The First Stone By Don Aker

My book is called A Child Called “It” by Dave Pelzer. It has 182 pages, all of which are full of sadness. The genre is an autobiography of Dave Pelzer’s abusive childhood. My book is a terrifying story of a mother who used to be loving, but became abusive because of alcohol. She took out her anger on Dave, her youngest son. Dave’s father was his Superman. He relied on his father to sneak him small bits of food when he was starved, and to talk to him when he was lonely. But when his father left his mother because of her insanity, Dave had no one. He started to rely on school to get food. He would steal from other kids’ lunchboxes during recess. This would result in more beatings from Mother. I decided to read this book because my mom told me about it a long time ago. It seemed like an interesting book. A Child Called “It” was published by the Omaha Press in 1993.

The book uncovers the harsh reality of our juvenile system in the 1990’s. The stories in this book seem unreal, but the sad thing is that every word that was written was a true story. No Matter How Loud I Shout covers seven kids’ stories of just one year of their life in the juvenile system, a deputy district attorney who wants justice for the victims, a judge who wants to scare these kids into doing good, and a sister who wants the best for these kids and to see them succeed. The juvenile justice system is so messed up that only three of the seven were saved, one did not get punished properly due to his age, and the rest were failed by the system and ended up where they never thought they would, prison. One of the success stories was Carla James. She was a fifteen-year-old girl that

In Tim O’Brien’s novel “In the Lake of the Woods” the protagonist John Wade a Vietnam war veteran struggles through life after retiring from the army. Through textual evidence within the novel one of John’s struggles is battling his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which is attributed to traumatic events such as war that soldiers deal with when coming back from war into civilian life throughout his senior years. This disease is diagnosed after analyzing scholars work upon these mental illness that soldiers have. These sources are “Traumatic Encounters: Reading Tim O’Brien” as well as “PLAUSIBILITY OF DENIAL: Tim O'Brien, My Lai, and America” both scholarly sources discuss the traumatic experiences that John had which led to his PTSD.

In “The First Stone” by Don Aker, he introduces positive change towards both Reef and Leeza. They both retain a rough instance in their time, but with the help of others they prevail. And if Reef were to never gain the opportunity to meet Leeza, they both may not have changed. Unfortunate coincidences can bring two seemingly, unconditionally different people – Leeza and Reef, Reef and Colville, Val and Leeza – together, and help them heal.

Reef comes face to face with the mistakes that he committed in his life, and he makes

In the book Glass Castle, Jeannette and her family don’t let all of the circumstances around them stop them from dreaming any smaller. Perseverance is the persistence of taking action, especially in spite of difficulties. Perseverance is overcoming the tough things in life, and not letting them get the best of you. In fact, for the most part, the Walls’ kids all worked a little harder to reach their goals. Lori, Jeanette, and Brian save up money so Lori can pursue her life outside of Welch, and move to New York City. Jeannette later follows after she graduates high school, and attends Barnard College. She later because a writer and an author. Brian achieves his goal of being a cop and then later a teacher. All of the Walls’ kids knew the

Near the end of the book The First Stone, Reef is visiting different schools, to speak about his experience. As Frank and Reef were driving back Reef “saw the chain-link fencing that now made it impossible for anyone to throw objects into the traffic below. Because of me, he thought. That’s because of me”(Aker 284).Reef immediatly realized what had been caused by throwing a rock into the traffic below. A rock, which had affected so many people like Lezza who was in the hospital. Moreover, Reef is now beginning to realize more about what he had done and as well put more deep thought into it. Reef thought “ There were times when it seemed like the events of that day on the overpass had happened to someone else, some other Reef Kennedy … He knew that now. Shit got made. And the worst shit is the shit we make for ourselves”(Aker 284). Comparing Reef Kennedy now and Reef Kennedy back then. There has been a change. A change where Reef himself can see. As Reef is questioning himself about what happened during the overpass, he is beginning to feel remorseful for his

Cole, an adolescent delinquent, adopts a fallacious tenet that fuels his anger: life, the people and actions around him, is a facade. To begin with, Cole commits a lot of crimes throughout his teenage years. His most recent crime, punishing Peter, a natural target for bullies, resulted in indelible damage to both Peter’s brain physically, and Cole’s personality mentally. “Cole jumped on him again and started smashing his skull against the sidewalk… It took six other students to pull him away finally. By then Peter was cowering on the blood-smeared sidewalk, sobbing. Cole laughed and one at him even as he was held back. Nobody crossed Cole Matthews and got away with it.” (7). Blinded because of his mentality, vengeance is just one action that Cole portrays of his unbridled animosity towards the world. By finding himself in trouble, Cole seizes opportunities to manipulate his milieu to tell the world that he was no fool to their masquerade. After Peter’s family filed a custody, Cole decides to use the Circle of Justice to his advantage to get out of jail. “ ‘Usually the jail sentence, if there is one, is reduced under Circle Justice.’

