Dear 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 14 year-old girl named Susie Salmon living in Norristown, Pennsylvania. One day, Susie is walking home from school when a neighbor, named Mr. Harvey, lures Susie into his dugout saying that he’s going to show her something that he had built for her. When Susie gets in the dugout, Mr. Harvey rapes her and then he pulls out a knife and stabs her to death. After she dies, Susie goes to her version of heaven. Susie’s body is never found, but the police find her hat and her elbow in the cornfield near Susie’s house. Mr. Harvey takes Susie’s body back to his house and puts it into a safe and throws it into a sinkhole. Susie’s father then suspects Mr. Harvey killed Susie because he has been acting weird. Mr. Salmon hires detective Fenerman to solve Susie’s murder. Mr. Fenerman and Susie’s mom, Abigail, begin having an affair. Susie’s sister, Lindsey, then breaks into Mr. Harvey’s house and steals a picture of the dugout where Susie was killed from Mr. Harvey’s house but Harvey comes home and catches Lindsey but Lindsey is able to escape. Everyone thinks that Harvey killed Susie. Abigail leaves the family and moves to California. Susie’s dad has a heart attack and almost dies. Abigail and Susie’s dad eventually get back together and when Harvey tries to prey on another teenage girl Susie is able to use her powers in heaven to kill Mr. Harvey.
Mr. Harvey looks like an average white male with dark hair and glasses that his eyes peered out over. Mr. Harvey is about average height and he is a little bit overweight.
I would Mr. Harvey with the adjectives disturbed and selfish. Mr. Harvey is disturbed because of all the things that happened to him when he was a child. His mother used to teach him how to steal things from graves and his mother also used to tell him that dead people weren’t important to think about and that stealing things from dead people was alright. His mother also used to sleep with him and he was made fun of a lot because of this. He seems to have sexual thoughts about his mother but she doesn’t seem to stop these thoughts but makes them worse through the secrecy and her sleeping with him when he is older. He was even there when his mother ran some guy over because the guy was making fun of them for being cuddled up in a car.
Mr. Harvey is selfish because of all the things he does to people and doesn’t care about hurting them or their families. We know that Mr. Harvey killed lots of other young girls because Susie sees them all in heaven and Mr. Harvey has disturbing dreams about all these people that he killed. Mr. Harvey has to be selfish to act like this and not care about hurting other people. He is only thinking of what he wants and needs and not thinking of how his actions effect other people.
These characteristics are important to the story because without this there would be no murder and no story. I don’t like this character because he is sick but part of me feels sorry for all the stuff that his mother did to him. His mother made him sick and twisted and it’s not completely his fault he is this way but I still think that you shouldn’t rape people and kill people just because you had a bad childhood.
—Analiza Zungri (8th grade)
The Hand You’re Dealt by Paul Volponi
Dear Book Club,
The book I have currently finished is titled, The Hand You’re Dealt, by Paul Volponi.
It has 168 pages. When Huck Porter’s father suddenly dies, things don’t seem like they’ll ever make sense again. Huck's “best friend” thinks he should deal with it, and abandons him, and the girl he likes won’t give him the time of day. To make things worse, Mr. Abbott, a hungry card shark and Huck’s math teacher, now wears the poker winner’s watch that Abbott stole from his deathbed. Now Huck vows to get even no matter what it takes. The main character is Huck Porter, a seventeen year old boy, dealing with the loss of his dad. When Huck enters the poker tournament to win back the watch, he wears headphones, dark sunglasses, and a baseball cap, so none of the other players will recognize him or “read” him. One of the main personality traits of Huck’s, and one of the themes in the book, is vengeance. Because Abbott stole his father’s winning watch while he was dying, Huck spends all of his time watching Abbott, developing his poker skills, and dreaming of ways to get even with him. An example of this would be when Huck begins to watch Abbott in class, “Reading” him for signs of bluffing, and beginning to have daydreams of Abbott being respectful to him and his mother. On the other hand, Huck is very sensitive. His mother doesn’t have much money, working double shifts to make ends meet. Because the poker tournament is for 18-teen year olds and up, Huck lies to his mother, and this makes him very uncomfortable and guilty, like when his mother told him she knew he was at the rec-center, but for a different reason than playing poker, and after lying to her, Huck examines himself wondering if he’s doing the right thing. These personality traits are important to the story because without them, there would be no story. This is a coming-of-age book with poker, and was good until the end, which sucked. Huck’s a good character, and the only thing I dislike is that he gets into the game too much, and cant focus on the world outside. This book was okay, and even though I didn’t really understand all the poker terms, it was interesting for a quick read.
—Amariah Walton (8th grade)
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