Nothing Is Free

You are in a store to go buy some chips. You see a sale that says “Buy 2 get one free!” You automatically buy it because you get an extra bag of chips. Yet, if you think about it, are you really getting a deal? In the book the “13 ½  Lives of Captain Bluebear” by Walter Moers, the main character, Bluebear was lost at sea. He soon found Gourmet Island. On Gourmet Island, everything is made out of food. Bluebear thought he could stay there the rest of his life because of all the “free” resources. When Bluebear is almost killed in a dangerous situation, he ate so much “free food” he was too fat to escape the danger. A lesson adolescent readers can learn from Bluebear is that nothing is free. You may not have to pay money but everything has a price and if you’re not paying for it, someone else is.  

At first, Bluebear doesn’t know he is in trouble by eating all that food and gaining so much weight. When he is in trouble, he can’t save himself. The price he had to pay was a near death experience. Bluebear wanted to stay on Gourmet Island for the rest of his life. The Island provided him with free food, water, and all the sweets he could imagine. All Bluebear did was sleep and eat. Nothing else. Well, when you go to a restaurant to eat, you have to pay the check when you are finished with the meal. Who was going to pay Bluebear’s check? In real life, you can’t think that anything is free. If you’re not paying for what you want now, you are going to pay for it later. Bluebear was no exception. Except someone else had to pay the price for him.

After Bluebear’s traumatic experience, he spoke to his good friend that  had to save him from the danger named Mac. Mac told him everything comes with a price. If Mac hadn’t saved Bluebear, the price of all that free food would have been Bluebear’s life. This is an example of the “Words of The Wiser” literary sign post if you will. Mac has been through many life threatening circumstances, and he can show Bluebear the way of  any adventure. When you parents tell you money doesn’t grow on trees, they mean, you can’t suddenly want to buy everything just because you’re not paying for it. Your parents are the ones paying for what you want. What you want may be free for you, but someone else is paying for it.

To conclude, in The 13 ½ Lives of Captain Bluebear, by Walter Moers, a young reader could learn that nothing in life is free. That is what Bluebear had learned from Mac. Bluebear now knew not to take the “free” items for granted because someone else is paying for them. If you are not paying for what you have now, you are definitely paying for it later. Or someone else is. The  free “item” you have may not be an item. It could be a mistake. The price you have to pay, may not be money. I could be a consequence. Has anybody ever paid for your mistakes?

Clouded Judgement

**some spoilers

Everyone makes poor decisions occasionally, not just adolescents. Most of the time, those poor decisions have consequences later on in life. This is exactly what happened in the book I finished titled  The Retribution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin. This book is the third and last in The Mara Dyer Trilogy. If this is your first time reading my blog, I would suggest you read my previous blog post to begin with. That post was responding to the second book in The Mara Dyer Trilogy titled The Evolution of Mara Dyer. The main character of The Retribution of Mara Dyer (Mara Dyer),  is going through numerous situations. Many more than in the previous book. Yet, Michelle Hodkin wrote this book to make Mara seem naive. Mara would believe anything anyone told her because she was so desperate for answers. A young reader, like you, can learn from Mara that mixing your emotions with your situation affects your judgement.

In the beginning of the book, Mara’s feelings always affected her decisions. This alone made so many more problems for her that she had to handle. The decisions Mara made were never long term. Mara never thought about how her decisions could possibly affect her future. Depending on how she felt about the situation, she would make a different decision. Many people have the same problem as Mara and make poor decisions all the time. Something a young reader can learn from Mara is if you want to make a decision, you have to think about your future. You can’t only think about the way you feel because your feelings change. So in the end, you make more problems for yourself.  

By the end of the book, Mara’s friends and family help her handle all the problems that her poor decisions got her into. I don’t want to spoil the entire book for you, but by the very end of the book, Mara’s tale ends fairly well. A young reader can elaborate on what he or she learned in the beginning. If had you let your emotions get in the way of your judgement, would you be as fortunate with your situation as Mara was? Would you have been able to fix the mess you made or have been forced live with the consequences? That's why it's so important to not let your situation and emotions cloud your judgement because you never know if you'll be able to deal with the consequences.

To conclude this response, I would say that The Retribution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin is a young adult novel that not only adolescents, but anyone can learn from. In the book, when Mara made decisions, she would only use her heart. Always using how she felt to make decisions. Since your decision could affect your future, it is important use your mind as well. Think about how your decision will affect your future. Making poor decisions also come with consequences. Sometimes you can fix your mistakes but other times you have to live with them. 

Adolescence, Secrets, and Lies... Oh My!

