Clean Break Reading Response/ December 14, 2009

I have just finished reading a book called Clean Break by Jacqueline Wilson. This book was very touching and very sweet. Sometime’s things can happen and you don’t expect them to. Em~ the main character was very nice trying to comfort her family even when she felt bad that her step dad moved out. I can relate to that because my friend comforted me when both of us felt bad about an argument with another friend. This connection made me understand what the author was trying to tell me and helped me understand the story. This is a Just Right book for me because I can comprehend the story and there were a few words that I didn’t know.

On Christmas eve, Frankie (Ems step dad) tries to make everyone as happy as possible before telling them he’s moving out. Em eavesdrops a conversation on the phone between Frankie and his other girlfriends saying that he’s going to move out soon. Everyone gets to know about it and is extremely sad. Vita and Maxie Frankies real children miss him and so does Em and her mom. Frankie visited but it was awkward for Ems mom when he did and he would take Em, Maxie and Vita out to carnivals. One day, Frankie takes them out without telling their mom (his wife) and Ems mom gets so worried she calls the police. They came back before the police found them and Ems mom says that they should have a clean break~ meaning not seeing each other again.

Months pass and Frankie misses them so much he comes back and they become one big happy family again because Ems mom misses him too. I think that the author should have made the book make more sense because people just don’t leave their house and then say sorry about it but still leave their house. I think the moral of the story is that don’t leave your family because you can always count on them and you love them more than anyone in the world.

Sign of the Beaver/ December 1st 2009

Matt and his father arrive in the middle of a forest and build a cabin there. As soon as his father set's out to go get his other part of his family, Matt thinks he's all alone. Stupidly, Matt tries to get honey from a bee hive and get's stung all over his body but get's saved by an Indian grandfather named ''Saknis''. When Matt recovered, Saknis brought him to his grandson, Attean. Saknis wanted Attean to be able to read a white man's treaty. Matt would give the lesson's to read to Attean and in return Matt would be provided with food and shelter. Attean didn't like Matt much because he was a white boy. Matt would read "Robinson Crusoe" to Attean and Attean would get highly interested and would tell it to his tribe that night. Throughout the book, Attean and Matt teach each other things. Attean teaches Matt how to fish without getting little fish, get gum from a tree, how to clean the bark from a tree to make that a stick to stick a fish on it and cooking it in the forest without as Attean said "Without, white man's tool's". As both of them meet each other everday, they bond a friendship. Matt get's invited to the Indian tribe for a feast! In the end of the book, Attean find's his manitou so he can become a hunter. Saknis says, "You come with us, you are white brother to us" to Matt. Matt got so honered because he was called "White brother". But he refused to go with them because he needed to wait till his family came back. When Matt's family came, he told them all about the Indian's and when his father told him that they would have neibours Matt didn't really like the idea. That was a sign that he was starting to think like an Indian!