Thr1llaZz

day 7

2005-05-15T19:58:00.000-07:00

10. Theme is the central idea or insight revealed by a work of literature. What is the author trying to say about life or the world? Identify an important theme for your book.

The them in my book is about not giving up to find the answeres to something that seemes like it already has an answer. This theme is dealing with Timmy's death. After his death everyone just believed that he had slipped in and died. But Mackenzie and P.C. were bound determined that, that was not the case. They believed that after the argument between him and his mother; that led to her pushing him over the edge "killing" him. Or atleast that's how he portrayed it. Later the two went to California to investigate on Timmy's mothers sudden move. When they came across someone that who had caught their eye that resembled Timmy in so many ways possible. The theme is shown here compairing how is mother tried killing him and he survived somehow and managed to get away and try to start over; with P.C. and Mackenzie not giving up until they found out the truth on wether or not Timmy's "death" was really an accident.

day 6

2005-05-05T12:18:00.000-07:00

17. What do you feel is the climax, or highest point of interest, in your novel? Did you feel anxious about what was about to happen in your book at this point?

I felt the climax of the book was when P.C. and Mackenzie were at the beach and saw the surfer who looked exactly like Timmy. They shouted and yelled for the "clone" to look over at them but kept heading into the opposite direction. The report on Timmy did state that they never did find any evidance of the body. So to P.C. and Mackenzie, Timmy could possibly still be out there and actually be alive. They believed that the "clone" was Timmy. Possibly trying to become a new person and never have to deal with his mother again and start over again as a whole new person.

day 5

2005-04-28T12:25:00.000-07:00

13. Compare and contrast a character in your book to yourself. How are you alike? How are you different? Would you act the same way as this character? Why or why not?

Choosing a character in the book to compair and contrast myself to, I would pick Mackenzie. She doesn't give up when she finds something interesting or worth looking into. She is very fun and outgoing and also athletic. She doesn't back down from a challenge or a road block on her path. She keeps going to overcome it and beat the obsticle. A difference between Mackenzie and me is that she is more of a girly girl than I am. But for the most part I could compair myself to Mackenzie in various ways.

day 4

2005-04-25T10:24:00.000-07:00

11. Point of View is the vantage point through which the writer tells his story. Identify the type of point of view used in your book (first person, third person limited, third person objective, omniscient). Explain how you know this is the correct point of view.

The point of view the auther uses is third person. Because the auther is speaking from one of the characters point of view. It shows the story of the book within that persons angle of the situations. When they travel out to L.A. to visit P.C.'s uncle; P.C. tells us their adventure throughout his point of view instead of anyone elses.

day 3

2005-04-14T10:13:00.000-07:00

1. A protagonist is the main character. Who is the protagonist of your book? Describe him/her.

The main characters of my book are P.C. and Mackenzie. They are both pretty close friends. They were both on the class trip when Timmy had his horrible accident when he fell over the waterfall to his death. Both P.C. and Mackenzie solve other types of mysteries all the time as well.

day 2

2005-04-07T10:28:00.000-07:00

12. Identify the setting (time and place) of the major part of your story. Is this setting important to your story? Why or why not?

The setting of my book is in Deleware at the Water Gap National Park. The junior class was spending their day at the park for a school project. The setting is very important tomy book because, it is the palce where Timmy died and as of now is a mystery to us all beause only his mother was at the scene with him and we aren't forsure if he fell or if he was pushed over the rock inwhich he went down river and over the waterfall.

The Surfing Corpse- day 1

2005-04-01T10:04:00.000-08:00

Title: The Surfing Corpse
Author: Paul Zindel
Number of Pages:124
Publisher and Copyright: 2001 by Paul Zindel
I selected this novel because it seemed like it could in some what of a way be relating to something that we have gone through and would understand in some ways.
Some clues I got from the cover was that it was about a high schooler and possibly about a passion of his; surfing. Also the blurbs of the book jacket stated that a bunch of friends went to have a good time which ended suddenly when "Timmy Warner plunges to his death over a 300-foot waterfall."

day 9

2005-03-29T12:30:00.000-08:00

The main character in my novel is Jennifer. Jennifer changes in many ways some being good changes and some being worse. Changes for better were her feeling comforetable in some ways to open up and talk with Dillon about what was occuring with her in her home life by her step dad. A change for the worse was that at times she would shut Dillon out and not feel comfortable around him even though they have been best friends since they were little. Jen's personality is widely different. At times she is outgoing and friendly and others she can be very shy and quiet.
The novel is about two friends both being extreamly talented athletes. But both have trubling secrets that they are hiding from the world. Dillon tries to help Jen overcome her past and present by talking about what she has endured. Dillon goes through witnessing his brothers death and Jennifer going through being molested by her setp dad. The novel goes through the daily lives of these two friends and how they deal with their fears and try to hide from them.
The story takes place in a medium sized town. The setting of the novel takes place at one of Dillon's triathalons in Riverfront Park. This adds to the novel by Dillon spending a majority of his time trainging for this event. The time period of this novel takes place in the early 1900's. I can tell just by certain things they do that are older than what we do now and also things they do that are close to waht we do so it was some what of a close time period to what we are in now.
The climax occurs in the middle end of the novel when Jen decides to feel comfortable telling Dillon what has happened to her. This scene went through by Dillon wanting to be more open with Jen and her being able to speak about her problems with him. Dillon was driving his car with Jen in it; they were going out to eat "as friends". When Dillon asked why she seemed to always be hiding something and never wanting to talk about it and getting upset whenever he'd try and mention the subject. Jen finally broke down and trusted Dillon enough to tell him what had been happening to her throughout her life.
I think the author wrote this book just to show how someone who is being molested just how they go about their life; and the struggle of being in constant fear of everything from having a boyfriend to even going home at the end of the day. Also showing how tough and stress one goes through by enduring and witnessing a family members death. The auther is trying to point out that it is tough for them and it takes time for one to learn to overcome this and learn to cope with it and it may take a lot of time depending how much trama they have endured.
I rate this book a 9 because it is a great novel in teaching us the struggle of ones every day life that they must go through of constantly having so much pressure and being in fear of a secret they must hide from. I recomend this novel because everyone should learn how others have to go through a lot just because of a secret and lies they have been faced with.

day 7

2005-03-16T12:30:00.000-08:00

Within this novel there are two main characters; and both of them have shown very much so that they personally are dealing with internal conflict and Jen is also dealing with man vs. man conflict. First off Jen has been struggling since she was young with trusting men because when she was younger her father used to molest her. Now her stepfather is beggining to do the same thing to her and this time there is no way she can tell anyone or her mom or even her little sister may be hurt. Her internal conflict is trying to understand why this is happening to her and somehow to tell herself it's not her fault and that this is wrong. The second character that is also dealing with some conflict is Dillon. He is struggling with internal conflict in reflection of his brothers death. To him it was his fault he didn't see it coming, or even possibly react fast enough to pull the gun out of his hands before he shot himself. His brother stated to him before he took his life that he was always behind the shadows of his "all-star brother" and was never recognized for who he individually was. From this Dillon seems to think it's his fault that this is the way his brother truely felt and that now he is gone because he let it build up without ever telling anyone until it was to late. If I had to make a prediction about what will happen next, I predict that Dillon is going to risk his relationship between him and Jen to get her help and to make sure she is going to be safe somewhere else rather than inside that house she is living in now with her stepdad.

day 6

2005-03-03T12:34:00.000-08:00

The scene I choose to write about is one of the more recent ones that I just read about. It starts off when Dillon wants to spend more time with Jen, so they decided to go out to dinner one night. The main point of the scene takes part within Dillon's car on their way to the restraunt. Jen decribes to Dillon what actually has been goin on with her; and why she has been hinding all of her emotions within.
Rewritting this scene in Jen's perspective instead of Dillons.
I look out the window trying to avoid any possible sign that I wanted to talk. I could tell there was something bothering him because he was using his going around the topic method for a little while and I knew it was coming up sooner or later. I guess he couldn't take it anymore so he just blurted out "God damn it, Jen, tell me something. This is driving me crazy, I'm serious. I can handle that we aren't lovers, and I can handle being your friend; but I can't be a good friend if I don't know what your pain is all about. You're in so much pain sometimes. . . ."
Then without moving a muscle towards him, without turning towards him, I said, "My stepdad messes with me."
I just started going off letting him know everything that was ever wrong between me, my real dad, and my stepdad. Dillon just kept asking me question after question about why I never told anyone. But I did. I tried twice before and the same thing both times. My stepdad always outsmarted them because he was one of them; so he knew everything there was to make them think I was making it up each time. So I knew he would overpower me and he would never lose. I made him promise me that he would never and I mean never tell anyone if he ever wanted us to be friends.

day 5

2005-02-24T12:27:00.000-08:00

The setting of this novel takes place in Ohio during the end of winter, begining of spring. I believe the book takes place around the early 1990's. Throughout my novel there is one place in particular that is significant to it for various reasons. The main character Jen has a significant place for her at her high school gym where she can play basketball. Just getting away is a huge relief for her to get out of her house. Taking all her emotions and worries from home and placing them on the basketball court has prooven to be helpful to Jen with controling how she survives each day in and day out.

day 4

2005-02-17T12:30:00.000-08:00

-Important Quotations-
1) "C'm'ere, J. Maddy. Let Grampa read you some poetry," and Jen automatically glances up in delight. "This here's real poetry. None of them 'silver bells and cockled shells' an' the rest of that foolishness." --pg.37--

2) "Remember Old Lady Crummet's cat? Old Charlie? I thought about old Charlie while I was struggling to get my pants back on up on the epool table. While I should have been thinking how the hell I was going to get down and get more drugs, I was thinking of old Charlie. I was remembering how I told myself, clear back then, if I ever got that far out again-anytime in my life-well, that would be the end of me." He nodded, staring at the Luger. "Well, last night I did it." He looked at Dillon straight in the eye as he raised the gun. "I left you a note, Dillon. And I left something else." -- pg. 64--

-Explanation of Quotations-
1) Jen's grandpa ment the world to her. Especially when he would read her poetry. Any time she could be with her grandpa she cherished every single second of it. She knew she would rather spend her time safe and with her grandpa than to be at home. The quote her grandpa said about this being real poetry; this ment that it was deeper and considered more thought into it than the regular old poetry out there.

2) Preston made this remark as an attempt for his brother to see what was going to happen before it actually did. At a terrible point in his life he was hooked on drugs horribly. Stating "if I ever got that far out again-anytime-in my life-well, that would be the end of me." Here Preston was trying to tell Dillon that he had reached that point of to far and it was indeed the end of his life. This is significant in the fact that Preston is Dillon's brother and even though they weren't close this is going to leave some traumatic effects for Dillon here to come.

day 3

2005-02-10T12:17:00.000-08:00

A character I met in our reading was Dillon. He is one of Jennifer's closest friends. They are alike in so many different ways. They are two of the best athletes in their school. Except Dillon won't go out for any of the school sports at their high school. He could easily make Varsity in any of the sports if he would just go out. Instead he trains for triathalons on his own. Dillon has a brother around the same age as him who is physicaly handicaped. His name was Preston. We learned from Preston that he didn't really get along with Dillon all that often for the simple fact that Dillon was to protective of his brother. While Preston was expressing his feelings and emotions to his brother one night he killed himself before Dillon could grab the gun away from his head. Sofar this is all I have learned about Dillon in this book.

day 2

2005-02-03T12:15:00.000-08:00

In my book Chinese Handcuffs, there are two main characters. The first one is Dillon Hemingway; and the second is Jennifer Lawless. Dillon is an amazing athlete. Even tho he doesn't devote himself to one particular sport he could make varsity in any sport at his high school. He is currently training in the triathalon. He wants to make it to the olympics in the triathalon some day. Then on to Jennifer. She is also a great athlete. She is very competative and doesn't slack off in any way. This first part of my book actually focused on Jennifer more so than Dillon. Jennifer is working very hard through basketball right now. She is one of the top students in her class with a 4.0 throughout and also one of the states top basketball players. The other states best player is coming to town at the end of the week for one of the seasons biggest games of the year.

first day

2005-01-27T12:26:00.000-08:00

1) title of novel- Chinese Handcuffs
2) author- Chris Crutcher
3) number of pages- 220
4) publisher and copyright- Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc.
copyright- 1989 by Chris Crutcher
5) why did I select this novel- because a couple of my friends suggested it to me
6) clues I've gotten from book- about a boy and a girl both very competitive and talented. Both with another side to them inwhich they aren't quite willing to reveal.