A Day That Changed America: D-Day, by Shelley Tanaka and paintings by David Craig

This book is about the experiences of different people on D-Day. Don Jakeway and his experience as a paratrooper. A paratrooper is a person who jumps from planes into war zones. Quentin Aanenson as a fighter pilot and Bob Giguere who was one of 125,000 troops who invaded the coast, and moved inland. D-Day was when US troops invaded the beaches in Normandy, France in World War 2. It was supposed to be a surprise attack on the Germans. In one day the Allies would take out German defenses in the Normandy area, securing a base in Europe, so they could get Hitler out of France and take back Europe.

Don Jakeway, Quentin Aanenson and Bob Giguere were all very brave. I could never have done what they did. Don did not even know what a paratrooper was when he sent in his application for the Army. Paratroopers jump out of planes and are the first people to go behind enemy lines. They have to be calm in any situation. Out of every 2,500 men who signed up to be airborne, only 120 became paratroopers. He described them as hitting the ground like sacks of potatoes and that all the muscles in his body would hurt. On D-Day Don landed in a tree and he was in full view of the Germans. He pulled out his pocket knife and cut his way out. He said it felt like he was stuck in that tree for hours. 

 

D-Day was Quentin's first time in combat. He had dreamed of being a fighter pilot his whole life. "It felt like it was all over in minutes" he said. Bob however probably felt much differently about timing when it came to his experience. He was 17 years old when he joined. He walked up the beaches of Normandy through  steel rails, mines and barbed wire fences. He had to walk through all that and avoid being hit. The Germans had guns set up along 4 miles, manned by about 800 soldiers. All the guns were aiming at the Americans invading the beaches. Bob said he could feel the bleeding as he walked through the water.

I learned a lot about D-Day from this book. It wasn't hard to understand, like other books I have read about wars. I really liked how it was told by he people who were there. I knew that it was the turning point in the war but I wasn't aware of what exactly happened until now. It was very informative but didn't make me bored. 

I determined the importance when I was reading this book, which was not hard to do at all. It was a major turning point in the war. If it didn't happen the world would not be like it is today and winning the war would have been much harder. A lot of people were lost, and a lot of things were gained. I learned that when we came out of the war we became richer than we were, because factories set up to make war supplies, such as planes and guns, started to produce kitchen supplies, TV's and cars. But at the cost of losing 400,000 people out of 13 million who served in the war.

 Shelley Tanaka writes non-fiction books for children and teens. She has written books on the Titanic, Alamo, the attack on Pearl Harbor and the Battle of Gettysburg. She is the author f the "I Was There" series and "The Day That Changed America" series.

Aquamarine, by Alice Hoffman

Aquamarine is the story of 2 girls who find a mermaid in the pool at the Capri Beach Club. Hailey and Claire, have to get the mermaid, Aquamarine, back to her home. There are 3 problems the girls run into. The first is that they can't just take her out of the pool with everyone watching them, the club is closing so they have to get her out fast because construction workers are coming to rip down the place and Aquamarine is rude and selfish. She also refuses to leave the club without going on a date with Raymond. A boy who worked at the club.  But the not being i salt water is killing Aquamarine, she only has a week. If she doesn't get back to the ocean soon, she will turn to green dust. Hailey and Claire have to deal with all of this, and make the most of their last summer together because Claire was moving to Florida with her grandparents. 

 

The characters are Hailey, Claire, Aquamarine and Raymond. Hailey is a very daring character. The only thing she is affraid of is the future because can't control it. She hates the fact that Claire is moving and that her parents are divorced. Claire, is very shy, and hates the water. Both her parents died in a car accident. She is also a very good problem solver. Aquamarine, is a mermaid and has 6 older sisters. She is very rude and thinks only of herself. She also refuses to leave the Capri until she could go on a date with Raymond. That causes a lot of problems for Hailey and Claire. Raymond ran the snack shack at the Capri and all the girls loved him. Raymond was very nice to the girls and was almost like their older brother in a way. He looked out for them, and was their when Hailey and Claire needed help and not because his job required him to.

 This is one of my favorite books. I have read it 4 times. The movie and the book are very different. I think the book is better than the movie. Aquamarine herself acts very different than she did in the book. I liked all of the detail in the book and the characters. It was interesting to see how they changed from the beginning of the book to the end. Claire starts to become tougher and Aquamarine learns what it is like to be a friend. 

