books finished in the past two weeks include,

"It" by Alexa Chung

"Alice's Adventures In Wonderland" By Lewis Carroll

And "Coraline" by Neil Gaiman

Niya Williams

Alice In Wonderland

When you think of Alice In Wonderland you immediately think of the red queen. I mean she is a very important character in the text (if not the craziest) that has the most power. You can tell from the beginning that she is the only one in charge and knows she is the ruler. If Carroll hasn’t made it clear enough from the illustrations of the queen of hearts gigantic head, you know she is taking all of the power she has and controlling wonderland with just one word. She is most defiantly in power, and she knows it.

The queen of hearts is the bloodthirsty ruler of Wonderland. Her solution to every problem is to order a beheading before the day is out. Fortunately, as the Gryphon explains, her orders never seem to get carried out, because her husband, the King of Hearts, is right behind her, quietly canceling her orders. Though she doesn’t know it (Like everyone else around her does) her beheadings are totally ridiculous and have no meaning. I am not sure if she thinks killing off people can just solve and problem, or if she thinks that just because she can do it, she should be able to, it is still the most terrible thing I have ever read in the book. Thank goodness her husband is there to call off every single one of the beheadings.

 Like the belligerent Red Queen in the chess game in Looking-Glass World, the Queen of Hearts is an aggressive woman who tries to dominate everything around her. Critics sometimes try to connect these two overbearing Queens to the historical Queen Victoria, implying that Carroll was satirizing his country's ruler. However, this interpretation doesn't get us very far, since there are few points of resemblance between the Wonderland queens and their real-life cousin. Queen Victoria was strong-willed, to be sure, but she was also extremely proper and dignified. If anything, the queens that Carroll imagines are the opposite of Victoria – an example of what could happen if a Queen were rude and quirky instead of straitlaced. 



What's not usually dismissed is the observation that Carroll's fantasy villains tend to be women, whose power has made them shrill and aggressive. Their husbands are passive: the King of Hearts quietly countermands his Queen's orders, the White King simply watches his wife rush around the game board, and the Red King just sleeps. Meanwhile, the Queens have to do everything themselves – they're forces to be reckoned with, but alarming ones. It's not hard to see that Carroll, who never married and preferred the company of little girls to that of adult women seems to have, well, issues with women.

Niya Williams         711     “Building Bridges” by Andrea Pinkney

           Letting go of your child or grandchild, and letting them grow up is one of the hardest things any parent or guardian will do in their life. Knowing that when they are gone they are learning how to live without you.

In the beginning of the passage we see the main character Bebe ask her grandmother to sign the permission slip allowing her to join a youth renovation team, a group of kids that had been chosen by city officials to work with a squad of contract engineers to help repair the Brooklyn bridge. Bebe wanted to take part in this activity over the summer because it paid good money and would help her get to college where she wanted to study engineering. When Bebe asks Mama Lil to sign her permission slip, Mama Lil says “I ain’t gonna be the one who allows you to take part in such foolishness”. This shows that Mama Lil thinks that getting a job as a engineer for Bebe is foolishness, and not worth her time.  Mama Lil also says “Bebe get that backward idea out of your head” showing she thought the job wasn’t a good idea. Both details from the text show that Mama Lil thinks that the job is a terrible idea, and there is no way she was going to sign it allowing Bebe to take part in engineering.

          In order for Bebe to stay and not want the engineering job, Mama Lil takes it upon herself to get Bebe a job fit for a girl her age. She got her a job at Rimley’s Beauty Parlor. This s a big part of the text because we see Mama Lil try to take Bebe’s mind off engineering by replacing it with working in a beauty shop around where they live. You can see right here that she doesn’t want Bebe to go.

          At the end of the passage we see a huge character change with Mama Lil towards Bebe. Without saying she doesn’t want to sign the permission slip Mama Lil talks more in depth onto why she can’t. On page 29 in “Building Bridges”, Mama Lil tells Bebe “Your dreams are the kind that’ll take you away from here, Bebe away from your Mama Lil. You got big hopes, child, but they gonna leave me alone, by myself”. This is the most important part of the passage because we see Mama Lil go from just saying plain old no to Bebe, to finally sharing her feeling on how she would feel if Bebe were to leave her.  If Bebe were to go and become an engineer Mama Lil feels like she might leave for good. She might finally know what she wants in life and leave Mama Lil at home alone. Mama Lil adds on to what she was saying, by stating, “That’s an upsetting truth, Bebe. It makes my heart hurt every time I think on it.” Not only does this show how hard it is for parents to leave their child, but it shows what they go through thinking that one day their child is going to grow up and have dreams of their own that they want to follow, and they will slowly drift away. Mama Lil has some to the realization that nothing last forever and she is going to have to let Bebe free.

