"Perks of Being a Wallflower"- Being Accepted

In the book The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, a boy named Charlie is a freshman in high school and his best friend Michael has just committed suicide. Although this may seem like a huge, huge deal to some, Charlie accepts it as an obstacle of his life, and this book (in my opinion) represents his journey to climb over it and somehow move on and grow as a person. Although he faces many more obstacles throughout the course of his ninth grade year, I feel like a really big issue for Charlie was the conflict of acceptance, and fitting into the school after losing the one person who really understood him.

For anyone, this would make for a pretty intense conflict. The issue of acceptance and how hard one strives to fit in is an issue at any school of any age level. I feel like in this story, though, the issue of acceptance wasn't really a main idea of the story, but one that was weaved throughout the book. Charlie shows that he wants to make friends and be accepted when he meets some seniors in his school. These seniors were the misfits and the kids who didn't really "fit" into their grade, and I think Charlie had feelings like those too. When Charlie joined forces with those seniors, I feel like he lost himself in bad decisions, and started to do drugs, sneak out, and disobey his parents, although all Charlie wanted to do was make friends. I think Charlie learned here, firsthand, that fitting in may mean taking actions that you're not really comfortable with in the longrun. Charlie never wanted to get addicted to cigarettes at such a young age, but because he wanted to be accepted into that group, he had to take measures such as those.

I feel as if fitting in and being accepted is a really big issue nowadays in our society, a bigger issue than it should really be. My opinion is to not push your own limits, and just do what you're comfortable with and be with the people you know make you happy. Almost everyone has been face-to-face with a decision like the ones Charlie has, and had to ponder how much it means to them to fit in. I feel like this may be a way of dealing with the grief that Charlie was.

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

The book Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult is a realistic fiction, coming-of-age novel, but is also a huge suspense and somewhat of a mystery. All those genres combined made for a great plot-line, involving the protagonist, Josie Cormier, and a school shooting that killed her boyfriend Matt Royston and nine other students at Sterling High School. The shooter, Peter Houston, happened to be Josie Cormier's ex-best friend; he was an unpopular boy in High School who was bullied horribly and felt he had nobody to confide in. This resulted in Peter going crazy, killing ten students, harshly wounding about twenty more, and permanently scarring everyone around him.

I believe that this book has many hidden morals and messages. As time goes on, even after a year, Josie is still engulfed in sadness, even after graduating. This is understandable, as an experience like this would definitely be traumatic and heartbreaking. But I think that the author is trying to teach us a lesson by putting us in Josie's shoes, and that lesson is that sometimes you just have to move on with your life (keeping what was lost in your heart) and not get swept away by the past. Although the author or any of the characters never really delve into the full meaning of this message, I can see when they show the characters a year after the shooting happened. Again, I know Josie has reason to be sad, but I think the author has kept her sad and gloomy throughout the whole book to show us as the readers that there is always an alternative, which is moving on and continuing to live your life without that dread always surrounding you.

Although this isn't exactly in the book, in the Acknowledgements section, Jodi Picoult writes: "To the thousands of kids out there who are a little bit different, a little bit scared, a little bit unpopular: this one's for you." I interpreted this as Jodi Picoult is dedicating it not to the kids that are like Josie, who were victims of this horrible shooting, but children you were like Peter-- kids that had to jump to actions such as these to make themselves acknowledged or even just heard. I think it is so brave of this author to really put herself in the perspective of a killer and why this killer might have done what he did, instead of doing what so many other authors might do, which is put themselves in the shoes of the victim. I also think she dedicated the story to the kids who are "different," "scared,"and "a little bit unpopular," because they are the kids that may be obligated to feel alone like Peter did, and maybe (it is highly unlikely) take actions such as he did. Jodi Picoult probably didn't want anyone to feel alone, and dedicated the book to those children so they could relate to it.

I understand this book because I feel like almost everyone has been in a place where they feel alone. Even at family get-togethers, there are times when you feel alone and wish there was someone who felt as you did. Sometimes you're with a bunch of friends and they're saying something and you don't get the joke, and that can make you feel alone too. These are really common situations that show that it doesn't take much to feel alone or sad. I think that the author Jodi Picoult really showed this through dynamic characters and a shocking, suspenseful, and beautifully thought through plot line.

Text-to-World Connection--Fox by Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks

In the picture book Fox by Margaret Wild and Ron Brooks, one antagonist, Fox, shows a text-to-world connection. The book is about a half-blind Dog and his friend, a bird named Magpie. In the exposition, one of Magpie's wings is severely injured and she can't fly anymore. Dog, being a good friend, allows Magpie to sit on his bag while he runs and enjoys the same sort of rush as flying gives her. In the climax, though, Magpie goes to Fox, a faster runner, instead of staying with her loyal friend. To me, this seemed like a poor and selfish move on Magpie's part, especially since Dog was doing the best he could with what he had. The conflict of the book is the way Dog and Magpie's friendship could now lose strength, and the problems for both protagonists.

The text-to-world connections I noticed were in cases of bullying. After Fox takes Magpie, he drops her in a desert and abandons her, and tells her she now knows what it feels like to "be alone." I related this to bullying because, as seen, she is receiving abuse, and it is delivered in a way that a lot of people in the real world also bully others. A lot of people who bully bully because they are insecure about their own problems, and take it out on others. Fox was alone when Magpie and Dog were friends, and then wanted Magpie (although she did nothing wrong) to feel what it was like to be alone. I've heard about people bullying homosexuals because they themselves are homosexual and feel bad about themselves for it. That's one of the ways people react to their own problems, is to make others feel bad about the same problem they may have. After thinking about this, I realized that this may be because nobody wants to be in their own boat, and doesn't want to be alone, especially when they could be judged or harshly bullied. This makes sense to me, because Fox didn't want to be the only one who was alone: he wanted Magpie and Dog to feel how he was feeling, which was sad, lonely, and jealous of them. This was a huge connection from the actual text to the world, and shows that even picture books aimed for kids can show huge resemblances to middle and high school life, and just the world and way of living in general.

This story really showed me and probably showed elementary school kids that being a bully like Fox was really isn't a great way to win someone's heart or make friends. This reminded me of "Am I Blue?" by Bruce Coville, the short story we read at the beginning of the year, because the boy bullying Vincent about his sexuality was homosexual too. This seems like a pattern, and I realized that if you don't want to be alone about a specific problem, insecurity, or issue you're undergoing, then instead of making someone else feel bad about it, you could try and make them feel better about it. That may even make you feel better about it, too.