Don’t Kill the Birthday Girl is a non-fiction book written by Sandra Beasley, an American poet and non-fiction author. Beasley is most known for her poems, her poetry has been anthologized in the Best American poetry in 2010, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and Best New Poets 2005. Her work has also been included in many journals such as the Wall Street Journal, The Believer, and Black Warrior Review just to name a few. In 2009, Beasley won the Barnard Women Poets prize, and in 2010 she won the Summer Poet in residence fellowship at the University of Mississippi. These two awards are just a couple of the many awards and accomplishments Beasley has received. Beasley wrote this amusing memoir to tell her story about her food allergies has affected her throughout her life. Imagine having a birthday every year without a birthday cake, or having a birthday cake without dairy products or even eggs. This is something Sandra Beasley endured every year she celebrated her …show more content…
This book was very informative. I learned that women could be allergic to semen which is extremely interesting. Sandra Beasley incorporated amusing ways to tell her stories. This allows her to keep the reader attentive throughout the book. I am very interested in learning even more about the dangers of food allergies. I don’t have food allergies so, this book was very enlightening. Food allergies are extremely dangerous, and not many people think about them in this manner. Sandra explained that she had to worry about what she consumed, what she bathed in, where she traveled, and even her significant other. Sandra Beasley writes, “I had the chance to introduce myself as someone other than the girl with allergies.” (pg.226) I loved this quote at the end of the book because it shows that she overcame all the obstacles that came with her having food allergies. Always remember, don’t kill the birthday
As I read many of the essay in This I Believe edited by Jay Allison I felt like many of them related to my life, some more than others. Out of the many essays in This I Believe my favorite is “Remembering All the Boys” by Elvia Bautista. This is my favorite essay because her and I share many of the same beliefs and views on treating people with kindness and compassion no matter what wrong they’ve done to you or your family, which are core values my family instilled in me at a young age. At one point in her essay she says, “My brother was sixteen when he was shot by someone who liked red, who killed him because he liked blue”(17). A few lines later she says “And we will go together and bring a big bunch of flowers enough for both of these
In the book “Maxed Out” by Daphne Greer the main character Max is a kid that likes hockey Max has a brother called Duncan, Duncan who needs to go with Max everywhere, due to the death of his father. Max can’t play hockey and watch Duncan at the same time. There is a big hockey game and the team needs Max. With Duncan, his mom won’t allow him to play. Max and the team were sad.
Dead Girls Don’t Lie By: Jennifer Shaw Wolf Summary Losing a friend could be devastating, but thinking your friend was murdered and being the last person they talk to can leave a huge amount of guilt. The book Dead Girls Don’t Lie is about Jaycee losing her best friend Rachel. In the eyes of Jaycee she thinks her best friend was murdered in an old house in the woods, but the police think her death was an accident.
Have you ever thought about how difficult it might be to go into a different country knowing absolutely nothing, not even language, and something horrific happened to you or anyone in your family? Don’t you think you would feel so powerless, so helpless, so clueless? This happens commonly and it has never had any attention brought to it, at least not until 1998. Anne Fadiman wrote a book entitled, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. This demonstrated a collision of two complete opposite cultures, but they both have the same goal to help the child get better.
In the story “So I ain’t no Good Girl “written by Sharon Flakes. I felt like the scene was very realistic, the characters made the scene very realistic by the way they were acting. The author described the scene pretty good when she said: “if I scream at him the whole street could hear me”. I can also relate to the scene in my everyday life. A boy and his girlfriend where at a bus stop with some other girls, And Raheem starts to act a little flirter with the good girls who made his girlfriend kind of upset about the situation, so she tries to talk about it, but he got mad at her and ended up making out with the good girl.
In the passage “What To Bring” by Naisha Jackson the immigrants chose to bring certain items with them to the US. They chose to bring things that, even though they are starting a new life in the US, help them remember their old life. “... The two most common kinds of immigrants’ belongings are religious items and photographs” (Jackson 10). This piece of evidence shows how they want to keep in touch with their roots and keep memories of their old life.