I compared this book to the movie. I was always pointing out things that didn't happen in the movie or the way the characters acted. The first thing I picked out when I was watching the movie after reading the book for a 3rd time was that in the book Claire is moving away, while in the movie Hailey is moving. Another thing was that Aquamarine was nicer in the movie and she could go on land. In the book, Aquamarine couldn't do that. When she got on land to go to that date with Raymond she started to become very sick. The date wasn't even 30 minutes. Thats how fast she reacted to being out of the water. 

Alice Hoffman was born in New York on March 16th, 1952. She has written sixteen novels, two short fiction stories and eight books for children and teens. Her first book was "Property Of". She wrote it when she was 21. She is living in New York and Boston. Four of her books have been turned into movies. They are "Aquamarine", "Practical Magic", "Independence Day" and "River King".

Anastasia: The Girl King, by Carolyn Meyer

Anastasia was a Grand Duchess in Russia. This book is a false diary, but follows similar events as to what her life was really like. All of the events are almost set to sound like what was going on at the last years of her life. The people of Russia revolted against her father, and took them out of their home. They were all killed. Her mother, father, brother and sisters. The only one who might of escaped was Anastasia. It is believed either her, or her sister, Marie, survived. The book is what the author thinks her thoughts were during the last 4 years of her life. From the years 1914-1918.  

The characters are Anastasia, her sisters ( Marie, Tatiana and Olga.), her brother Alexei, and her mother and father. Anastasia is a bright young girl. She couldn't stand when her older sisters bossed her around. All of Anastasia's sisters were a little bossy. Her brother was very sick and had been for his whole life. He had hemophilia. Hemophilia is when, if he was injured he would not be able to stop bleeding. Anastasia's family kept Alexei's illness a secret. They didn't want people to be alarmed due to the fact he was the tsarevitch. which mean he was Russia's next tsar. Anastasia's parents were like most Royals in those years. They were very polite, attended all of the important parties and threw their own. They made sure the girls and Alexei were just as polite and well spoken as them. They also prepared them for what was supposed to be their future.

I liked this book. I couldn't put it down! I don't know what I liked about it exactly, but I thought it was interesting, but not boring. Fun, but not funny. I really like reading books in the form of diaries. They give the book more "personality". It gives you a really great description of the main character and the other people in their lives. I also like that since it's a diary, all of the entries have the date they were written at the top. It makes it clearer as to when certain events took place.

When I had to stop reading I summarized what had happened and wrote it down on a post-it. It helped me keep track of what was going on, because I had a skating competition coming up and so I had to practice twice as much than I normally practice. So if I couldn't read one day and forgot what was going on, I read the post-it to jog my memory.

Carolyn Meyer was an only child. She was born November 8th, 1935. I started reading this book even before I knew she wrote "Marie Dancing", one of my favorite books. She is currently living in New Mexico. Other books she have written include, "Loving Will Shakespeare", "Kristina the Girl King", which is another book in the same series that this one about Anastasia is in.

Trial by Journal, by Kate Klise

"Trial by Journal" is about Lily Watson. She is on jury duty to help find out if, Bob White is guilty of killing one of her classmates, Perry Keet. Since she was going to be out of school for 6 weeks, she had to write in a journal. The journal was going to be counted as a grade. In the journal she kept massive amounts of evidence she found lying around, drawings, the first pages from an autobiography from one of the other jurors and old newspaper clippings about the trial. Lily ends up solving the case with all the evidence she had collected. 

 

The characters are Lily Watson, Rhett Tyle, Anna Conda, Fawn Papillon, Pricilla the Gorilla and Bob White. Lily is the main character. She is smart and her teachers describe her as a very interesting young girl. She is twelve years old and is forced to be on jury duty, due to a new law saying a juvenile juror needs to be on any case involving a child victim. Rhett Tyle is the owner of Tyle-O-Tropolis, an amusement park owner who is the proud owner of Pricilla the Gorilla. Pricilla is a gorilla and a very talented artist, who gives the park even more fame and fortune. Rhett also is supposed to have this amazing information that will prove Bob White guilty. Bob White is a strange character. He shows different personalities throughout the book. In the beginning he came off as mean, but by the end he doesn't seem that way. He seems nice. But it also sounded like he had always been nice, just accused of wrong doing, giving him that reputation. He also never got a firm education. Fawn Papillon is another juror and becomes friends with Lily. Anna, is a fashion designer, a snob and close friends with Rhett Tyle. She cares way to much about herself.

