Un-required Category for "Moustraps"

       The book Mousetraps is in first person point of view. I think that first person point of view was chosen so you could get the full affect of what Maxie was going through in some of the situations she encountered. If this book wouldn’t have been in first person point of view, it would have made the book a lot different. For example; if this book were written from Sean or Dexter’s point of view, we wouldn’t have known details about the scene when Maxie goes to visit Rick at the motel he is staying at. This scene is important to the book because Rick tells about his bad decisions that he made leading to his beating. If the book would’ve been written from Rick’s point of view, the climax may have been given away because we would’ve already known what had happened. This would make the story less exciting already knowing what Rick was planning on saying to Maxie. Some scenes may have still been just as interesting, but possibly not. One example of this is again when Maxie goes looking for Rick at the motel. Instead of being glued to the book dying to know what was going to happen next, you would’ve already known about Rick’s story and why he was at the hotel. The full impact wouldn’t have been the same, and there would not really be a climax in the story. Another good example of telling this story from the first person point of view is when Maxie and Rick are started to drift apart from being friends in the sixth grade. Maxie was bothered because people were teasing them. Other students thought of them as a couple and it wasn’t true. I think Rick mainly didn’t care because he had always been an outcast in his life and didn’t mind the teasing nearly as much as Maxie did. Rick just wanted a friend that he could always rely on. Maxie realized the teasing was starting to affect her life and slowly but surely drifted from Rick. Sadly, Rick didn’t realize that their friendship was drifting apart. He believed that he would never lose Maxie as a friend. If this story were told from Rick’s point of view, we wouldn’t have understood how Maxie felt about being teased. I think the author obviously made a good choice in making Maxie the main character and making the book in first person point of view.

Required Category for "Mousetraps"

       The main character of the book Mousetraps is Maxie. Maxie is a teenage girl in high school. She has short brown hair and is an average sized human being. She is a very artistic girl; she looks at the world through her very detailed and creative drawings. She is very nice, artistic, friendly and intelligent girl who is just doing her best to fit in, in high school. One of her goals is to be a successful artist when she grows up. She doesn’t want to be a serious artist; she would rather be a creative artist who draws more random drawings that mean different things to different people. Her reactions to things can be a little exaggerated but she takes everything that needs to be taken seriously, seriously. The other main character in the book is Rick. Maxie and Rick are very creative when working together. An example is in sixth grade they had their own fake company named Hawke & Nash Inc. Their little company was for making detailed drawings of mouse traps. Rick Nash would make the designs and Maxie Hawke would draw them. I would say that Maxie is usually self assured. She doesn’t always express it but a lot of the times she is confident in what she does and knows that her decision, good or bad, is hers and she will have to take care of it afterwards no matter what the results. An example of Maxie being self assured is when she has to help her friend Rick after he has been beaten by his dad and won’t talk to anyone. Maxie is sure that she has to help Rick by talking to him and trying to get him to come back to school. Rick is an emotional wreck and so Maxie brings along one of her friends, Dexter and one of her cousins, Sean for back up. I think Maxie can be admirable but not always. An example of Maxie being admirable is when she tries to rebuild her friendship with Rick. She drew him a mouse trap and put a little note on it. Rick admired this very much and thought it was very creative and a very nice thing to do. I think what makes Maxie different from other characters is that she always does her best to include everyone and she knows how to be a good friend.

Un-required Category on "Around the World in 100 Days"

     There weren’t many uses of flashback and foreshadowing in this book, but there were some very important examples of it. One time after they had left a city, Johnny, Harry’s partner in making “The Flash” had a very uneasy feeling that something very bad was going to happen to “The Flash”. Harry and Johnny are accompanied by Charles on their trip around the world. Charles is responsible for making sure they go the full distance around the world. Harry keeps blaming Charles that he is trying to harm the car to make sure Harry doesn’t make it around the world. Harry has three people betting that he cannot make it. His father also said if he doesn’t make it, Harry has to give up motorcars forever and get back into school. This uneasy feeling about “The Flash” turns out to be true. “The Flash” breaks down and they waste a couple of days fixing it.