**some spoilers

Many of the people reading this response are adolescents. Most likely, all of them have lied or kept secrets from their family before. Adolescence, is a time where teens make mistakes and mature from them. Lying and keeping secrets from the people who care about you are mistakes you learn from in adolescence. Staying on the topic of adolescence, about a month ago my class read an article by Megan Cox Gurdon titled “Darkness Too Visible”; in which she claims that most young adult novels do not possess an uplifting or meaningful message that a young readers can learn from. The book I recently completed titled, The Evolution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin, is an intriguing young adult novel, and the second book in The Mara Dyer Trilogy. The main character, Mara Dyer, survives a life threatening experience. She is told she is the only person who survived. After the life threatening experience, Mara starts seeing things that can’t possibly be there. Everyone thinks she is insane, so Mara begins to lie to the ones she loves. If you read closely you can learn a lesson from The Evolution of Mara Dyer. Michelle Hodkin would like for young readers to learn from Mara’s mistakes. Mara’s keeping of secrets and lying to the ones that she loves, made her situation worse.

Towards the middle of the book, Michelle Hodkin puts Mara in a tough situation. Where the reader questions whether Mara will tell the truth and get put in a mental institution? Or will she stick with the lie that she told and making a bigger hole in her heart. Mara decides to keep lying to her family and hold her secret. As Mara’s visions get worse, the lie inevitably gets bigger. Mara is not only lying to her own family, but to her psychologist and her friends. At this point in the story, the experienced reader should be able to recognize that telling lies and keeping secrets from the ones that you love, hurts you more than it hurts them. This is what happened to Mara. The truth got harder and harder to keep in. Especially since Mara told such an overwhelming lie and in addition, is holding an egregious secret. I won’t spoil the entire book for you, but the situation gets worse and things don’t go the way Mara plans.    

By the end of the novel, an experienced and mature reader should be able to connect Mara’s decisions to her  worsening situation. If you couldn’t make the connection that Mara’s situation got worse, than you might have went on to make the same mistakes that Mara did. Megan Cox Gurdon (the author of “Darkness Too Visible”) thinks that readers will lie and keep secrets from their loved ones as well because of the example that Mara set in the book. Most immature readers would make that conclusion. Nevertheless, if you read The Evolution of Mara Dyer with experience, an adolescent reader could draw the conclusion that you shouldn’t lie to your loved ones. Instead of making the same decisions as Mara and learning from your mistakes,  you can skip a risky step and learn from her’s.  

To draw this response to a close, a young reader can learn many lessons from Mara’s mistakes. Two of the most important lessons, that an adolescent reader can learn from  The Evolution of Mara Dyer is to not tell your loved ones untruths and/or not to keep life threatening secrets from them. Mara situation got worse because she lied to her loved ones and kept an egregious secret from them. Once you tell a lie, it inevitably gets bigger and the longer you keep a secret, the harder it is to keep. In Megan Cox Gurdon’s mind, she sees young and inexperienced readers that will follow in Mara’s footsteps, instead of learning from her mistakes. Experienced readers can learn more than the two important lessons for adolescence from Mara’s mistakes. If you were to read  The Evolution of Mara Dyer (which I greatly recommend!) before you read this response, would you have learned from Mara’s  mistakes or made the same ones?

 

Project Runway

Hello Readers!

This entry is about a show that I started watching in the middle of season 13. Project Runway. Project Runway is an amazing show filled with drama, excitement, and amazing fashion. The most recent season is season 14 and the designers are Amanda Perna, Ashley Nell Tipton, Blake Patterson, Candice Cuoco, David Giampiccolo, Duncan Chambers-Watson, Edmond Newton, Gabrielle Arruda, Hanmiao Yang, Jake Wall, Joseph Poli, Kelly Dempsey, Laurie Underwood, Lindsey Creel, Merline Labissiere and Swapnil Shinde. But most of them have gone home because of ugly, boring, or lazily made designs.

In every episode the designers get an assignment to design based off of and have a limited amount of time to make them. So times the assignments require an insane amount of work and the designer barely have enough time to finish. The designers also get group projects sometimes, but only one person goes home at a time. So far more than half of the designers have already went home.

The main judges for the show are 
To Be Continued...

Me as a Reader

My name is Kyndal and as you probably know, this is my blog. As a reader I usually read books that are recommended by a friend or is a book that many teens/young adults have read and/or recommended. I started my reading journey with The Percy Jackson and the Olympians Series. I didn't really read books before that. I would skim books without thinking about the words that I was reading. 

When I read the Percy Jackson series, the books were just so exciting and intriguing that I just couldn't stop. I would finish one book in two or three days. From then on I loved to read and I loved reading book series that everyone already read.I find that I get things done faster if I am catching up. A television series or a book series I am determined. So every time I would finish a book series I would just find another to dive into. 

In sixth grade, I would read Fantasy, Sci-fi, and Dystopian novels or series. In seventh grade, I read Realistic Fiction, Romance, and Dystopian. This year I am hoping to read more YA and even some Adult fiction. I feel like I need to challenge myself as a reader because at Barnes and Noble I feels like I'm reading to same book over and over. A teeny bopper novel.  

I consider myself a fast reader but I have so many books that I want to read I want to finish books faster so that I can read a lot this year. 

Thanks for Reading!