Letter to my author

Dear Bartoletti,

I have recently read your book “The Boy Who Dared” and I must say that I believe that you did an excellent job on representing Helmuth in the Nazi-controlled Germany era. Your interpretation of what life was like as a Hitler youth in the prewar rise of the Nazi party in Germany. The way that you pay such close attention to detail in your book impresses me. When you describe the surroundings of your characters I can feel myself there in the story as if it was happening to me. I admire the drama you create to enhance the story as a whole. I can feel the anger or fear that the characters feel in the story as if it they were my own experiences. The way that you can project your intelligence into the characters of the story impresses me as well, such as the conversations between the characters were they go in depth and project their opinions. You capture the pain and unfair treatment of the Jewish people during the holocaust. I felt sorrow for those people while reading your book and it may have given me a new understanding of the pain and persecution that these people were forced to endure. I see that you have much imagination to craft such a great fictional story out of a story that happened in real life. The fact that you created a new look on the accounts of a young man that became a hero in a time where there was a such a shortage of heroes and nobles impresses me the most.

You as a writer impress me in many ways. The way that you started as a small town girl and became a English teacher that would inspire many young students to take a larger interest in writing. You woke up early to write and then went off to teach your English class. I'm sure that your interest in English and understanding of this language lend many of your students to further their own understanding and maybe even take up a career in writing. You started out as a short story reading and writer, to a picture book writing to writing truly great fictional book based off of real history changing events. Now you teach classes at universities and workshops teaching and continuing to inspire future writers for the next generation of great books and novels. The fact that there is no end to your imagination by the reasoning that you can take any historic event and create a great fictional story that shows its effects on the people how had to live it impresses me to no end. You truly are, in my opinion, who of the best fictional writers when it comes down to writing fictional stories about historic events. With this book you have inspired me to read more books all together. You are truly one of the best authors whose work I have read and I am very eager to read more stories that you have wrote over your years as a writer. Thank you for giving us a classic with “The Boy Who Dared.”

Sincerely,

Walker Upton

Vlog on "The Boy Who Dared"

Pics similar to "The Boy Who Dared"

This is what it looked like in Germany years before the war started while Germany was in a state of great depression due to the money they had to pay for losing the first world war. This is the scene of Germany during the book "The Boy Who Dared".

This is the symbol of the socialist party that Hitler leads and uses his powers to change the views of the Jewish people and persecute for no particular reason.

This is a picture of children that are sent to a Hitler youth camp after Hitler comes top power in Germany and it is a social norm for all the children to attend a Hitler youth camp.

This is the man who rose to power and took control of the peoples opinion to persecute the Jewish people and make them hated by the German general public.

This is a SS soldier like the one that the main character's mother is dating during the book.

This is a Jewish shop is the story where all Jewish shops were closed down and boycotted because of the things that Hitler was saying about the Jews.

Here is an SS soldier writing on the window of a Jewish shop telling everyone that this is a Jewish shop and you shouldn't buy anything there.

In the middle is the main character that this book is based on.

This is the author of this book that is based off the true events that occurred to Helmuth.

This is a picture of a camp that Helmuth might have been kept at along with other traders and Jews.

This is a picture of a guillotine that may have been used to bring this book to a tragic end...

21st Century English YES ENGLISH

So, 21st English. Well I've pretty much enjoyed English this far. I like reading books, and i enjoy writing papers. The papers that are easiest to write are any papers that have to do with my opinion. I've always found expressing my opinion through writing is easy. I just write how I feel about something. I find that I have a little difficulty in interpreting the meanings of stories or other writings. English is different then most other subjects. Any other subject has set rules and boundaries. Every other subject is about set things that have occurred or always will occur unless acted on by other things. English is unique. I kinda don't like the fact that we have decided to integrate social networking into it. It's just different then what we have grown up to. I think that its pretty silly I think that we should go back to just writing papers I seem to be a little better at that then keeping up with this blog. I think that we need to be GIVEN THE CHOICE on whether or not we want to create a blog or write papers. I think that I am reading this book on my own time and that i hate reading a loud in class, I'm not the fastest reader in the world and I'm not so good with everybody concentrated on me cause me to stutter and sounds stupid, I'd much rather read on my own because it's faster and I can concentrate better when I read it. When others read I find myself dozing off from the reading and not paying attention. Well that's what I think about 21st century English.

Spark Notes and You

I read these spark notes and I have to admit, they kinda do give some answers to anything that the teacher could give you to quiz on and the analysis after the summary does give some good ideas on what the author meant to write about. If you need to review really quick on a few chapters before a test or quiz then spark notes can work wonders. I have to admit that I have used that tactic many times but I have to add that it pales in comparison to reading the entire book. Spark notes serve as a review or a summary of the book and can leave out many smaller things that add to the book's character. The book has more description and goes into much greater detail when it comes to telling the story. I'd never read spark notes for a book that I want to read for pleasure. You miss many actual plot details when reading the spark notes. To compare something to spark notes, it is much like watching a movie or seeing a stack of pictures with a small paragraph to describe whats happening in each scene. To sum everything up, spark notes has its benefits in some situations but is not a substitute to reading the full book.