Another foreshadow is when Johnny keeps having horrible headaches about “The Flash”. Johnny believes that these headaches are a sign that something bad is going to happen. Johnny is right. Harry and Charles are asleep in the back of the vehicle and Johnny is getting very tired. Elizabeth, an undercover person, offers to take the wheel. She then purposely runs into a boulder to damage their car and delay their trip. Back when Harry’s father and Elizabeth’s father were younger they made a bet against each other. Elizabeth’s father lost the bet, and with it a lot of money. Elizabeth’s family wanted revenge on Harry’s family. Elizabeth continued sabotaging their journey, such as, claiming her purse had been stolen and putting a nail into the gears to damage the whole car. Both of these things delayed the trip because of the time spent looking for her purse and fixing the gears. All of these delays cause them to be late for their ship to cross the sea to Europe.

A flashback occurred when Harry’s mom told her story about how she escaped India. It started by telling Harry that he was half Indian. Then she flashed back to remembering the arranged marriage in India. She didn’t want to be married to someone that she didn’t know. One day she met a man who later became Harry’s father. This man knew she was in distress so he helped her escape India.

Foreshadowing and flashbacks can make a story very interesting. In this book they enhanced the details of each story line.

Required Category on "Around the World in 100 Days"

     My main character Harry is a creative fun guy who dropped out of his school because he thought it was too boring. Harry likes to work with moving parts of cars, such as, engines. Harry’s mom is from India and Indians in England are treated very poorly. This forces Harry’s mom to mostly be a house mom. Harry didn’t want his life to be very tough like his mother’s so he changed the spelling of Hari, to Harry. Harry could fit in because his name wasn’t too different and he wasn’t as dark in color as the majority of Indians. Harry had always wanted to go to India one day so he could see where his mom grew up as a child.

            Harry is a fairly strong man, who can handle tougher stuff than at least half the men in England. Harry has a pretty good personality, he is fun to be around, and very creative when it comes to motorcars. One of Harry’s main goals is to go around the world in one hundred days in his motorcar that he built with the help of his friend Johnny. The only exception of him not being in the motorcar “The Flash”, while traveling, was when he had to cross the oceans and large waterways. Harry’s thoughts are mainly on his motorcar throughout the journey around the world. He is always thinking about how many miles they need to travel in one day to get somewhere, or hoping that the motorcar “The Flash” wouldn’t get a flat tire. Harry is self assured, he is always saying that everything will be okay, and that even if something goes wrong with “The Flash” that they will get through it and be able to get back on schedule. Harry is also very confident, he is always sure that “The Flash” won’t break down, or nothing will go wrong with “The Flash”. I think that Harry could be considered admirable, but only when he is being calm and nice, sometimes he can be a little pushy and frustrated with things. Harry is not very self absorbed, he normally cares about other people and makes sure they’re okay before he makes sure he is okay. Harry is very considerate. He is mostly caring about other people and again he makes sure that everyone is okay before he is. I liked this book very much and hope other people get a chance to read it!

Steel Trapp Unrequired Category

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was very well detailed and interesting. This book falls into my top 10 books ever read, probably in the third, fourth, or fifth spot. Another reason I liked this book is because it just kept me hooked and I didn’t ever want to stop reading it. Some examples of me loving this book were, when Steel tricked his mom to go see his dog Cairo. I love dogs, and I like the idea of being able to trick my mom. Another one of my favorite parts in this book was when Steel uses his dog to track down someone. This is because when Cairo picked up the scent of this bad person, Cairo just randomly started to sprint, and Steel let go of the leash from such a big tug. So when that happened Steel and Kaileigh had to go on a crazy dog chase to find Cairo. But somehow during the chase Steel and Kaileigh got split up from each other and Steel was all by himself. Somehow Kaileigh managed to find Cairo, but Steel wasn’t so lucky. He got scared, stopped running, and slowed to a slow walk. He had found himself in an abandoned part of town, no one around, just some cars abandoned on the street every once in a while. Steel was freaked out. Then Steel, thanks to his photographic memory was able to find Kaileigh and Cairo. He was so happy to see them, but he was still scared. Out of nowhere this lady came up to them and said that they needed to leave the part of town they were in because it was too dangerous for them. Steel disagreed and thought it was a trap. Steel didn’t go with, but he told Kaileigh to go with Cairo to the subway station with the woman. Steel went to go investigate himself. It was a mysterious, interesting, action packed, fun to read book. I do recommend this book to everyone! I recommend it mostly to people who like to read an easy to read book that is very good at the same time. If someone were to be reading my blog, then yes I think they should read it. Steel Trapp is such a good book, and I don’t want it to be left unspoken of. People would love this book and I know I did.  

