It

I’m doing my book report on the book child called it. Talking about the main character is difficult for two reasons, one is it describes all these horrible things within his own home and second just how much the sheer quantity of abuse is disturbingly chilling. David was a child who was born into a good family and was happy until one day his mother snapped. She started abusing him when his father was not home. This book was perhaps even more disturbing than my last book. My previous book was about the Vietnam War but that was grown men in war, this is a child in this book he didn’t choose to get abused. The abuse was terrible no food or having to regurgitate it to eat. Getting beaten brutal getting cut from knives or scissors getting burnt and chemical abuse?!!  What bothers me the most is no body intervened I’m sure they saw the bruises cuts and burns. And saying it was an accident will surely point to something and that something is brutal merciless abuse. I think the worst wouldn’t be the scars on the outside it would be the constant fear of a parent. Parents are supposed to love their children not despise and hurt them. I can’t imagine having that fear of a parent. I respect my mom and love her but you’re not supposed to fear them. And that knowing feeling that she’s you’re mother and you are supposed to love them. In David’s case I honestly couldn’t, it’s unacceptable. The tragic part is abuse isn’t all that rare. I was born into a wonderful and kind family. We grill, love sports, go to church, get good grades and are well disciplined.  I think it does make sense how the author turned out though. People say kids who are abused usually abuse kids of their own but that’s only in small abuse. Long term high intensity abuse usually makes them the opposite because they have scarring memories of it and say “God I don’t want to be like that.” That’s not to say abuse should be tolerated. There are many better ways of disciplining I assure you.  Abuse is probably one of the worst things on earth and its good people are aware of it. The thing it comes down to though is telling someone or have them notice. It bugged me through the book how it never occurred to anyone that the terrible things this child went through. But I can say this book was good, disturbing and blunt, it has a powerful message of love at the end when it talks about his own son.

Book Report 3

When someone asks you to dig deep about a real person that you know from my experience, it’s usually at a funeral. The wonderful thing about digging deep in a book is that you get to know more about a character in a few hundred pages than a person in a decade. The difference is in a book it isn’t just one way of thinking. You see what the character is actually feeling instead of saying meaningless things shallowly like most people today. Elijah from my book was often described as a fragile boy even though he wasn’t scared easily. Elijah has a fairly simple life in his small colony doing chores for some of the farm folks. Elijah’s fragileness mostly comes from his mother’s criticism. But frankly my opinion is the reason for him being fragile is within his own mind, Elijah takes the criticism from his mother and makes himself be insecure and unsure in his own abilities. To understand where this lack of confidence came from we need to look at Elijah’s fears. Elijah’s one fear above anything is of snakes and when he was small Elijah’s mother criticized him for when she picked up a snake he shrieked. What would seem to be an understandable fear of snakes his mother calls it fragileness. Elijah tried to get back bat his mom for nearly scaring him to death, so he put a toad frog in his mothers sewing basket. When he scared his mother his mother scared him with a snake right back. Elijah loves working with animals and just the slow paced farm life. When somebody steals one of his friend’s money he feels it’s his fault. His insecurity just leads to many, many, more issues. Elijah’s friends do not see this fragileness that his mother does. He is perceived as a nice, kind boy that is respectful and intelligent. I am not sure how simple criticism from a mother can lead to such detrimental self of steam. Then again, mother’s criticism leads to middle age men in intensive counseling sessions. Elijah is a brave boy but sometimes he gets nervous. The kid is likeable and a relatable person, he is the guy who will stand up for others but not himself. We all know people like this. The fact that Elijah is like this makes the book different than a lot of other books, that’s what makes this book special, a kid named Elijah, hence the title.

           

            For my choice topic I choose to comment on whether or not I liked the book. Overall the book was good a solid 8 out of 10. The book gives you a feeling that you’re actually in Elijah’s shoes, you get the small town mentality and it can relate to a lot of people. If you like books about 19^th century or stories of freed slaves you’ll like this. The point of view that Elijah brought to the story is something very unique. I liked the point of view because it shows his weakness about himself like how he doubts himself and shows that shows he is human, this makes him a much more likable character. The fact that he doubts himself and blames himself makes the book a lot more interesting. The kid wants to help out but feels that because he is a kid he is held back. An aspect that really is cool about the book is the fact that it is realistic, it shows how the family quarrels among one another but will always love each other; this shows something we all go through on a daily basis. I love how the book shows that when people join together over a problem, great things can happen. If you really like reading this book will be easy and worth your time, if you hate reading, you are going to struggle as the book is over 300 pages. This was a great book, don’t get me wrong but, their dialect was hard to understand as some words are misspelled and had some grammar errors. On that note though, I liked that it showed the personal dialect and made the book more comfortable and more interesting to read. People who stumble across my blog should definitely read this, it isn’t just a way to kill some time, and it shows the story of a boy with a lot of trouble in his life but manages to overcome all these problems with the help of some friends. The book educates you in several things, it educates you about the African heritage in American history, and it gives a new point of view, the view of one born into freedom, Elijah’s parents were not born free, he was. This was an excellent book, one of the best I’ve ever read. I’d recommend this to just about anyone in my class.

Book Report

This is my March book report.