1st Blog Refection

All together I'm not really that sad about my grade of my blog. I didnt get an A but the grade I did get is much better than the one I was expecting, I'm oretty much new to this whole blogging thing so I guessthis last blog was sort of a warm up. I think I did a few things that were right, I finished most of my blogs, even though I was rushing to get as much as possible before it was due at the last minute. I think I will do a lot better then I did on my last blogs because I know more about what to expect when being assigned blogs. I hope to not procrastinate on my reading of my book. I hope to actually keep all up with all my blogs instead of doing most of them the night before all theblogs are due. My goals this quarter are to take this blog more seriously and hopefully get a better grade on it making my English grade go up. My attitude did change from what it was, at first my attitude about the blog was bad and refusing to do it on time. Now I see that it isnt that bad and I intend to do much, much better then before. "The Boy Who Dared" by Susan Campbell Bartoletti seems to be looking pretty interesting, I haven't really began reading it yet, but I'm pretty excited to see what this book has instore for me.

http://animoto.com/play/XmkKVr4cnQ1wGfNGbW78fg

Well this is my book trailer, I threw it together last minute, so the pictures don't really connect to the book but hopefully this will make you want to read the book. I promise this book is better then i make it look.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7942534-half-brother - This website is a good website to get a nice summary of the book. There are also several comments by people who read lots of books and post their opinion of the book.

http://iwasateenagebookgeek.blogspot.com/2011/01/review-half-brother-by-kenneth-oppel.html - This website gives a very detailed review of the book and could better help someone understand what the book is about and could give someone reason to read my book.

http://www.thebookbag.co.uk/reviews/index.php?title=Half_Brother_by_Kenneth_Oppel - This site reviews the book well and has some real life connections to the book as in it being based on real research done in the 70's.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/22/half-brother-kenneth-oppel-review - This website has a great summary told from the perspective other more people for a greater range of opinion.

http://www.ourhenhouse.org/2011/07/book-review-half-brother-by-kenneth-oppel/ - This website gives a great summary of the book and has many differents opinions on the book and the things that go on in the book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_language - This is a great website on the history on sign language. Sign language was the way Ben was able to communicate with zan.

http://www.npr.org/2008/05/28/90516132/the-chimp-that-learned-sign-language - This wensite is a great wensite that explains a real life experience of a chimp that learned how to communicate through sign language.

http://www.lifeprint/asl101/topics/chimpanzeeandasl.htm - This website is and interesting story and research on the american sign langauge and the chimpanzees that can learn to communicate with people using sign language.

http://www.pigeon.psy.tufts.edu/psych26/language.htm - This website shows more research and more history behind the use of sign language and chimps using it to communicate and how amazing it is that they can adapt to our languauge.

http://www.newportweb.com/thomas/ - This is a website about a specific account where a chimp learned asl which is the american sign languauge.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21569837/ns/technology_and_science-science/t/first-chimp-reported-learn-sign-language-dies/ - This website sad information about the death of the first primate to actually learn the American Sign Langauge.

http://www.signingsavvy.com/sign/CHIMPANZEE This website is a very easy video dictionary that shows different signs for different words in the American Sign Language that Zan wouldve used in my book.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washoe_(chimpanzee) - This website shows the completely story about the first chimp to learn ASL to communicate.

http://www.cwu.edu/~cwuchci/ - This website gives you information on an institute dedicated to the study and research of chimps learning our language.

http://www.primatesworld.com/TalkWithChimps.html - This website is great for research and the study of chimpanzees. It talks a lot about the strive for chimpanzees learning the human language, which is what Ben's dad is trying to find out.

Blog Comments =D

I really like the way you described the connection between the song and the story. I read the same book, as you know, and there are a lot of things that I agree on when it comes to your opinion about the story. I agree with when you say that the story has several fast pace parts that are pretty happy and then there are also lots of low points in the story where you would expect to have some slower, softer music. I enjoyed seeing your opinion of the story and whats kind of music it should have to represent it.

Abbie, LOVE YOU, lol, I love how you described yourself. I think its awesome that you love awkward moments. I think your hilarious and fun to be around =). Sarcasm is one of my favorite pass times. I got a lot out of your post when you described yourself and your book, good post Abbie =).

Classical Connect Blog

http://www.classicalconnection.com/music/2979


This composition reminds me of the book I am reading because it sounds playful and you can see the image of someone or something playing in the back ground. My book is about a family that raises a chimp from being a baby to growing up in a small house with the rest of his family. The chimp was always playful and it reminds me of him playing with the boy that took him in from the wild.

When the story gets serious and the boy might loose his brother and friend when his father's research funding runs out and he can't afford to a raise a chimp at his house because of the expenses. The slower parts of the song can make you feel the sadness and imagine the feeling that Ben feels when he might loose his best friend Zan.

This is the main charactr's dad's old car they had to ride in.

A sleeping bag the main character is forced to use.

A moving truck thats moving the family.

A mother monkey holding her baby.

Here are two baby monkeys like in my book.

Walker Upton's FIRST BLOG OMGGGG

My name is Walker Upton and this is my first blog on this website. I don't really like reading books as in I dont take time out of my busy day to read a book. Reading isn't my favorite past time but I enjoy a good book every once in a while. My whole experience with English isn't the best. My first year with English one I got kicked out of the class and dropped down to the lower level of Eglish. Then when I was a sophmore Mr. Dunn thought I was too smart for dumb English. So here I am a junior in English 3. I Don't really know what I'm doing here but I'll try my best =).

This blog's main purpose is to blog about the book I am reading for Read for a Lifetime. I hope that I can use this blog to get my opinions out. This blog is hopefulley a much better way to express how I feel about the book than typing a lengthy 5 paragraph essay every week. The name of my book is "Half Brother" by Kenneth Oppel. So far I've read a little into the book and it seems like it could come together and be worth reading in the end. I'm not gonna lie, probably the biggest reason I chose this book is because my hour of English is the last of the day and all the good books were gone.

Well I like to keep it simple, I think that the easiest and simplest thing to do is describe what you read and point out some main plot points and occurances. Maybe include something that requires research about a place or time in the book, or maybe even some research about a important person in our books if the book is nonfiction. These are just a few examples I'm not really a very creative about these kind of things so yeah. BYE thanks for reading my bloggggg.

^-^ =P =D :D :P 0.o O.o