Reader’s Journal #23
Dear Mrs. Zrihen,
I am currently reading the book “Bull Run” by Paul Fleischman. A Quote I found in this book is “ to be a Negro living in the midst of white, unknown to them, is to be a ghost spying on the living.” First what I think this quote means is that the white think of the blacks as an enemy, an enemy that is just spying on the whites where the whites act as if they don’t notice. The reason I picked this passage is because it has a great influence on what it is the book is trying to say. The significance of this quote is that you should never judge someone on the way they look, but by the way they look on the inside.
There were six things I did before, while, and after reading this book (two for each). First there were two things I did before reading this book. One thing I did before reading this book is I skim and scanned, looking at and thinking about title, subtitles, heading, captions, illustrations, photos, graphs, and bold, italicized, underline words, and other text features. Another thing I did before reading this book is I identified knowledge and experience I already have with the topic.
Second there were two things I did while reading this book. One thing I did while reading this book is I thought about information the author provides me and information I gathered from “between the lines.” Another thing I did while reading this book is I made connection and asked myself how does this book/characters remind me of my life, reminds me of another book I have read, and relate to the world I live in.
Third there would be two things I did after reading this book, but I haven’t finished reading it yet.
The genre of this book is historical fiction. The characteristics of this book being historical fiction are that it contains events of some people and their opinions in history. There were a lot of characters in this book with and important events in their life. Most of this book was taken place between the 1800’s to the 1900’s. The weather conditions were not at all included in any of the events.
The events of the people in this article are too short for a plot structure therefore I will provide a summary for on of the short stories. Gideon Adams was a black man in the southern army where was ignored, tormented, and surrounded by whites. Some times he thinks that he just joined the southern army by mistake. He heard dreadful things about him like people would rather kill him then the rebels. Most of this event is just complains, sorrows, and unsatisfying things about Gideon Adams. The conflict in this is that people (whites) didn’t like, admire, or appreciate what it is he did for the army (external, character vs. society).
The tone in this book is to say no to racism. The mood is very sad with all of the hatred the whites would used to bring to the blacks. The theme/motif is don’t hate some one because they are not like you. The point of view of all the short stories in this book is first person. The pattern of organization for this book is flashback. The author’s purpose for writing this book is to explain to readers how black people felt when they were either abused or made fun of. The author perspective is (objective, biased) that blacks were no different then the whites and the way that whites thought of them was wrong.
If I was in one of the characters shoes I would be very scared where it might even lead to me getting hurt. I would be scared out of my mind and feel helpless with the way people would think of me. I think that everybody 10 and up should read this especially to change their thoughts of other people.
Since I am not done with the book I cannot give it a complete rate but so far I would give it a nine out of ten because there isn’t enough written from each character but other then that I am loving the book with all of its convincing and inspiring details.
Sincerely,
Ofek Peer