All But My Life, by Gerda Weissmann Klein, is an absolutely amazing autobiography. Gerda tells about her childhood and how she grows into an adult in many German labor camps. Gerda’s home town has been taken over by the Germans during the holocaust. Her wealthy jewish family is forced to live like slaves until they are separated and moved to different German camps. Gerda tells her story like the reader is there with her.
A young girl, who killed her mother and wants to know more about her, changes the 14 year old’s life for a long period of time. In the novel, Lily has lived with some heavy burdens on her shoulders. She has to overcome these things and tell the truth even if she doesn’t want to. In Sue Monk Kidd’s novel, “The Secret Life of Bees,” Lily has a coming of age moment when she tells August the truth about everything. She decides to tell August the truth as shown through these things: telling her she is unlovable, how she was angry with what she heard, getting the items she has had.
On September 11, 2001, tragedy struck the city of New York. On that fateful day, two airplanes were hijacked by terrorists and flew straight into the twin towers. Each tower fell completely to the ground, taking thousands of lives with it and injuring thousands more. Not only did that day leave thousands of families without their loved ones, it also left an entire city and an entire country to deal with the aftermath of the destruction. Poet, Nancy Mercado, worries that one day people will forget that heartbreaking day.
The article, “Teens Against Hitler”, by Lauren Tarshis describes the challenges Ben Kamm fought while fighting with the the partisans in WWII and the courage he had while doing it. Ben wanted to continue living in his apartment with his family and play with his friends every day. But, the German troops forced them into a ghetto with 400,000 other jews.
I read the book Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson. This story is about a girl named Mattie who lives with her mother and grandfather. In their house they run a coffee shop that they all work at, Eliza is a women that is a good friend of the family who works at the shop and cleans the house. Everything is going good until the yellow fever comes to the little town they live in. Hundreds of people were dying every day.
Eric Bartels analyzes the difficulties of modern-day marriage in his article, “My Problem with Her Anger,” by examining his own marital experiences. By optimistic confrontation and resolution of his family’s problems, Bartels believes that not only will he save his marriage, but he will also be rewarded for his sacrifices (63). The author claims he realized the separation between men and women during his late night chores (57). To illuminate this separation, Bartels acknowledges that his wife contributes more to childcare than he does, but asserts that he tries to reduce as much of this pressure as he can through cooking, cleaning, and shopping (58). Despite the author’s attempts, he contends that his endeavors to decrease his wife’s stress
When the man arrives at home from the hospital, he begins to remember that “this is his house” (Cherry 15). In the poem, “Alzheimer’s,” Kelly Cherry expresses the confusions and difficulties a man with dementia struggles with in life. The poem explores the chaos of the man who comes home from the hospital and his conflicts with his memory loss. The speaker is close to the man and is frustrated with him at the beginning of the poem, but the speaker’s feeling toward the man eventually shifts to sadness. Caring for a person with Alzheimer’s disease can be painful and heartbreaking, though people need to understand that familiar circumstances and with family support can help the patients whose mind is gradually changing.
Faces by Sara Teasdale is a sorrowful poem. The speaker is talks about the masks people wear to hide their pain. The “disguise” hide a person shame and embarrassment that is underneath the “city’s broken roar. ” When the speaker states, “the meeting of our eyes,” she is express that the stranger can see through her mask just as she can see through theirs.
Another element in this novel is Melinda’s inner conflict, man vs. self. What Melinda has been through greatly affected her everyday life. She struggles with depression, dislikes her appearance, and feels ashamed of herself for something that isn 't her fault: “I want to confess everything, hand over the guilt and mistake and anger to someone else...even if I dump the memory, it will stay with me, staining me” (Anderson 51). Andy Evans, the senior who raped her, made her feel worthless. This situation is much like the one in the novel The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins.