Themes in Faithful Elephants (edited and revised version being handed in)

Faithful Elephants is a true story, written by Yukio Tsuchiya, that tells a story of hope during a time of war. In the story, the Ueno Zoo is forced to kill their beloved elephants, because by command of the army the zoo is forced to kill all of their animals in case of bombs hitting the zoo. This was very hard for the zookeepers being they had a special connection with the elephants, and the zookeepers hoped and hoped they wouldn't have to kill John, Tonky and Wanly.

The elephants represent small bits of hope within the zookeepers in many ways, using a quote from the text "they thought of sending them to the zoo in Sendai," made me realize that all throughout the story, the zookeepers didn't want to kill off their elephants. They decided to come up with ways to protect their elephants so they wouldn't have to kill them. Sending them to a different zoo was an option that saved the dear elephants’ lives. Killing the elephants in their perspective was like killing their own children, it was a seemingly impossible task, even if it was better for the elephants in the end.

The recurring theme within the book is that you can always hope you won't have to sacrifice someone/ thing that you love but if it's meant to happen it will. This is proven yet again in the excerpt with the quote "everyone was hoping and praying that if the elephants could survive only one more day, the war might be over and the elephants would be saved." While reading this section of the passage, I realized the zookeepers really didn't want to kill the elephants and were somewhat procrastinating by hoping that they would survive one more day. If only the elephants would survive one more day, maybe the war would end and the zookeepers could finally feed the elephants and save them.

Towards the end of Faithful Elephants, the elephants, Tonky and Wanly, slowly begin to die. They are being starved to death so the process is long and painful to watch. "He had no more courage to see them," wrote Yukio Tsuchiya. The zookeeper didn't want to face the reality that his elephants, who were like children to him, were on their way out. The zookeeper thought that if he didn't watch them, a miracle might occur and they would live, he was in denial. In some ways it makes sense, you don’t have to face the reality of someone who is about to die until it actually happens, and you have to deal with it.

In conclusion, Faithful Elephants, by Yukio Tsuchiya is a story of hope and wishing for miracles to occur. In life, you can always hope a miracle will occur and you won’t have to sacrifice someone/ thing you love, but if it's meant to be, it will happen.

Characters in Paper Towns by John Green

Quentin Jacobsen is the main character in Paper Towns by John Green. The book is about Quentin and his friends, Ben, Radar and Lacey and their search for Margo, Quentin's "friend", who ran away. Since Margo is a legal adult, at age 18, the police don't do feel the need to search for her. Quentin is a very complicated character, therefore he has many strengths and weaknesses. 

Margo was Quentin's childhood best friend, and as they grew older they grew apart, like most childhood friends do. But Quentin always had a little bit of a crush on Margo and it rekindled when she showed up at his window late one night summoning him. Later in the book, when Margo ran away from home and didn't come back (around the time she had previous times), Quentin began to worry and look for clues that she had left, which she had done in previous "run-aways",  leaving these clues showed Quentin that she didn't care if she was found. Quentin knew when he found the first clue he could find her, I think he felt a bit of a connection with her through the clues, which made him determined to uncover the mystery behind Margo's disappearance.  He didn't ever give up, after facing many complicated obstacles, he continued on his mission to find Margo. This shows that one of his strengths is determination. That he'll do whatever it takes to reach his goal.

When Quentin does show up at Margo's hiding place, he realizes that Margo wasn't looking to be found, her clues were left unintentionally and all his hours of work were pointless. This is when I discovered one of Quentin's weaknesses. He sets high hopes, and when he realizes what the reality of the situation is and it's not what he had imagined, he gets really upset/ disappointed. When Quentin, Ben, Radar and Lacey finally found Margo in New York she seemed irratated or even mad. She didn't mean for them to find her and she was angry that they had, this disappointed Quentin but also angered him, he had driven 21 hours to find her, yet she didn't want to be found.

In conclusion, Quentin's strengths and weaknesses connect directly to the plot line of the book, Paper Towns. Quentin is a very determined character who is willing to do almost anything for a person he loves, like Margo.

Grace, Gold and Glory: My Leap of Faith by Gabrielle Douglas

Grace, Gold and Glory: My Leap Of Faith, is a truly inspirational autobiography written by Gabrielle Douglas, Olympic gymnast.

The autobiography picks out  the most significant moments from Gabby's career, and tells you all about them, like you're experiencing these moments with her. And that's why I really loved this book.

The autobiography starts at the very beginning of Gabrielle's life, and I'll tell you myself, the road to the Olympics for Gabby, was not an easy one. She was homeless from a very young age, and when her family did find a home, her parents decided to split, her father was a part of her life for scattered periods of time afterwards. In the book Gabrielle writes about many other challenges she faced, including serious thoughts of quitting gymnastics, good thing she didn't quit. Gabby explains the most important moments in her career including moments like when she moved to Iowa, and lived with a host family, just to further her career in the sport of gymnastics, or even as far back as when she first started gymnastics.

I think I enjoyed this book because, I learned so much about someone who I really admired. I didn't know 95% of the things Gabrielle wrote about in the book, so all the new facts I learned were really interesting. I also liked it because it's written somewhat like a story, it's comical then sad then happy, it's not just "I did this and then this happened." She tells the reader story after story but all of them are written like it's part of a fictional book. Anyone could read this as well, it's not crazy complicated like other biographies and it doesn't have a lot of gymnastics vocabulary.

This is most definitely the best book I read during the summer of 2013.