Lovely Bones by Alice SeboldDear Book Club,
The book I am reading is titled Lovely Bones and it is written by Alice Sebold. The novel Lovely Bones is about the murder of a fourteen year-old girl named Susie Salmon.
Susie is walking home from school one day when Mr. Harvey lures Susie into his dugout and then rapes and stabs her to death. After she dies, Susie goes to live in her version of heaven that looks like her hometown and high school. Only Susie’s hat and her elbow are found. Police suspect that Susie’s friend Ray Singh is the murderer but then figure out that he couldn’t have killed Susie. Mr. Harvey then takes Susie’s body and stuffs it into a safe and throws it into a sinkhole. Mr. Harvey keeps Susie’s charm bracelet and throws it into a field where a lake is being built. Susie’s father then sees Mr. Harvey building a tent and asks if he knows anything about Susie. Mr. Harvey’s answers make Mr. Salmon think that Mr. Harvey killed Susie.
Mr. Salmon then hires detective Fenerman to solve Susie’s murder and tells Fenerman that he think Mr. Harvey killed Susie. Fenerman then begins to question Harvey and Harvey tells Fenerman that he is building a tent to honor his dead wife Leah even though he told Mr. Salmon that his dead wife was named Sophia. Mr. Salmon is now positive that Mr. Harvey killed Susie.
Now everyone in the family begins to suspect that Mr. Harvey killed Susie. Susie’s mom doesn’t seem to really care though because she is having an affair with the private detective Fenerman. The daughter then sees the detective and the mother having an affair but she doesn’t say anything to anyone. Lindsey, Susie’s sister, then decides to try to find out whether Mr. Harvey killed Susie so she breaks into his house to try to find some evidence to give to the police. When she breaks into the house, she sees Susie’s ghost running around the house talking about all of the people that Mr. Harvey killed. Lindsey follows Susie up the stairs and finds a drawing of the dugout where Susie was killed. At that moment, Mr. Harvey walks into the house and hears a creaking up stairs. So Mr. Harvey runs up the stairs to try find out who’s up there and Lindsey jumps out the window and runs home with the drawing.
Mr. Harvey calls the police to tell them that Lindsey has broken into his house but the police have talked to Lindsey and know that she has a drawing of the dugout. Mr. Harvey says that he drew the sketch after she died so that he could help solve the murder. The police apologize to Mr. Harvey and he refuses to press charges against Lindsey.
Later, we find out that Mr. Harvey’s mom taught him that women and children are evil. He also used to play a game with his mom where he would steal things from dead people.
I think the climax of the book will happen when Mr. Harvey is found to be the murderer when Susie’s charm bracelet falls out of his pocket or something like that. I think the resolution will happen when Mr. Harvey is put in jail and Susie’s soul is allowed to go to real heaven and get away from this earth. I also think that Susie’s parents will divorce but they will be happier and the dad will be really happy because he worked so hard to figure out who killed Susie.
—Analiza Zungri (8th grade)
The Doll’s House by Katherine Mansfield
Dear Book Club;
I have currently just finished reading a short story, The Doll’s House, by Katherine Mansfield. It is about three sisters, Kezia, Isabelle, and Lottie Burnell who live with their wealthy family in a small town in New Zealand. After a family friend gives the Burnell children a present of a doll house, the girls go to school and start to brag about it. It wasn’t just any doll house, it was a magnificent doll house that was about four feet tall and five feet wide, and it had every thing in it from carpet in the drawing room to a stove and tiny plates and even a little oil lamp that looked almost as if you could light it. Their mother said that as long as the dollhouse was in the courtyard they could bring two of their friends from school everyday to come see it.
Now, this school that the Burnell children went to, was not at all the place their parents would have chosen had there been a choice, but there was none, for it was the only school for miles, and as a result, all the children from all the different family’s in the neighborhood went to the school-- from the judge’s son to the milkman’s daughters-- and there was sort of a status problem, but it had to end somewhere.
Hi! My name is Kezia Burnell. I am the protagonist and one of the main characters in this story. The antagonist is my society, the main setting is the town I live in, in New Zealand, the rising action begins when my sisters and I, go to school the day after we got our dollhouse, and during our recess gather everyone to brag about it, everyone that is except for the Kelveys. Lil and Else Kelvey were not allowed to play or even talk to us, just because they were very poor and rumor was that their father was in jail. The rising action continues when eventually all the girls at our school had seen our wonderful dollhouse except for the Kelveys.
The climax is when I see the Kelveys walking down the street and I have to decide if I should ignore them or ask them to come and look at our dollhouse. The resolution is when I take the risk of getting in serious trouble, and let the Kelveys into our courtyard to have a peek, and even though I get caught, I still feel like I did the right thing, for once I talked to them I realized that the Kelveys where very nice girls and should not be excluded from society. I predict that I will become very successful and wealthy.
Kezia Burnell
—Muhammad Mehai (9th grade)
Flowers For Algernon by Daniel Keyes
Dear Book Club,
I just started reading a three-hundred page book titled Flowers For Algernon, a novel by Daniel Keyes. I am currently on page one-hundred and thirty. Charlie Gordon was a mentally challenged thirty-two year old with an I.Q. of 62. He can barely read, write, or even talk properly. Until one day when he is chosen by a me and my team of scientists to undergo an experimental surgery designed to boost his intelligence. However, the surgery has only worked on a small white mouse named Algernon. After the surgery Charlie advances faster then we could have imagined. He advances so far that his intelligence surpasses our own. The experiment seems to be an amazing success until, Algernon suddenly deteriorates.
My name is Dr. Jay Strauss, I am the one who did the experiment on Charlie. Charlie is the Protagonist. He lives in a small apartment, and works at a bakery where he is treated very badly but is not smart enough to know. When I first saw him, I knew that he would be the one that we should use. He was not like rest, he wanted to smart. Once we knew we were going to use Charlie for the experiment, we started asking him to write a progress report every day. We also put him through some very simple tests. In one of the tests he had to race Algernon through a maze. And after a short time we were ready for the operation. At first Charlie was disappointed with the results because there was not immediately smarter. However, after short time his I.Q. level started climbing faster then we predicted. He started remembering his family and memories and even starts doing college level classes and books. He shocks the workers at the bakery by inventing a process designed to improve productivity. However, not long afterward, Charlie is fired from his job because the other workers are disturbed by the sudden change in him. Charlie soon becomes overwhelmed and confused by his knowledge and memories. And starts wondering if he should have done the surgery in the first place. This is the Rising to Action.
This is as far as I have read. I have not reached the Climax or Resolution yet, but I can feel the tension building. I predict that Charlie’s hardships will go on, but I am not sure what is going to happen after Algernon deteriorates. This is one of the best books I have ever read. It is very hard to predict but thats what makes it so thrilling. This a great book and a recommend it to all.
—Zane Christenson (9th grade)
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