say. ‘He made you look desirable!’ “(pg.134) My last idea is to create a Hunger Games Board Game. My idea for what the game would be that there could be up to 24 players (12 districts, 2 from each district). You would have cards along the way to survive. There would be 3 different types: Food, Fighting, and other Survival. For the Food card you have to decide how you will get your food maybe killing something or maybe food you find and you need to make decisions. The Fighting card will be also making decisions just different type, you will be deciding what you need to do to fight a certain other competitor, what is your strategy? Finally, for the “Other Survival” cards it’s a lot of misc. stuff. You may be in danger; you may have to choose to save yourself or someone else. It will be a very stressful game. You can be any member of the

What is a book?

A book is a story where you can physically hold it in your hand and also can turn the pages (that’s the best part). A book needs to be able to have that fresh “book store” smell. A book is like a new born baby. This may sound a bit odd, but the reasoning behind it is that a new born baby is very delicate and fragile just like a new book is- you don’t want to hurt either the book or the new baby.
I think that it is important to actually have an actual physical book. The author that I agree with is Nancy Jo Sales. The reason I agree with her is that I don’t think that the kindle, nook, iPad, iPhone, smartphones, etc. are exactly books. I just think they are electronic devices that are unnecessary to a degree. Don’t get me wrong, I love the iPhone and iPad but I just think that the kindle and nook are not necessary.
I think that the actual book is “magical”. The reason is who doesn’t get satisfied turning the pages? I know I do! I also love to be able to see how far I am in my book. Also, doesn’t starring at a screen all day make your eyes hurt? I know it would for me. But, the book is also just amazing you can smell the book smell which in my opinion is amazing! The new book smell, the best smell there ever was. You can feel satisfaction of turning the page physically seeing how much you read in one day. Also, I would be nervous carrying my ipad around all the time, I would feel more comfortable taking a book around because if I lose my book it may only cost $20 where as if I lost my ipad it would cost like $500.

Why read?

I read because it takes you to a new world. If you are reading horrible teen books then you will get caught up in their world. If you are reading a war book you will feel like you are at the battle. It puts a twist on reality and gets you out of it for a while.

I read also to become the character. You get wrapped up and feel like the character. You hate who the characters hate, you love who the characters love. It’s an interesting feeling that is very unique and quite different than real life.

Also, reading is just good for you to do. It helps with your comprehension. Just like anything else, you need practice. Reading more books and stories will help you understand the plot line a lot better. You also will probably end up enjoying what you are reading and then will want to read more, I know for me that's true!
Reading also helps with vocab which is my biggest weakness. After I started reading more, my vocab immediately improves a lot. Now, when I come across a word I don’t know I jot it down and look it up that way I can start using it and make my vocabulary increase.

Who is the author of the Hunger Games?

Suzanne Collins:

Interssting Facts: 1.) Was a writer for popular childrens telivision programs like Clarissa Explains it All, Little Bear,and Clifford’s Puppy Days.
2.) Suzanne Collins was inspired to write childrens books by
James Proimos.
3.) Her first book, Gregor the Overlander was inspired by Alice in Wonderland.

Quote:
"I was so obsessed with this book I had to take it with me out to dinner and hide it under the edge of the table so I wouldn't have to stop reading. The story kept me up for several nights in a row, because even after I was finished, I just lay in bed wide awake thinking about it...The Hunger Games is amazing."
--Stephenie Meyer, www.stepheniemeyer.com