Burkman English 11

The ending of this book introduced a few new characters some who helped and some who did the opposite. There were run in with the cops and separation of the group that was so tightly put together and thought to be inseparable.

Odie believed it would be better to leave the group as he felt they had found a better home. He wanted to finish the journey to saint Lousie. He got on box car and went on his way leaving both his friends family and memories in the dust of the box car.

I personally don’t know how Odie managed to do this. I couldn’t have left my brothers and friends in the past and leave without even saying goodbye to them. That almost feels like betrayal not even telling anyone your leaving because you don’t want them to tell you no or to try and go without you. The author also uses a lot of imagery and lack of imagery saying how there isn’t any light poles and there will be eventually kinda showing him being alone and in darkness now but in the future it will be bright and worth it in the end.

I find it crazy how they’ve done all of this traveling and escaping evil people and police before Odie has even turned 13. They are younger then me yet doing things I would never see myself doing. Odie has killed multiple people in defense of his own life and the lives of his friends that takes a lot of courage especially when the person doing the killing isn’t even a teenager yet.

During Odie’s trip in the boxcar he cries for his brother as that is the deepest connection he has had. They’ve been through everything together and now they are separated for the first time I could only imagine the pain he felt because of this separation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxcar

Odie made it to saint Louise on the box car. Odie found aunt Julia and she was in disbelief. she didn’t believe he finished school and wasn’t expecting him at all. So he told her his story. She told Odie he could sleep in her attic. Seems kinda slow at this part likes there not excited to see each other at all. It seen at the end odie still considered himself a murderer and a kinapper after what’s he’s done on his journey.

The book shifts to another dark time and seems even worse then when they were traveling. Arguements and crude descriptions of the environment. They ran into the brickman’s I did not exspcet this at all. I don’t think Odie did either. She has a gun to and is out for revenge I think. Crazy ending.

This part of the book was a good change from what has been happening in previous chapters. They brought back a little more excitement in the chapters with the change in the pace of the story and the confrontation of sister eve and side.

Odie and the whole gang of kids went to whisker to ask if he knew the truth about what Sid and sister eve were going to do to them. Whisker jumped around the question and told them that they better to talk sister eve about it rather then him explaining it for her. I don’t know if he was doing this because he didn’t know the truth about the kids or if he just didn’t want to tell them and thought it would sound better if the sister told them instead to try and comfort them.

Once the kids got to sister eve she tried to reason with odie but odie got made and took out one of sids harmless snakes that couldn’t do anything to them, however this frightened emmy and she got scared and ran into the other snake enclosure with lucifer in it. (The poisonous snake) So lucifer is now free and Albert ran in and saved emmy at leading to him being bitten on the leg and brought to the hospital.

This is where we see Odie at his lowest. He feels this is all his fault and for good reason because of his explosion and inability to keep his anger down he caused a chain reaction of misdeeds that are leading to the chance of his brothers death. In the last post I also wrote about how Odie found Sid’s dope at least that’s what he thought it was in reality it was antivenom for lucifer. and Odie threw it in the river in the last section so Albert is really screwed now.

The hospital wasn’t very useful either as they didn’t have any antivenom due to the fact that they don’t have rattlesnakes in that area. They called different hospitals, but it would take about 5 hours to get to them and they couldn’t wait that long. They tried suctioning the poison out and cutting home alberts leg at the chance to get some of the poison out. The doctor wants to amputate the leg, but albert would rather die then not have a leg, which seems weird but at the same time not having a leg wouldn’t exactly be fun.

All in all this chapter was pretty fun and exciting to read and I hope it keeps a pace like this for the rest of the book. https://crofab.com/

This Chapter since they left the school has been practically the same as the last couple of chapters they’ve have been on their own then taken in by the new people they find then the new people turn against them and they have to leave them to keep on going by themselves. We found out that Sid is turning against them like the one man advised them to. I forget his name, but he talks with Odie every once in awhile. I think its Whiskers or something like that.

https://theeditorsblog.net/2010/07/05/the-power-of-repetition/#:~:text=Repetition%20is%20a%20powerful%20force,to%20a%20seemingly%20minor%20detail.

Odie had another change in his personal beliefs when it seemed like he was going to become a more passionate believer in Christianity with the persuasion of Sister Eve, but after Sid convinced sister eve to get rid of the kids he blamed it on all the bad things that have happened because of the Tornado god. He calls God the Tornado god because the tornado has destroyed Odie’s life and it ties in with his hatred for God himself.

To my surprise Albert didn’t figure out Sid’s plan since he’s the smart one who is usually more suspicious of other people and keeps out a better eye for things that could possibly be hurtful to the group. I was also surprised the group took the information Odie gave them so easily besides emmy who had a little bit of disbelief in the chance Sister eve could be a bad person. (Makes sense since Emmy is still a little child who doesn’t have good reason)

Sid has snakes that have been interesting Odie a lot and I see a connection between Sid and the Snakes as there both symbols of evil in the story right now. Sid has a super poisonous snake he keeps and handles and Sister eve has 2 snakes that are harmless kinda representing each of the people as sister eve isn’t trying to hurt the kid or destroy there lives While Sid has it out for them and is only interested in the money

Summary: The group of kids found this Christian tent traveling service type thing where there’s is this woman named sister eve who sings super good and does healing miracles which I don’t know if there real or not and albert the smart kid in the group albert doesn’t believe there real and didn’t trust this sister but then the sister tracked odie and emmy down found the group and somehow convinced albert to trust her.

There has been a big character change within Albert as we’ve seen some new emotions from him throughout the escape as he acts like the parent of the group. He doesn’t like the eagerness of the “kids of the group” AKA the rest of the people. He’s started demanding certain things out of people and kinda getting angry with everyone rather then keeping his cool like he has throughout the earlier parts of the book.

Mose also has changed a little bit as he feels left out from the group as he isn’t allowed to do certain things because of the color of his skin. This means he’s stuck at camp and isn’t allowed to do anything in town like the rest of the kids. (Until sister Eve took them in)

There is a implication of new drama coming to the group of kids as Odie is highly favored by the sister (who is a full grown women and Odie is a kid) And Sid who is either talking or dating sister Eve (Sid is a full grown man) is jealous of his musical talent and how much sister eve has taken to the kid. Seems to me kinda weird how a full grown man is jealous of a little orphan kid, but you do you sid. I think Sid is going to freak out and try and turn in emmy against sister eve’s will.

https://www.compassionuk.org/blogs/modern-day-miracles/

Modern-day miracles

This chapter of this book has been kinda similar to the last one in terms of meeting people who help them and then they leave them. For context, the last person who helped them got drunk and was going to kill them so they had to kill him. Now there was a man who informed them that they have a 500 dollar bounty on their head.

I feel like the main character Odie is going through a change in his beliefs. He started off with a form of harted for Christianity and God. However they went to this church-type place where this women was singing beautifully and attracted odie and the group as he likes music a lot. Overall leading him to liking the singing and the free food they got and he saw her perform to Mericles. I predict his opinion on God will change more over the story and he will eventually come to either supporting or tolerating the religion.

Another change is in a character called Mose as he in now disliking his Native American ansestry. He dones’t like be discluded in activities because he is a native and has to stay at home. I don’t blame him not bein able to do as much as the rest of the group must suck.

Overall I think there might be a dispute between the group as they seem to always go against Alberts best intentions for the group and that could lead to problems with the group or problems with other people as they are doing more risky things that could lead to them getting caught and brought back to their school.

This was an interesting section. This section talks about their life escaping from the school. A lot has happened throughout this story from their time in the school to living on their own and trying to take advantage of other people. They went to buy shoes from a shoe shop lying about how they got their money and what they have to do with their money later on. Trying to make the people feel bad about what they’re saying a give them a better deal.

I like what’s going on right now in the book it’s interesting to see how they are surviving by themselves and escaping from danger. Some of the decisions they make are pretty questionable which makes sense because they’re still kids but common sense should still apply to them. Like they went and ate with this scary farmer guy with a shotgun in his hand. I could see that being a very bad decision in my mind but when your desperate I guess you got to what you got to do.

I’m excited to see what happens next in the story and see what they decide to do I wish it was a little faster-paced right now but it’s not that slow so it’s still easy to read.

This section I read had a lot going on as well as a lot of twists in the story that I didn’t expect to happen so fast. I figured some of them would probably happen, but 80 pages into a 400-page book seems a little fast pace. One of the main events in the book was the tornado first of all that destroyed a lot of the town and Mrs Frost who was one of the only people who cared about the main characters. This shocked me as to why she died in the first place. I say this because she put her child in a safe place and then left to go save a draft horse. I can see it had meaning to her but is it more important than being with your child during a tornado. Probably not.

This is what I imagined the damages to look like in the book the little girl who is the daughter of Mrs frost was trapped in the cellar under a bunch of debris caused by the tornado.