Required Category on Steel Trapp

My main character’s name is Steven Trapp, but people call him Steel for a nickname. He is a thirteen year old boy and is very smart! The book says that he has a photographic memory. It doesn’t describe his physical appearance but I picture him as a very skinny athletic boy. Not very strong but very fast. I also picture him at about five foot one. His personality consists of being very kind, mysterious, curious, and smart. Some goals of his are to win the science challenge in Washington D.C., which he gets invited to during the book. His thoughts are very well thought out, intelligent, and reasonable. Steel is definitely self assured, and most people also agree with what he says. An example of him being self assured is that when this lady leaves a suitcase on a train Steel, comes out to give it to her, and she declines it to be hers. But Steel knows that it is hers. Steel is confident. An example of him being confident is near the end of the book he finds a way to prove that someone has rigged the lottery, and he is totally confident in his theory and reason of why and how it happened. He ends up being right, but luckily the  plan he thought of, worked and he stopped the person from winning the lottery. Steel is admirable; this is because he is very smart but he doesn’t brag about it, and he is just a really good person. One example of him being admirable is when he helps his best friend Kaileigh with a problem and she was very thankful for his help. There is no way Steel is self absorbed, he is always helping other people. A reason that Steel is not self absorbed is he goes on a rescue mission, with a very dangerous person after him. He ends up rescuing the lady and gets her to safety! Again, Steel is not self centered, he is again always trying to help people. A different reason that he is not self centered is more than once he was willing or did help someone else with a problem. Steel is not inconsiderate. He is never rude or mean to anyone and never would be. Steel is different from others by being very smart, and he has a great imagination. 

Ghost of Spirit Bear: Conflicts and Resolution

     My main character (Cole) faces some pretty big conflicts but here is one of them. When he and Peter are back at school for the first time since their fight in the first book, Cole and Peter are faced by 5 kids in a “posse” lead by a boy named Keith. They pick on Cole and Peter hoping to get on Cole’s nerves. They do succeed in getting on Coles nerves and he pushes one of the 5 kids down, which leads to trouble. Luckily the principal and government decide not to send Cole to jail for this small threat. Now he has learned his lesson and knows he has to be more careful when it comes to Keith and his “posse”. I think Cole attacks the conflicts he faces pretty well. It did take Cole a little while to figure out the best way to stop Keith from bullying him and Peter. He tried many things, such as calling the principal when they were about to get beat up, fighting with words, and even saying that even if Keith hit them once they would press charges against him. When they said that, that got Keith to be by himself, the other members of his “posse” backed away and said I can’t get in trouble my parents would “kill me”. But that didn’t stop Keith he started kicking and punching Cole and Peter over and over again. That night Cole pressed charges against Keith for assault. The next day Keith was skateboarding towards Cole getting ready to tackle him, when Cole stepped out of the way. Keith fell and hit his head on the sidewalk and Cole took care of Keith until the ambulance arrived to take Keith to the hospital. It took a lot of courage, but Cole visited him in the hospital and then dropped the charges once he got home. I think I would’ve done the same thing as Cole because it taken me time to figure out how to stop Keith.  But, like him, in the end I would’ve found a solution that worked. I don’t think I would’ve handled it much differently, but hopefully I would’ve figured out what to do faster. I think that how Cole handled the conflict is not the kind of person he was in the first book. But it is definitely the kind of person he is in the second book.