Steven Became More Mature... My Holiday Blog Post

The book, Girls, Drums, and Dangerous Pie tells a story about a thirteen year-old boy named Steven Alper, and his five year-old brother named Jeffrey, who has leukemia. Leukemia is a type of blood cancer, which happens in a person’s bone marrow. In the story, Jeffrey’s cancer is detected after an incident which included him falling off a chair. But before cancer, Steven despised his brother. Now, after cancer, Steven becomes more mature.

            At first, when the news about his brother gets to him, Steven gives up on everything. He was bitter, he was depressed, and he kept everything bottled up inside of him. But after seeing himself fail, his big-time crush, Renee Albert, has to tutor him for his exam. While Steven waits, his parents tell him to keep anyone or anything with disease away from Jeffrey, or else it will affect his cancer. When Renee shows up during a bad weather, with a flu, Steven kicks her out. This a big self sacrifice, which makes him more mature.

            Another act Steven does is he shaves his head off clean. He does this because Jeffrey became bald from the extremeness of radiation, caused by chemotherapy. Everyone realizes that Jeffrey is bald, but he thinks that no one else can see it but him. So one night, Steven finds Jeffrey crying in bed. Jeffrey was crying because some kid in his class told him he was bald. So after Steven settles Jeffrey, he goes to the bathroom, and takes a razor, then shaves his own head. On the spot. Clean. I think that this sacrifice took him a lot of love and courage. Therefore, he became more mature.

            But I think the most selfless sacrifice was when Steven passed up on his opportunity to shine in the spotlight. You see, at the start of the book, Steven’s music teacher, Mr. Watras, tells him that he can play a big role in the school concert. Steven is so excited, when his moment comes. But at the middle of his performance, Jeffrey gets sick and throws up. So Steven is left to decide on whether he should stay at concert, or go with his parents to take Jeffrey to the hospital. Steven was confused. But a friend of his, Samantha, another leukemia patient, tells Steven to go. Steven is still confused, but then he makes up his mind. He takes Jeffrey to the hospital. Steven has officially become mature.

            The next day, Steven is at Jeffrey’s hospital. He had stayed with his brother all night. The doctors notified Steven and his parents that Jeffrey just had an ear infection. Now, Steven was heading over to Samantha’s room, but he found it vacant. He gets scared, and asks a doctor about what happened to Samantha. Unfortunately, she died, with her mother by her side. Steven gets scared once more and asks if her sister was by her side as well. The answer was no. Steven realizes how much he loves his brother, and how sad it would be if anything horrid happened to him, if Steven wasn’t by his side. Steven becomes more mature than the self absorbed Steven we saw at the beginning of the story.

Always Running, Chapter 2-3

So far, in the story, Luis is involved in a bunch of arrests, shooting, drinking, and drug use. Luis's mother hates him, and kicks him out, after he tried commit suicide at age 13. He tried to cut his wrist with a razor. One night, his friend Clavo was shot. So, he was on wheelchairs, and after he came out the hospital, their gang decided to take a trip to the "white beach." Since's he's Mexican, it was restricted for him. So there, he has love affairs, and gets caught using mescaline, by some police officers.

The Twilight Saga vs The Hunger Games Trilogy... which is better?

If you ask me which series I like better, "The Hunger Games Trilogy," or "The Twilight Saga," I would choose "The Hunger Games," because Katniss has a want. Bella on the other hand does not have a want, which doesn't make anything interesting. She's just like, "I don't know who I should choose. Will it be Edward or Jacob?" Katniss has a want. She wants to be free from the Capitol's custody.

In Twilight, you meet Bella's dad who's living in Forks, Washington. Then you meet all the other characters at a high school lunch table. There's another table. That's where the Cullens( the secret vampires) sit. Over the course of the book, Bella and Edward get closer, due to Edward saving her life several times. But at the end, when a vampire is hunting Bella down for her blood, and has drained her, Edward revives Bella. So... yeah, it's your basic vampire-teen romance novel. It's cliched

The Hunger Games is unique. It's inspired by ancient Rome, and an ancient saying, "Panem et Circenses." The saying means, "Bread and Circuses." That's what runs the dystopian country. Literally. There's a Capitol ringed by once 13, now 12 districts. The Districts provide bread, symbolizing human wants and necessities, and circuses, which represent, entertainment. The story follows Katniss, a girl who lives in the poverty of District 12. But annually the capitol makes all the districts offer 1 girl and 1 boy tribute to participate in the annual Hunger Games. Teenagers between the ages of 12-18 are forced enter their names in the giant glass ball for the reaping. When her sister, Prim's, name is reaped, Katniss bravely volunteers as tribute. She fights to death againts the 23 other people, and wins with the boy from her district, Peeta, which is irregular, because only one tribute is supposed to win.

Twilight continues into three other books, just describin her confusion between Edward and Jacob. I mean, come on! Really? It's been used a billion times.

The Hunger Games continues, expressing Katniss's will to destroy everything, her growing hate, her want, the Capitol's reign of torture, and becoming the Mockingjay.

Always Running... Chapter 1

Always Running is a childhood autobiography written by Luis J. Rodriguez. Luis talks about his time being new to Los Angeles... new to the U.S. Luis arrived in Los Angeles in the 1950s, so everyone was racist and cruel to Mexicans, who they called spics. His family were very poor, and could not speak in English very well. One time, they went to the park to rest on the benches, and a Caucasian woman with three children yelled at them to get off, telling them that they didn't belong, it wasn't their country. I felt bad for them. Wherever this woman is now, she must be feeling really guilty, because if she isn't then there is something wrong with her. Mexicans are as equal as her. No one can dominate another person.

Another time, he talks about going to a Caucasian area with his brother, when he was six, and his brother was nine, to do groceries. Everything had gone well in the start. But when they left with their purchases, a couple of teenagers showed up. They said, "Well, well, well, look at who dared to come into the white side of town. Two spics." They knocked the groceries to the floor. One teenager held Luis up, and the other two threw his brother to the floor. They slapped him, kicked him, cut his skin, and punched his stomach until he vomited. They all took turns beating Rano. Luis was forced to watch. The teenagers left, laughing. Rano cried a lot. And that was the start of Luis's violent childhood. As the blurb says, he has experienced violence,  shootings, arrests, drugs, murder, saw suicide, attempted slow suicide, and gang culture.