           For most of my life I have lived with my own grandparents and I know how Bebe feels. Sometimes when I ask to do things it takes them days to think about it. They see me gaining an independence that will slowly drag me away from their hands into adulthood. Mama Lil takes her time with her choices and Pinkney shows it. Mama Lil is scared for Bebe, and scared for herself. You can see in the last pages of the passage she explains to Bebe how hard it is to see her dreams take her away and leave Mama Lil.

Niya Williams class 711

My name piece

My name is like gold in 1848. It is so hard to find and you really have to search for it. My name can’t be found on key chains. It can’t be found on mugs, and it surely cannot be found on magnets or stickers. Trust me I have spent my entire life searching through stores for my name. I have always felt like my name is one of those names that your parents made just to make sure that when your family went into a souvenir store they couldn’t get you anything with your name on it.

My name can be pronounced 2 ways.

Its quite annoying when you have to repeat your name over and over again to a person just so they can spell it right. And even if they spell it right there is still a big X over the part where they messed up. The only reason why I would never change my name is because it is sort of special. It might be annoying, but I feel like I was given it for a reason in which I will have to find out.

My name sounds like a flower. Maybe like a purple one you can only find in the rainforest. One that is so precious, so beautiful you would travel the long distance just to get it. It’s kind of like the flower your wife likes the most that you are really excited to give to her on the special occasion. My name sounds like a lot of things, an old ship in a museum, an old ornament passed down from family member to the next generation, and many more. But mainly my name fits me. a person who you can find two of, so original no one can be the same.

Niya Williams class 711 September 23^rd 2014My name piece

My name is like gold in 1848. It is so hard to find and you really have to search for it.

My name can’t be found on key chains. It can’t be found on mugs, and it surely cannot be found on magnets or stickers. Trust me I have spent my entire life searching through stores for my name.

 I have always felt like my name is one of those names that your parents made just to make sure that when your family went into a souvenir store they couldn’t get you anything with your name on it.

My name can be pronounced 2 ways. Niya and Nia. Its quite annoying when you have to repeat your name over and over again to a person just so they can spell it right. And even if they spell it right there is still a big X over the part where they messed up.

The only reason why I would never change my name is because it is sort of special. It might be annoying, but I feel like I was given it for a reason in which I will have to find out.

My name is like the color mint green. Soft, and mellow like me.

books finished 

-Smile 

finished September 24th 2014 

-The Hunger Games 

Finished September 15th 2014 

-The Fault In Our Stars 

Finished September 11th 2014 

Smile by Raina Telgemeier 

        In the book "Smile" Raina falls, injuring her two front teeth. This makes her life take a huge turn. For Raina this is a five-year experience with dental surgery and orthodontics. This means that Raina goes through a lot of pain and surgeries trying to fix her teeth. Raina goes through many different changes with her teeth and overtime begins to get bullied by her peers at school and friends. This makes Raina's life 10X harder because now she starts to feel insecure. 
         Raina goes through most of her bullying from her friends. They make fun of her beacuse of whom she likes or how her teeth look or just how she looks in general. Raina doesn't care to much about the taunting in the beginning of the book. She is very oblivious to the other characters mean jokes towards her. In one part of the book Raina's friends make fun of her teeth by calling her a vampire. Raina takes note of this but does nothing about it. Raina really starts to catch on to the bulling when her "friends" pull down her pants in public. right then she couldn't take anymore and burst, telling her friends she was done. She soon after meets new friends whom care about her and don't make fun of her. Her new friends tend to like the same things Raina likes and don't make fun of her teeth. 
        The book takes place from middle school to high school there is a lot of puberty changes that happen. Raina starts to want to change her appearance but getting her ears pierced, and she starts to feel weird wearing headgear before going to sleep. the readers get to see on one page Raina and her friends change. This leads to Raina gaining crushes, and slowly getting use to her braces and fake teeth. The book shows a lot of change with Raina through her whole teeth and middle school through high school experience. I enjoyed seeing Raina grow to getting use to her body and moving on from her friends whom treated her poorly.