Another event in the book I could kinda see happening, but surprised me as the timing of it was rather unpredictable. DeMarco the same man who kidnapped the kids out of the school beat them with a leather strap and did other things to them was killed by the main character Odie. I say the timing of it was strange as DeMarco said he was going to bring him to the principles husband to look for someone then they had like a 5 minute battle/escape from DeMarco as he was really just trying to kill him. This part was weird because Odie put so much confidence into what DeMarco was saying rather being more uneasy about his words. We also figured out what happened to the little kid who went missing as DeMarco snatched him and killed him in the query same as what he wanted to do with Odie.

I like this image to represent the quarry as it was explained as a dark pit 200 ft deep and since it was night time it was pitch dark around the hole itself. This is where Odie pulled DeMarco into the pit as DeMarco was trying to get Odie in there himself.

Lastly, this was a more common idea that I highly expected out of the book as the main kids from the school all ran away. But there is a pretty big twist. Mr Brickman who’s married to Mrs Brickman is having an affair while his wife is out of town and the kids use this situation to blackmain the man into giving up a bunch of his possessions as well as Mrs Frost’s daughter. They all got into a canoe with the help of The German guy and started their escape.

I wondered how far they were going to get on their escape because in the book it says very few kids who flee actually make it away and don’t get caught by the authorities. This has grown to be a very good book that I enjoy and I actually read more than I was supposed to this week because I was at the good part with them finding the affair with the brickmen and finally escaping the school.

The start of this book was very different than I imagined it to be. The main characters are in a “matilda” situation with a peculiar strict school with a bad principal and some nice teachers who have to help the students survive. They are forced into labor to “Teach them a lesson” yet every kid has to do it even the best kids. It’s weird to think of a place where you’re forced into labor for school as well as being forced to undergo beatings if you’re not behaving. Within the story, there was a big jump around my initial thoughts regarding the principal who was a very terrible person to the kids (as she is the one who assigns them jobs and punishments like no food or beatings) The principal’s dad sold her into a circus meaning she to was an orphan just like the main characters. As well as she was a country kid just the main characters. This might not seem like a big deal but this woman is very different now than when she was raised and confuses me as to why she would invoke such terrors she had growing up on a bunch of other kids. She sends the kids to this man named DiMarco who beats the kids and it is implied that he does other stuff with them that is probably worse than the beatings. It was also implied that she underwent the same thing while she was growing up as Albert had explained. It is bad enough that she went through all that but it baffles me that she would do the same to the other kids as well as let DeMarco do as he pleases with them like she isn’t scarred from things like that in her past. All in all the book has started to become very interesting to me unlike I initially thought it would be and I’m somewhat excited to learn more about what is going to happen with the kids and possibly the principal. I think she is eventually going to change but that’s a long shot as of right now in the book.

This is the image I took to somewhat show what is happening with the kids but in reality, they are getting whipped in the back with this thing I can’t really explain but it leaves them with welts on their back and soreness for a couple of days. All of this was done by DeMarco who in my opinion shouldn’t be left alone around kids ever.

My book is This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger about Native American children separated from their parents and sent to educational facilities. I picked it mainly because Mrs Johnson suggested it to me and you could say I chose it because I haven’t personally read a book like this before. I am reading this book all by myself. I’m looking forward to this project because again this is a new type of book for me as well as a longer read than I usually chose so it’s just overall gonna be a lot different than it usually would be for me. I’m apprehensive about the length of this book and the time I have to finish it and read certain sections. That leaves me with less time than it would with a smaller book I am more used to. I’m going to read more often than I did with the book I read for the one-pager, as well as reading more in depth to get a better understanding of the book rather than just reading the surface level. Overall I’m reading this book for a different experience with books as well as to try and understand a book at a deeper level than I’m used to.

I believe all of these accounts except Columbus’s have changed the views of people they were directed towards in one war or another. This means that a selection of people may have thought the actions towards these groups of people were unjust and unacceptable, but on the other hand, the group of people who were persuaded by these stories was not enough to make immediate changes. This is said because no major changes were made to stop these actions as it was many years later that the unjust actions caused by the white man were stopped. The Natives were still misused and mistreated by the whites. To affect the audience more the speakers could have addressed these comments to the overall public rather than just a small gather, as well as a more powerful group of people who can make the changes that would help the minority group. Overall these texts have changed many views that would help the overall halt on Native American mistreatment, but it could have been better directed towards the people who can make the changes.