I really liked this book. It was fun to read. The book has a bunch of different newspaper articles, the pieces of evidence that Lily had, some of her journal entries and notes she took. It made the book really interesting and entertaining. There wasn't anything I didn't like about the book. My favorite part was when I was able to read all of the evidence that she collected, which was mainly notes being passed between Anna and Rhett. I also really liked reading Lily's journal entries. They were funny and serious at the same time.

I didn't visualize that much this time. I made a lot of connections to a bunch of other books I have read. I compared the way Lily wrote in her journal the way Anne Frank wrote in hers. Lily's weren't so serious, and she emphasised a lot of words, to show more emotion. I also compared it to other mystery books I have read. 

Kate Klise has also written the books"Regarding the Fountain" and "Letters from Camp". Her sister, Sarah, is illustrator for all of the books she writes. Kate is correspondent for "People" magazine. She lives in Norwood, Missouri. Sarah illustrates children's books and is an art teacher. She lives in Berkeley, California.

Rip Van Winkle, by Washington Irving

"Rip Van Winkle"is about a man who sleeps for twenty years. He does not like his wife and his only excuse for leaving his house is to go hunt in the forest. Rip liked to help people with chores. One day, when he was out hunting, Rip heard someone call his name. He saw a strange looking man, holding a big barrel. He offered to help the man. The man gave him the barrel and started to walk on.  When they get to where they needed to be, Rip starts to drink what ever was in the barrel. He becomes very tired and ends up sleeping for 20 years. But to Rip, it only felt like a day. He wakes up not knowing what is going on in the world, but soon figures it out.

Rip Van Winkle, Dame Van Winkle, Rip Van Winkle Jr., Judith Van Winkle and Wolf are the characters in the book. Rip is the main character. He does not like his wife, likes to hunt and hang out with his friends and his dog. Dame Van Winkle is Rip's wife. She complains a lot and the book describes her as, "sour, not sweet." Rip Jr. is Rip Van Winkle's son and Judith Van Winkle is his daughter, by the end of the book she is Judith Gardenier. Wolf is Rip's dog. Wolf is afraid of Dame and is Rip's best friend.

It was a good book, some parts were a little slow. One of the parts I found a little boring was when the book starts to talk about Rip and his friends sitting around talking about politics. It wasn't the best part. My favorite part was when Rip went back to the town after being asleep for 20 years. It was cool because you find out how much Rip had missed and the reactions he and the people living in the town had toward what was going on.

I visualized while I was reading. It has always been a good strategy for me because I love TV, so visualizing gives reading the effect of watching TV. While I was reading I thought of Rip walking or hunting in the Catskills where the book takes place. I also saw him holding the barrel for that man. After he woke up I saw an old man, walking through the town and the look on everyones faces once they heard after he had told them.

Washington Irving is one of may favorite authors. His stories are fun and exciting. My favorite is "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". He also wrote the story "Golden Dreams". His books have some humor, but aren't laugh out loud funny. "Rip Van Winkle" and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" are his two most popular stories. Both take place in New York. "Rip Van Winkle" takes place by the Catskills, and "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" takes place right by the Hudson river.

 

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is about a teacher named Ichabod Crane. Ichabod loves listening to storys about the "Headless Horseman", a Hessian cavalryman who is said to have lost his head and now haunts Sleepy Hollow. He was buried in the churchyard and every night he rides to the battlefield on his horse searching for his head. Ichabod falls in love with Miss Katrina Van Tassel. She was the daughter of a wealthy Dutch farmer. Brom Bones also liked Katrina. Brom was very jealous of Ichabod. He was willing to do anything to ruin any chance Ichabod had with Katrina.

