Readers journal #12 When I Was Your Age

(This reader’s journal is based on one out ten short stories from this book)

Dear Mrs. Zrihen,

            I have just finished reading the book “When I Was Your Age.” Amy Ehrlich edited this book. The significance of this story Learning To Swim is that it talks about a scene of a person’s life, and then it reflects on her a little bit into the future. The reason I picked this book is because when I look at the title it says when I was your age, which meant it, contain life lessons for people that were my age and already lived through it. There were six things I did before, while and after reading this story. First I did two things before reading this story. One thing I did before reading this story is I skim and scanned for text features. Another thing I did before reading this book is I looked at the picture it showed on the first page and observed it to see what the rest of the story would be like. Second there were two things I did while reading this book. One thing I did while reading this book is I captured every seen as if it were a movie. Another thing I did while reading this book is I thought of how this can relate to my life. Third there were two things I did after reading this book. One thing I did after reading this book is I thought of the whole story and if I would forget something then I would go back and read it again. Another thing I did after reading this book is I asked myself questions like what lesson did I learn from it.

            The genre of this book is short story/ memoir. The reason it is this genre is because it contains memories of people when they were younger. The main idea of this book was that if you love something you must let it go and always face your fears. This statement was implied. Another title for this book would be my mother who taught me bravery. The reason that I would pick this title is because most of this story was kyoko learning how to be brave from her mom. One supporting detail I found in this story was my mom taught me how, and this is factual. Another supporting detail I found in this story was when my mom turned thirty-eight she had became overcome by happiness, which is factual. The last supporting detail I found was she had told me to let go of her, which is too factual. The essential message in this story is always overcome a tragedy or fear in your life. One cause and effect relationship in this story is kyoko went to the beach and the effect is that she learned to swim. One thing that I would have in common with kyoki (comparing) is that we both try hard for something we wish.  There were five text features that I found in this story:

1.     photograph- a picture of what the main characters look like.

2.     Topics- what the whole story will be about

3.     Sub-Topics- a topic of what the following passage will be like.

4.     Italicized- important words.

5.     Bolded- important words.

The pattern of organization of this article is chronological order because it told everything in order.

The authors purpose for writing this book is to explain a issue in her life, and how she overcame it. This story was basically on the others life as a child so there was no authors perspective. The point of view is first person.

(Text-to-self) This story remind me of the time I had to overcome the fear of rollercoasters.

(text-to-text) This book reminds me of the book I read on a boy who had overcome the fear of heights.

(text-to-world) This book reminds me of the time when a couple boys in Israel had drowned in the beach for going to far off the shore.

            I would mainly recommend this book for every one from the age of fifteen and younger. The reason is because this is about life lessons of people when they were about fifteen and younger. If I was in this persons shoes I never would have taken car of it the way she did. I would have died on the beach the way I was especially if I didn’t have the mom with the encouragement. If I was to rate this book out of ten I would give it a ten out of ten. The reason is because it gave accurate information and I couldn’t drop the book for one second.

                                                Sincerely,

                                                            Ofek Peer