Mockingjay book Review

The book Mockingjay is the third and last book in the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. The heroic Katiniss Everdeen has now has become the face of the rebellion that has taken a hold of the dystopian country of Panem. She has to rally people and ready herself for a war against the Capital. I really like the political aspect to the book. I liked how it dived into the political aspects of district 13 and the life there. But I feel Suzanne Collins rushed the plot way too much and didn’t develop the amazing story lines that she had in the first two books.

As for characters, the first two books I really loved Katniss. She is the badass 16 year old that basically sticks it to the man. In the third book she got on my nerves. This was a bad thing and a good thing. I think Collins was trying to portray that she isn’t ready for a revolution and in ways she is just a 17 year old girl. But she makes decisions in the book that that really portray her true personality. I really did like the twists and turns the love story took over the course of the book. Overall I think people should read it who has read the first two books so they can get closure to the characters. But the first two books were way better than the third so in a way the book was a disappointment.

Inside the 2011 ALEC conference

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_OFdjC87ko

This YouTube video shoes a group of people called ThinkProgress try and get into an American Legislative Exchange Council conference. They are, of course, denied access into the conference, so they interviewed people outside of the conference. They asked a man that was apart of ALEC certain questions about his thoughts on ALEC. Then after that they waited outside a conference for people to come out for a smoke. They got very angry when asked what their names were and were unresponsive to questions.

Passage Journal #6

"A short time after Minnijean's return, a boy doused her with what appeared to be a bucket of soup. She froze in her tracks and did not respond, even as the greasy liquid trickled down her chest and horror painted on her face. Afterward, a group of perhaps fifty students gathered outside the Principal's office to shout cheers for the douser, saying he had paid her back. He was suspended. but we were frightened that he had set in motion an all-out soup war that could lead to the drenching of each one of us and guarantee a real brawl if we tried to fight back."
I picked this one because it shows that at least administration isn't too bias when it comes to suspending. It is fair that if Minnijean was suspended then the boy should be suspended. Although it shows that these segregationists will not be deterred from their goal. It is also upsetting that half way through the year a couple of kids finally got suspended. People should have been expelled the first day.

Passage Journal #5

""Nigger," I would whisper to myself. That's all I am to them. They don't see me as a real person. There even came a moment when i pinched myself to see if I was really there. So many times I wanted to shout, "I'm Melba, don't you see me? I play the piano, I can make blouses, I can write poems... and I sing." When I felt I couldn't hold it in anymore, I talked to grandma India."
I picked this one because I find it upsetting that she had spent so much time in central that she started thinking of herself badly. She faced so much ridicule from all of her peers and teachers that her self esteem was low enough to have her knock herself down. This passage also shows that her grandmother is a rock in her life. She couldn't have gone through the school year if she didn't have her grandmother. She even thought about killing herself which her grandma talked her out of.

Passage Journal #4

"One girl with short red hair, freckles, and a pixie smile was being especially attentive. She invited me accompany her to window that overlooked the school yard. I was suspicious of her kindness, but I wanted to believe someone was having a change of heart. As I stood beside her chatting about the bright day and the activity of the soldiers on the ground beneath us, I felt a twinge of joy.
"Stand right here. We're gonna salute the flag now," she said. I raised my hand to my chest and smile as the flag was hoisted up in front of the classroom.
"Aren't you gonna take a picture of me saluting the American flag with this famous nigger," she suddenly shouted to the boy who was focusing the camera. "Snap it, you idiot... now! I wanna get into life magazine like the niggers are.""
I picked this passage because as I was reading this I was kind of relieved that someone was actually being nice to her. Then you find out she is just using her to get on time magazine. It is actually kind of sad that Melba was so quick to trust this girl. The only reason didn't is because she craved some kind of positive reinforcement from the school and that was the only time someone approached her. Then after this the ginger actually stabbed her with a pointed stick and the teacher didn't do anything about it. I think it is sad that this is where the education system was at at this point in time.

Reaction to Imagine If...

In English class, we discussed if we could do a certain thing like wear the color blue because of the size of my shoes. The question was what would you do? Our teacher, asked us to write about it. I wrote about if I couldn't wear the color blue because of my shoe size it would be a restriction of my right to freedom of speech and expression. I would fight for this right because what else would they restrict if they restricted the colors I wear.
At the end of the lesson she said if you changed that you couldn't wear the color blue because of your shoe size to you couldn't go to school because of the color of your skin. It kind of hit harder with that because I feel that education is a right that everyone should have a not a privilege. I would do everything in my power to change that law just like the Little Rock 9 did.

Passage Journal #3

"A woman stood toe-to-toe with me, not moving. "Nigger!" she shouted in my face again and again. She appeared to be a little older than my mother. Her face was distorted with rage. "Nigger bitch. Why don't you go home?" she lashed out at me. "Next thing, you'll want to marry one of our children."" - page 111
I picked this passage to write about because I find it kind of disturbing. The fact that they had to face torment every single day from their peers is already disturbing in general. A lot of children get tormented by peers so I think it would be easier to ignore if I was Melba and I was getting tormented by people my age. In this passage though, she actually gets tormented by a mother and I think it would be harder to ignore if a grown woman who has children of her own was tormenting me. Especially if she continued to call me those vile things. The thing that disturbs me the most is if I was a girl growing up in Little Rock, Arkansas in this time period would I be one of the people harassing these 9 children. I wonder if my views would differ in any way. I obviously hope not but it is hard to tell how I would think if everyone around me were really big segreationists.