Am I blue?

Am I blue by Bruce Coville is about figuring out who you are in a society that says it is not okay. This story is about a boy named Vincent who is trying to figure out if he is gay. He goes through stages of caring and not caring about whether or not he is gat and the steps to how that happens are illustrated in the story. The story starts out with him being beat up by a boy named Butch because he is a “fruit” or “faggot”. As he is still on the ground somebody comes up to him. He says his name is Melvin and he is his fairy godfather but Vincent is afraid he is making fun of him. Vincent thinks of the most negative things in the first stage. He can't let anybody in and let them help him because he is afraid they will just hurt him or make fun of him. One of the lines in the exposition that gave this away for me was “’Go away and let me suffer in peace,’ I growled, splashing muddy water at him.” Melvin tried to make it clear that he was there to help, but, Vincent was not convinced. One part of the story gave away that he was mostly nervous because he didn’t want to be beat up for being gay was “The first question I thought if was ‘How much trouble is it going to give me to be seen with this guy?’ With Butch and his crowd already calling me ‘faggot’ and ‘fruit,’ walking around with a guy who moved the way Melvin did wasn’t going to do anything to improve the situation.” This is what most of his thoughts are in the first stage. He doesn't care if he could be free to be who he is, he is just afraid. In life one is afraid all the time. We are afraid of being hurt and letting people in. I think Vincent is more afraid of getting physically hurt than emotionaly hurt. One could connect to vincent in a very real way in the same way,am I gay, or in his cas am I blue? Is it bad what will I do? This is a problem illistrated in the story and in the world and it is made very clear through out the stages of being okay with it how to solve the issue.

He isn’t really ready to be gay he doesn’t want to be because if he is will it mean he will keep getting beat up? Does it mean he will get beat up in the real world too not just in high school. After Melvin explains why he is there and how he is the first fairy godfather and how Vincent is the first case Vincent gets nervous as shown in this quote, “’Does that have any signifigance?’ I asked nervously. ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Me being the first case. Does that mean I’m gay?’ I didn’t mention that I had been trying to figure out the same thing myself for about a year now.” He doesn’t want to be gay because he doesn’t want to be beat up other than that he doesn’t seem to have an issue with being gay. He doesn't think there are many gay people. Melvin explains gaydar to Vincent and he begins to get interested. Melvin talks about how if all gay people were blue for a day then people could stop pretending they don't know any gay people. Melvin offers to let him see the world blue. I think its interesting that he accepted because before he had been so negative about it. He hadn’t really wanted to know that there were gay people in the world. He is begging to have a character change because before he would've said 'No I'm not gay so therefore i have no interest in seeing who is gay!'

Once he sees it he is so surprised that there are so many gay people. I think this is the turning point of the story when he notices that so many people you never thought were gay and other people weren’t, or as he said “it was like seeing the world through new eyes.” He learns about himself in the climax too. He learns kind of what he already knew but wasn’t sure, he learned that he didn’t know if he was gay or not. He was mixed he was not sure if he was gay yet. He wasn't being very negative anymore he wasn't being very positive he was in between. He was in the stage where your not against something but not for something you are neutral.

In the falling action he sees on the news a congressman who is a homophobe is blue. He is angry and than he decides that he will do something for the world not just for him self it wasn’t about him anymore it was about the country. This is the real turning point in the story. This is when he realizes he is not the only person in the world that matters and all the blue people in hiding becasue they are scared deserve to be free. He decides to wish for blue day. Melvin grants his wish. This is what shows that his emotions has changed completely he stopped caring about the fact that he could get beat up for having a tint of blue but he doesn’t care anymore. He was done caring about being gay caring about anything the world in his eyes was about to change.

“If I caused you any trouble with Blueday, I’m sorry. But not much. Because things are never going to be the same now that it happened. Never.” And in the end he says “When I meet the girl of my dreams. Or Prince Charming. Whichever.” This is one of the most important lines of the story because it shows that he really did turn around and stopped caring so much because that was not what was important anymore. He doesn't care that there is a possibility of getting beat up and he doesn't care that the world is different for good. He is ready for the world to change to take on the world from a different angle a positive angle. And he believes everybody should take on the world from a positive angle.

The Drummer Boy of Shiloh edited

"The Drummer Boy of Shiloh" by Ray Bradbury is about a boy named Joby who was the drummer boy of Shiloh. He is scared of the war. The general comes to him and talks to him and says that he was the heart of the army because his drum helped people push forward as they walked into battle. The general talks about how the soldiers are ready for a fun kind of war and he can't tell them that they might die. By saying that the army doesn't nesicarily know how to go into wat, Joby is made to realize that he needs to help the army and so, in the end, seems more prepared than ever.

A theme of this story is courage. Joby has to be courageous and stand up so that he can "be the heart of the army". At the beginning of the story, Joby was crying in his bed because he was terrified of the battle in which they were about to fight. Joby learns the lesson that true courage is about doing the things one fears even though one is afraid. In life you have to be courageous, not afraid to be shot down. For example, if a person witnesses someone being bullied, she should speak up to help the victim and not just give into the fear of being bullied herself. Joby had to be brave and courageous in the story. He had to lead the army. The soldiers needed him to lead them into battle so that they didn’t give up hope and the war itself.

This theme could relate to a lot of people because in life you have to be courageous. You have to take a risk because if you don't you could end up stuck at something you hate and want ti get out but can't because your too scared to take the risk. The lion in the wizard of oz lacked courage but all he wanted was to not be scared any more because life can't be led in fear it has to be led by being courageous and taking bold steps and doing things you've never done before.

The Drummer Boy of Shiloh

"The Drummer Boy of Shiloh" was about a boy named Joby who was the drummer boy of shiloh. He is scared of the war. The general comes to him and talks to him saying that he was the heart of the army. The general talks about how the soldiers are ready for a fun kind of war and he can't tell them that they might die. In the end Joby seems more prepared than ever.

A theme of this story is kind of courage. Joby has to be courageous. Joby has to be courageous and stand up for himself and "be the heart of the army". In life you have to be courageous not afraid to stand up fro what you believe in. Not afraid to be shot down. For example if you see somebody doing something you think is wrong you have to be courageous and be brave. Joby had to be brave and courages in the story. He had to lead the army.

This theme could relate to a lot of people because in life you have to be courageous. You have to take a risk because if you don't you could end up stuck at something you hate and want ti get out but can't because your too scared to take the risk. The lion in the wizard of oz lacked courage but all he wanted was to not be scared any more because life can't be led in fear it has to be led by being courageous and taking bold steps and doing things you've never done before.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The conflict didn't resolve in this story once it resolved many times. This was because there were many conflict throughout this story and not one huge problem. If you searched hard the conflict of the story would probably be the fact that at first he didn't have any friends and the climax was when he was at the the football game and he met Sam and Patrick. The issue wasn't resolved that much because the issue was kind of resolved in the climax.

The theme of the story is that sometimes friendship is hard. Even when he had friends he feels alone a lot. He doesn't know how to do everything. This book is kind of showing that not everybody is perfect sometimes you screw up. For example he lost his friends many times through the book. This book shows that you don't always need to be perfect and sometimes people will be there for you anyway. It revealed that friendship can be the most important thing in life but you don't have to be perfect at it.

This story connects to the world because it is more realistic than not. Sometimes in realistic fiction its not as realistic as other things in fiction could be. He was not perfect like people in the world are. People dont always have friends or are perfect. People dont have perfect friendships and that was shown in the book.

Hold Still

Hold Still is a book about a girl whose best friend committed suicide. This book is all about her dealing with living without her and the different people acting the different ways towards her than they did before her friend died. She learns to make new decisions about life and friends. She thought she couldn't live without Ingrid, her best friend, but learned that there were other things in life than INgrid and she could make her life better if she tried.

The people in the story that used to treat her awfully. Treat her differently. They treat her like she is a different person without her best friend by her side. Even her favorite teacher her photo teacher who she used to be so close to treats her like she doesn't exist. She figures out pretty quickly that people don't want to be her friend they feel bad for her. She changes as a person because she isn't depending on somebody else. She was leading her own life making her own decisions with her own life. She makes different friendships and starts leading a completely different life. She became a different person she was a different character at the beginning than she was at the end because she saw life from a different perspective. She made relationships because she had different kinds of support. I think this character changed a lot because of the support and the person she no longer had. People can change for all sorts of reasons. Two reasons is somebody or something thats important to you isn't there for you isn't there anymore or somebody or something new comes into your life. I think she changed for both of those reasons. She used to live in Ingrids shadow but now without her there she thought she wouldn't be the same because she wasn't going to have her best friend. I think she was different because she was not living as somebody trying to be like her best friend somebody trying to act like her best friend because she didn't have anybody else to be friends with. When she got new friends she became her own person and changed more than she ever would've with Ingrid still there.