Faithful Elephants Response

Imagine, everyday you saw a kid get bullied and he begged for help and used the last of his hope on you. You couldn't help him because you were too scared that you might become the bully's next victim and risk you life. This is similar to the short story, Faithful Elephants  by Yukio Tsuchiya. This story portrays a zoo where its animals must be put down because the government said bombs from the war could be dropped and let a dangerous animal loose. The elephants, Tonky and Wanly die in the end of hunger because poisoning them wouldn't work. The theme depicts that it is necessary to always help others in need.

One reason to support the theme is when a trainer broke down and helped the elephants. The elephants were nearly begging for food doing their trick. The trainer couldn't take feeling guilty about seeing the innocent elephants get punished. He took a risk by doing this, and when he was done giving them food, he was sobbing at the dangerous risk he took. The other trainers stood there, pretending that they hadn't seen the first trainer take such a risk. Those trainers were the scared bystanders afraid to take that jeopardy.

Another reason is that the elephants die because of their trainer fear to help. Before their death, the elephants performed their trick for food with every last bit of hope. No trainer could bring themselves to help the elephants anymore. The elephants were so innocent and hopeful, they didn't need to die; they weren't dangerous.

Overall, Faithful Elephants challenges the reader to think about how they treat others and if they care enough to help someone. If the trainers could stand up to avail or support the elephants with no fear, there would have been a "happy ending" for the elephants.

*****The conclusion sucks :((((( and also I wanted stronger words and I feel like I couldn't do that.*****

xJulia

Response to TFIOS*

Over the summer I read "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green. The book is about a 16-year-old girl with lung cancer who is forced by her parents to join a cancer support group, where she meets and falls in love with, Augustus Waters, a former cancer patient. They fall deeper in love when they visit Amsterdam when Augustus reveals something tragic. The theme of the book is about moving on, you can't evade death. Overall, I liked this book because it was comedic and tragic and taught a very important lesson.

*I tried hard not to spoil anything, so I just touched base with some important things that I had to mention.

Response to Persepolis

I notice the that the time period that Marjane lives in is rough and whats happening is affecting her greatly. She lives in Iran and there is a war during the 80's then. The war and government have a big effect on her. Marjane wants to go to demonstration , form her own opinions, and fight for whats right. She read all the time when she was 10 to learn about her country and government. I notice that she follows a lot of her dad's opinions.

CAN WE TALK ABOUT MARJANE AND HER REBELLIOUS LITTLE SELF. First of all, this little girl would stand up in class and point the teacher out when the teacher would tell the girls to wear the veil. I notice often Marjane would stand up and yell out her opinion if she thought the teacher was wrong. Also, on page 111, she hit the teacher when the teacher told a lot to not wear jewelry.

DIDNT MEAN TO PUBLISH THIS... I thought our first post was supposed to be about our young adult books.