When Will it Stop?

 My book, Nineteen Minutes, by Jodi Picoult, is about a boy, Peter, who is socially harassed; slammed into lockers, his head flushed down the toilet, his books trashed, and called fag and homo. Finally, one day, he brings a gun to school and starts shooting. He kills or harms over 30 people in 19 minutes. In those 19 minutes, he irreverently changed the lives of everyone who was linked each of his victims. Throughout the book, you struggle with feeling sorry for him being the victim of horrible physical and mental abuse, and being angered by his actions, asking how someone could do such a terrible thing. You cannot believe the pain he suffers every day he sets foot in the high school building, and how little the teachers are doing about it. Each character in the story is reveled throughout the story in small flash backs until all the layers are peeled away and you see how everything took place. From Peter’s first day at kindergarten, to the day he attempted to kill those 30 something people.

Each character is connected in some way to Peter, and each character has their own unique complex emotions. Peter’s father, who uses math in an attempt to figure out formulas for happiness; his mother, who tries to help everyone and has forgotten to help herself; his friend Josie, who joined the popular crowd and now seems to hate him; Josie’s boyfriend, who loves Josie so much, he hits her; and Peter himself, who shot over 30 people in just 19 minutes but is not sorry for it. When he was arrested, the first words Peter spoke were “they started it.” This is something kindergartners say when put in time out. But as you read on, you start to realize, they did start it. The whole school made his life a living hell (sorry about the curse word). Josie’s boyfriend, Matt, beat him up daily, once until he was nearly unconscious. Peter then looked up opened his mouth, closed it, and then called Matt a really bad name. Peter got a broken nose and gravel embedded all up his arms. When Josie, asks why Matt hit him so hard, he says “did you hear what that *bad word I am not going to write* called me?” aside from the fact that Matt calls Peter multiple horrible names each day, Matt started the initial fight because “if there was no them (the losers) there would be no us (the popular kids).” So Matt is automatically justified in beating the pulp out of a bunch of other kids for absolutely no reason, just so he can maintain his status in high school. Well now. Maybe they did start it.

Another problem you begin the see, as more and more of the story is reveled, is how the teachers expectations of Peter fail to meet what they expected. And though many of them witness Peter being locked into a locker, they do almost nothing. One gym teacher just didn't like the look of Peter. “He was one of those smarmy guys who rubbed Dusty the wrong way. Probably could barely field a ball, but smirked when you tried to teach him how, as if he already knew he’d be making twice as much money as Dusty one day.” So because Peter gave Dusty a bad first impression, he was stuffed into a locker and his books torn, but Dust only made a halfhearted call to the principle. Most teachers did not make any attempts to talk to Peter, even though he obviously was getting bullied, to the point of bringing a gun to school.

This book has many layers and depths of each person; I could probably write a blog post on each person in the story. The most obvious message of the story would be not bully and if you see something, say something. But I honestly do not think that, even though the school holds assemblies, even though there are posters all around, it does not really matter, people are just cruel sometimes, and they won’t pay attention no matter what you say. This book is effective in how it shows the real life consequences of you actions. I really hope that people will start to tune down the level of bullying they inflict. But do I ever think it will come to a total stop? No I don’t. But please just think before you call someone a name or talk behind their backs, or shove them into lockers. Because when you become the victim, it really hurts. 

Until The Well is Dried Up

I finished the story Miss Peregrines Home for Peculiar Children, by Ransom Riggs. It was different from many other books because it contained unaltered vintage photographs. It is about a collection of peculiar children, all with special talents, who are condemned to live the same day over and over again. They live in what is called a “loop.” A boy whose grandfather used to live in it finds the loop. Jacob has to choose between living in the loop and save the peculiar children, or leave his life forever. He learns about sacrifice, and goes through events that a sixteen year old should never have to encounter. This book did not have one obvious theme, but I think that the author is trying to show you how sometimes the most important things are right in front of you and you have to see them before the slip away.

In the story, the Wight (a sole-eating monster) disguises himself as multiple people in order to observe and control Jacobs’s life.  He is his bus driver, his lawn-mower, his neighbor, and finally his psychiatrist.  You would think you would recognize it if all of these people were the same, but Jacob does not, until it is too late. I think Riggs was trying to show the reader how some things may seem very obvious, but when put to the test, we are oblivious to them. All of these people did not have a very big impact on Jacob's life; the bus driver, the lawn mower, the neighbor, but his ignorance to them almost got his sole eaten. In your life, it may be as simple as the common:  boy who sat behind you all last year and you never paid him any attention until he was no longer interested in you scenario. Or it might be how you never really realized how important friends are, until one day, you had none. Maybe it is the small things we take for granted that end up hurting us the most.

But what would happen if you cherished every common thing or action as a gift? Would that just make the loses greater? Or would it open your eyes to the wonders of our world? I think in order to see everything that is good, you really have to become a wallflower and just observe.  I think if for one day, you did not say or participate in anything, you would be able to see exactly how the world worked. You would see the boy sitting behind the girl trying to catch her eye. And you would see as the group of friends slowly stared to exclude that one person.  Do you think you can be social and still read the world? Is it one or the other? This reminds me of another book, The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Charlie starts out as a wallflower. He watches. He sees. But at the end he has friends and he still sees. I think it is possible to do both, but you need to be aware. Like constantly trying to lift a very thin veil over your eyes, and never letting it slip. 

can you hammer in a heart?

In class, we just finished reading three children’s book; The Lorax, a story about greed and its affects, Freedom Summer, a story about segregation and Fox, a book about giving in to temptation. I think that while each story had many underlying themes, the main one in all three is that once you do or say something, you can’t ever take back or undo your actions.

In The Lorax, the Once-ler starts off with a small business cutting down truffla trees to make thneeds. Soon, his business expands and he ends up poisoning the land around him, with no regard to the animals, until there is nothing left but a barren wasteland. It was quite easy for the Once-ler to destroy the land, but it will take much longer for it to recover. Though the boy receives the last truffla seed, he cannot reverse the damage done to the land. He cannot grow back hundreds of trees overnight and he cannot erase the harm done to the creatures that lived there. Though the Once-ler can try to make up for his mistakes, he will live with his actions for the rest of his life. You cannot ruin the lives of so many and merely make it up overnight

The Once-ler, I think, represents the large corporations and business owners, so swallowed in the prospects of wealth and self-gain, that they hardly pay any attention to the people and places they are leaving destroyed in their wake. You never see his face, just like you never actually see who is behind the powerful businesses that are eroding our economy. With the Once-ler, he does feel horrible for what he has done, but only after there is nothing left and now he can fully see what he has done, but by then of course, it is too late.  I think Dr. Seuss is trying to send a message here. By the time we have used up all of our oil and coal, our environment will be in deep trouble. Only then, will the owners of the gas and oil refineries see what they have done.

This does not go just for companies. While people can try to mend the broken pieces of their life, caused by greed, temptation, they will never be able to turn back the clock and erase their actions. Unlike mechanics, the environment is very fragile. You can’t fix it with a hammer and some screws. And just like the environment, your emotions can also be easily broken. You can’t take back words and actions; they will always leave scars, no matter how you to try fix it.