People can change and learn from their mistake.Learning from mistakes can influence people for the better. Reef learns his lessons in the “The First Stone” by Don Aker. Reef is in the North Hills group home for a year because of the Judge’s sentence. While at the group home, Reef begins to learn the importance of respect, the need for self-reflection and how important are true friendships. He was influenced by Frank Colville , Leeza and Alex.

In “Blind to Failure”, Erik Weihenmayer has many good character traits. Particularly he is extraordinary, brave, and very committed. To begin, Erik proves himself to be extraordinary when he decides to take on a great challenge, disregarding his disability, and his reasoning was “I knew that if I went and failed, that would feel better if I didn’t go at all.”(277) I consider this to be extraordinary because not only does he climb Everest, but he is also blind. Additionally, in the excerpt, Erik mentions how he does not let his disability hold him back. Ordinarily, a blind man doesn’t choose an intricate, complex task because they rely on patterns, but Erik decides to take on a task that almost guarantees to need sight. Second, I characterize

Throughout The First Stone, many characters’ personalities and general attitudes toward things change due to the experiences. The most drastic change in personality goes to Reef. Reef went from delinquent to a productive member of society, all because of the Youth Criminal Justice Act. This allowed Reef to experience the life of rehab, and realize the error of his ways. The North Hill home allowed Reef to share his stories and learn from his mistakes. All of this is because he had been given a forgiving sentence, giving him a second chance. Frank Colville was once a criminal, one who “...had a rap sheet as long as his arm.” (Aker 119) But despite all this, he still managed to kick his drug habit and become a productive citizen who spends his time helping teens in need. This goes to show that even the most disorderly of criminals can still do great things if given a second chance. Even though Scar was a good student, her father, a dealer, makes her deal for him. In the end, Scar leaves Halifax to go to Toronto to pursue post-secondary education. Leaving Halifax also means leaving her father as well as the stuff she had done in the past. The opportunity to move out of Halifax gave Scar a chance to become a beneficial member of society and to secure her future. As shown by these examples from The First Stone, no matter what someone may have done, there is a way for them to make up for it. By making up for it, they are benefiting both themselves as well as

William Cullen Bryant wrote “Thanatopsis” at the very young age of seventeen. The word thanatopsis is defined as, “a view or contemplation of death.” It surprised me when I learned that he had written such a deep and detailed poem about nature and death when he was my age. I had to read the poem a couple of times before I even began to understand Bryant’s wording and what he meant by it all.

Everyone has depression, but did you know on October 29, 1929 the whole US went into depression. People lost their jobs, people lost their homes and lot’s of other things. Every bits and piece was super valuable at that time.

The First Part Last is a novel about this teenager named Bobby and how teenage pregnancy affects his life. The story goes from then to now every chapter and, and at the end of the book, the then and now meets up. Bobby Impregnates a teenage girl named Nia (his girlfriend). The story talks about how they make it through this rough time. Near the end, Nia starts to get eclipse, which girls have a chance to get when they are pregnant. At the end of the story Bobby has turned into an adult at the end of The First Part Last as he should have because Angela Johnson has all these symbols leading to Bobby maturing from then to now, and will be brought into further depth.

“The Glass Castle” is a biography, drama written by Destin Daniel Cretton; it portrays a young girl (Jeanette Walls) and her family as they struggle in poverty stricken towns with a mother who is an eccentric artist and her alcoholic father who she blindly puts her faith in. The film was released on August 11, 2017 and features Brie Larson, Woody Harrelson, and Naomi Watts among others. The big question, “What do I think about “The Glass Castle” film? The film was dissatisfying overall, I did not feel same emotional attachment that I felt with the book. They did not show enough of Jeanette and Rex’s connection to each other. It seems to only portray the bad events of their childhood, and mostly portraying Rex as a villain. They did not show