Jonscot Dowland

The book Milkweed was written by Jerry Spinelli. It is set in Warsaw, Poland during the Holocaust. The story follows a young boy named Misha whose name will change throughout the book. It takes you through the whole Holocaust, from beginning to the end. The story is told from Misha’s point of view in the future when he is an old man living in America talking about his past experiences. Misha is an orphan, living on the streets, as the book starts out.  Misha meets a band of thieves and one of them becomes a friend. His name is Uri. At first, their relationship is carefree and they just steal together. But later they become much closer. There is one day when they are robbing a store for food, when suddenly they come across a jackboot (German invaders capturing Poland). Misha describes these jackboots in great detail in the book. He goes  into how magnificent they are and how powerful they seem to be with their big shiny boots and badges. He envies these soldiers and states that he would love to be one some day. However, even then he knows he must be cautious around the Nazis. Once the Nazis have captured Poland,  Uri gives all his friends fake stories to try and keep them safer. Misha adopts the story of a Romanian gypsy who has a large family with 7 brothers and 5 sisters and a mother who is a very talented fortune teller. Their story says that Polish farmers separated Misha’s family twhich made him an orphan in Warsaw.

One night while stealing food, Misha runs into a jackboot and barely gets away. He ends up running to a garden where he meets a young girl named Janina. They begin to talk and exchange names. As they talk more, they become more familiar with one another, and she invites him to her 7th birthday party. She describes it as a huge wonderful gathering with this new thing called birthday cake. He has never heard of this. He agrees to go. As Warsaw becomes more and more controlled by the Nazis, there is now a new curfew, which makes it harder to steal and barter. One night while stealing, Misha gets his ear shot off by a jackbook because he is out past curfew. He barely gets away. Eventually Misha, Janina and her family, Uri, and the gang of boys are moved to the ghetto by the Nazis. The ghetto has nearly no food and everyone is living on the streets. Only some people get houses and the ones that do describe the houses as closets.

One day while sitting around in the ghetto a large troop of jackboots walks down the road. Misha runs straight to the front to see the amazing men only later to realize everyone around him is talking badly about them. He asks an old man next to him why they talk so badly about the jackboots and their leader. He realizes what a horrible man their leader is, especially since he likes to kill little Jewish boys for no reason. He decides he no longer would like to be a jackboot. He now hates them. As more and more days pass, food becomes more and more scarce. He and Janina find a hole n the wall separating the ghettos from the normal city. They go into the city every night and bring back food for their family and friends. The ghetto slowly starts to thin out street by street and there becomes less and less people. People are being forced to board trains. No one knows their destination. One night on their way back from stealing food in the city, they come to find that the hole has been patched up. They have to drop everything and sneak through the train station while people are being forced onto the trains. They get back to the shack they are living in and find it deserted. Janina runs to find her father. Misha loses sight of her in the crowd of people and eventually sees her thrown into a box car. He runs to get her but is hit over the head by a jackboot. Later, he wakes up by the train tracks, confused as to what happened. A farmer takes him back to his farm and nurses him back to health. He then works on the farm for 3 years.

He eventually runs away from the farm with no idea of where he is going. He ends up at a train station where he takes a train to Warsaw. He finds the place completely deserted. All that’s left are ruins and rubble in the city. He takes the Jewish arm patch from his arm and lays it on the ground, never to return to this place he knew so well. Misha changes his name to Jack and goes to America, telling stories of his life wildly throughout the streets for many years. He meets a woman named Vivian who he will later marry. She up and leaves him 5 months later, pregnant. Jack meets his daughter many years later working as a bagger for a grocery store. Her name is Katherine. He also meets his granddaughter named Wendy. She takes him to her house, where he ends up living. Jack still thinks of Janina now and then but never says anything.

Subject: The book was written very different. I was told from a 3rd person point of view from the first persons perspective.

Occasion: The book is talking about the Holocaust during the time when they are moving all of the jews from there homes to the ghetto to the camps.

Audience: The audience is for anyone about 13 and older. It is an adventures book to keep younger readers hooked but it also going into good detail about what actually went on during the holocaust.

Purpose: He is writing to the human race telling them of a huge mistake they have made and it was wrong. he’s telling his story of his life. how it should never be repeated.

Style: He writes the book with a niece point of view that the character possess but still gives enough information for the audiences to get what is going on fully.

Tone: He write the book with a soft niece tone. He keeps it like he was a child until the end of the book.

Jonscot Dowland

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins is set in the future. It has almost mirrored the past though. As the technology has become greatly advanced and the culture the way people are treated has become similar to how old history used to be. The whole world has been divided into 12 districts. There are districts that are divided by wealth. This is because of a huge war that took place. They decide to honor the people who had died in this war by having sacrifices every year. Back in early history a form of entertainment was watching people fight to the death. Gladiators used to have to battle for their lives against both their own kind and animals just for people’s entertainment. As the human race evolved we came to a realization that it was wrong to do this. In this book the tradition has slowly become okay again for people to be sacrificed for other’s entertainment.
During the reaping two people are selected from each district. This is decided randomly and whoever is chosen must serve. The book follows a boy and a girl from district 12 who have been chosen to serve their district in the games. The twist is the girl Prim, who has been chosen from district 12 has an older sister Katniss, who refuses to let her play these deathly games. So Katniss voluntarily and impulsively takes her younger sister’s place in the games.
Luckily before the games, each of the chosen players are given a trainer who has already competed in the games and survived. This trainer prepares her for the games for weeks and tells her everything she needs to know. He also hypes her story to the viewers in return to gain sponsors to help her throughout game. Sponsors are provided to give their players any necessities they may need such as a bottle of medicine or food.
To make her story more interesting her trainer suggests that she says her and the boy tribute from her district, Peeta are in love. This gets her many sponsors. As the games begin, the majority of players have already been brutally murdered as they try to obtain resources. Katniss goes for shelter and water. The setting of the games is in the forrest. She is very well attuned to the climate and landscape because she grew up living in the forrest. She has a huge advantage and ends up being one of the last of those alive. As the games come closer to an end they decide to change the rules and put a spin on the game. The people who run the game make an announcement that there may now be two victors at the end of the game. This would allow Katniss and Peeta to both stay alive and be able to go back home with each other. They form an alliance and kill the last remaining people off. As day comes they are the victors. The game controllers then make another announcement that there can only be one victor. This mean that one must kill the other. They can not kill each other, there love is too strong they would rather die together than one live with out the other. So they attempted suicide with some poisons berries. As they are about to eat these berries the game makes an announcement for them to stop and allows them both to win. This makes the game owners very upset. They do not like to be upstaged especially by two people from the lowest district, district 12. They book ends with a ceremony of there winning. They leave just enough of a cliff hanger on what is going to happen when they arrive home for you too need to read the next book in the series.

The book was targeted toward a group of people from 12-25. I believe this because they is a significant amount of violence and love. The author target this age group really well with the suspense of the forbidden love and how much killing is involved throughout the story. She does a good job of articulating the book so it is suspenseful, but also can be read by almost anyone.The purpose of the story is a metaphor in the book of how the government controls everyone. She does a good job of trying to show how the adolescent these days are exposed to so much violence and believe the government interferes too much in there lives. She writes with a very raw style and doesn't hold back at all. It can be dark in certain point and completely change to a love story.It is a very plot driven novel and makes you feel like your being drug into the book because of the action that makes it more interesting to read. The suspense keeps the reader glued and wanting to read the next book.