The Drummer Boy Of Shiloh

                I think that the theme of the story The Drummer boy of Shiloh is that no matter how small or insignificant your roll in life may seem you can always make a huge difference.                        In this story, the drummer boy Joby does not think that he matters at all in this war. He sees himself as a small, unimportant toy in the midst of a vast, bloody battle. Even one soldier, out of thousands has the capacity to save a life, take a life, or both. Joby can do neither. He just beats the drums. He has no weapons, no shield or protection of any kind from the enemy army. He feels like he is not doing anything to help his side of the army. That he can only watch as the battle plays out, without being able to help or make a difference. He feels like no more than a bystander. Each soldier plays his own part in the war, but Joby cannot help them. He just gets to watch.                                                                                                                                      It is only when the general tells Joby exactly how much he contributes to the outcome of the war that Joby believes that he has a purpose. The general tells him that he is like the base, the foundation on which the soldiers fight on.  He is the person that subtly affects the potential of which side wins. He tells him that he needs to beat his drum, loud, energized, and confident. If he beats it morosely, doubting himself, so would the soldiers. The soldiers fought the battle,   but Joby pushed them forwards.                                                                                                     If the general had not helped Joby to understand just how much he needed to believe in himself, how in fact, he was a very crucial part of this battle, then Joby would have beaten the drum without confidence and energy, and the soldiers would have walked into battle, scared, slowed, and dimmed.  In a way, Joby was more important than the soldiers, even if he does not fight.

            You need to believe in yourself and have confidence that you can make an impact on the world.  Take recycling, for example. Many people do not compost and recycle because they do not see the point. How, they say, is really going to help the planet? If I do or don’t recycle, it isn’t going to, make a difference. Well it does make a difference. If everyone thinks like that, and no one recycles, then you do matter, and you do make a difference. Even if it seems like you don’t really matter, then think again, because you probably do.

Slice of Cherry

               

I recently finished a book called Slice of Cherry, by Dia Reeves. The main conflict in my book was that the main character, Fancy, does not want to ever grow up and change. She is also having a hard time seeing her sister Kit grow apart from her, especially when Kit gets a boyfriend. She and Kit never did anything apart, ever. You see throughout the story how Fancy struggles to stay a child and prevent Kit from becoming an adult. Kit starts to where makeup, perfume, nail polish, and fashionable clothes, while Fancy refuses to stop wearing her old clothes. Fancy tries everything to stop Kit from changing. She thinks that once Kit becomes an adult and gets a boyfriend, she will stop loving Fancy. You start to see though, how Fancy becomes more mature. She acts less rationally and she becomes more sophisticated. It happens very slowly, but by the end of the book, she basically excepts that she is a young adult and not a child. She also very grudgingly accepts the fact that she needs to let Kit go, but you see her becoming more okay with it by the end.

The theme of this book is that you need to be willing to accept change, because you cannot just avoid it. And though you can try to postpone or prevent change, it is much easier to just accept it with open arms.

summer reading book: The Great Gatsby

                In The Great Gatsby, one of the characters I really disliked was Tom Buchanan. He was a complete hypocrite,  he was not a very nice person, and, in the end, he indirecty kills Gatsby. One of the reasons I hated Tom was because he never really loved Daisy, and he cheated on her from as early on as after their honeymoon. He also had "Some women" in New York, who he often went to see, despite the fact that he had a wife and a little girl. He seems to take Daisy for granted, like she is just something to show off. I also think that he likes people  knowing that he is married to a beautiful rich young women, and he also has another girlfrend. When Gatsby shows up, Tom procedes to pump him for information; his family history, his jobs, and how he got to be so wealthy. When he finds out that Gatsby and Daisy were sort of having an affair, he becomes furious and tries to say how he was always a loyal husband, he always loved her, and that she had betrayed him. He actually tries to deny his own affair. Now that he can't have Daisy, Bam! He suddenly wants her. It is as if he only wants the things he can't have. But once he actually gets them, it's as if he discards them.