 

The characters in the book are Ichabod Crane, Katrina Van Tassel, Brom Bones and his gang, the Headless Horseman and the people lving in Sleepy Hollow. Ichabod is the main character. He was very tall and thin with a pointed nose and huge ears. He is the town school master. Katrina Van Tassel is a wealthy Dutch farmers daughter and is the prettiest girl in Sleepy Hollow. Brom Bones is very tough and has brown curly hair. But he is not mean. He likes to go to parties and tell stories and jokes. His gang is just the same way. The Headless Horseman is a Hessian cavalryman whose head was knocked off in the Revolutionary War. The people living in Sleepy Hollow are very superstitious and sometimes scare Ichabod with their ghost stories.

 It was a really good book. It was a mix of fantasy and reality. The book was very clearly written and easy to understand. The book was very detailed, but not to the point where it is boring to read. I really liked the story line and the personalities of the characters. It was interesting how all of the characters believed so strongly in this tale and others they had heard. The whole town loved hearing ghost stories and believed every one of them was true.

I used visualizing a lot because all the details in the book gave me a really good idea of what places looked like and the way people acted toward certain events in the book. I also made connections to his book and the other versions of the story I heard. This version was a little bit like a cliff hanger. Other versions I have heard tell you exactly what happened at the end of the book. But I have heard the story end different ways in almost every version.

Washington Irving wrote many short stories and biographies. He was born April 3rd, 1783. He was one of eleven children. He was also a historian and named after George Washington. He also wrote "Rip Van Winkle" and "Tales of a Traveller". Even though he had poor health, he kept writing. Sometimes he couldn't even walk. He died in November of 1859

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

Twelfth Night takes place in the kingdom of Illyria.  The book is mainly about a girl, Viola and the duke of Illyria, Orsino.  In the book, Orsino believes he loves Olivia, the countess. Olivia has just lost her brother and refuses to see the duke. Viola comes into the picture when she is shipwrecked and becomes Orsino's servant. She runs messages to Olivia asking her to see Orsino. But Olivia ends up falling in love with Viola who is disguised as Cesario, so she can work for the duke without anyone knowing she is a girl and Viola ends up falling in love with Orsino.  

Orsino is a very kind-hearted character, he is crazy in love with Olivia almost throughout the whole book. Viola tries very hard to act like a man. She is also a little stubborn. Viola is also a very smart character and is always a few steps ahead of the game. Olivia is very poised. She is described as beautiful throughout the book. You realize as you read that she is aware of it and it begins have an impact on the way she acts. By the end of the book she has a major change in attitude and is a more caring person. Sir Toby is Olivia's Uncle and wants her to marry his friend Sir Andrew, who is far from smart and considerate. Maria is Olivia's maid, and she enjoys pulling pranks on Malvolio. Malvolio is Olivia's steward and is in love with Olivia. He will do anything to impress Olivia. But ha fails every time. Feste is simply a fool. Sebastian is Viola's brother, who she thought had drowned in the shipwreck. He gets into a bit of legal trouble in the book, but he finds ways around it. Antonio is a sea captain and Sebastian's friend. Fabian is another fool and is also a servant.

 

The book was good. It was a little slow and a little confusing, but it was a great story line. The movie "She's the Man" is actually based on the book. That is why some of the names sound familiar if you have seen the movie. I wish I had gotten the book in a modern text version, it would have made the book a little bit easier to understand. 

The reading strategies I used were visualizing and comparing.Visualizing was like seeing the play in my head. I compared the book to the movie "She's the Man", there were a lot of similarities. Some of the characters had the same names and had the same personalities. The movie really captured the outline of the book. The movie took the story Shakespeare wrote and turned it into what would happen if it took place in this time period. 

Shakespeare was and still is a famous play writer. He wrote "Romeo and Juliet", "Hamlet", "Macbeth", "Midsummer's Night's Dream", "The Tempest", "Two Gentlemen of Verona", "Julius Caesar" and many others. He started school at the most likely at the age of 6. He went to Stratford grammer school. It was built 200 years before he was born and is still standing today. There are two periods of time where we have no knowledge of Shakespeare. It as if he had disappeared from the world. The two time periods we have no information on him are 1578-82 and 1585-92. They believe he married in November of 1582. To a girl named Anne. Historians are unclear of the exact date. Records show the dates November 27th and 28th of 1582. Shakespeare died April 23rd, 1616.