When You Reach Me (by Rebecca Stead): Conflict

     "When you reach me" has many conflicts.  Some are major, some not so major.  I think that during the rising action and climax of the book is when all of the problems started coming up.  The book is written in a weird way.  It's a letter to someone, but we don't find out who the letter is for and why Miranda is writing the letter until the end.  This book touches on so many issues.  Some issues that occur in the book are death, friendship, fighting, stealing, and a lot more.  This book seems like a bearing witness book since it talks about issues and tries to bring light and show the importance of those issues.

     One of the important issues are death.  At the end of the book, a man who was homeless and lived on the street corner where Miranda's house was died.  The Laughing Man is hat everyone would call him.  Everyone would fear him, but really, there was nothing to fear.  In the end, the Laughing Man risks his life to save Miranda's friend, Sal who was about to get hit by a truck.  Instead, the laughing man pushed Sal out of the way and he got hit and died.  In the book this part of the book shows how the laughing man took his life to save another.  "Sal is going to die.  Suddenly, the laughing man was in the street, his right leg flying out in a mighty kick.  The laughing man's foot hit Sal's body.  Sal flew backward and hit the ground, hard.  The truck hit the laughing man."  I think that that section of the book had a lot of emotion and feeling.  The laughing man, who everyone wanted to stay away from, was actually a good person.  He did what many people wouldn't, he risked his life to save another person that he didn't even know.  I believe that everyone judged the laughing man and didn't give him a chance to see what a good person he really actually was.  I think death is a major issue in the book.

     Another major issue in the book is friendship.  Miranda and Sal were great friends at first, but then Sal just stopped talking to her.  They slowly grew apart and Miranda tried to work it out, but Sal just tried to avoid her.  Miranda really wanted to befriends with Sal, but he kept pushing her away and making excuses why he couldn't hang out with her.  In the book, it says "So do you remember why you don't like me anymore?"  Miranda asked Sal that because she wanted their friendship to continue and be as it used to.  Sal was not being a good friend to Miranda.  Miranda made new friends, but she always thought about Sal no matter what. 
 
     An issue in the book is fighting. At the beginning of the book Sal was punched by a kid he did not even know.  That kid was Marcus.  After Sal was hit was when he started to separate himself from Miranda.  In the book it says, "He made a fist that came up like a wave and hit Sal right n the stomach. Hard."  Marcus, who hit Sal didn't do it on purpose he just wanted to see what Sal would do.  That wasn't the right thing of Marcus to do because he was bullying Sal.

     The fourth issue was stealing.  One incident was when Miranda went home and found her apartment door open. She knew something was wrong, someone had been in there.  All they stole was 1 shoe, but they still stole.  Another incident was when Annabelle, Miranda, and Collin were at Jimmy's and Collin stole rolls from Jimmy's shop.  Although that issue wasn't as big as the others the author still incorporated it for a reason.

     In conclusion, I thought the author talked about all those issues to bear witness on them.  I think that she talked about them for a reason, she wanted readers to become more aware of those issues.  I believe that those issues affected the characters.  The issues made the characters change and experience new things.  I think that the author wanted to teach the readers the importance of the issues talked about.

Blog Post # 6: Invitation Only- Justice

     This week I finished reading "Invitation Only".  I think that this book was very relatable to justice.  Justice is fairness and in the book there was not a lot of fairness.  For example, people who got scolarships to the school were not treated the same as people who could afford to pay to go to the school.  In the end of the book I do not think that justice was served.  I thik that justice would have been served if the billings girls would have apologized to Reed or if they would have gotten in trouble.  I think that Reed, the main character represents justice.  I think that the billings girls are the ones who blocks justice.  Their motivation is that they want to see if Reed can really "be one of them".  I don't think that in the real world if this had happened it would have ended in the way that it had ended in the book.

     I think that  justice would have been served if something had haooened to the Billings Girls.  I think that they are the ones that caused there to be no justice in the end.  I believe that they should have been punished for what they had done to Reed and what they had made Reed (and not only Reed) do.  I believe that justice would have been served even if the Billings Girls had just been caught in their act and what they were doing.  I feel like they deserved to have something happen to them for the pain that they caused in others.  They can what ever they want so quickly and they make others do their stuff for them.  The blackmail people so that they could get what they want.  Blackmailing is not justice.

     I believe that Reed is the person who represents justice.  Reed is like the person in the middle, she's nice to everyone and she's friends with the popular kids and the not so popular kids.  I think that she is the one who represents justice because she is the main one that the harm is really done to.  Reed is probably the typical person that everyone would think represents and symboliozes justice.  Reed does not do anything to harm anyone, but people do things to harm her.  Harming people and mis treating them is not justice.

     I think that it is the Billings Girls who block justice.  I think that because they are the ones that are causing all the harm to Reed.  Their motivation is that they want everything done their way and they want everyone to follow them.  Reed doesn't follow them and they saw that they could take advantage of her.  they took advantage of that oppurtunity and they took advantage of Reed.

     In conclusion, I think that justice is not served in a lot of places and times.  A lot of times justice is also not rewarded to the right person.  Situatations like thius would probably not come out the same way.  The people who did the wrong things (in this case the Billings Girls) would probably get in trouble for blackmailing and making someone else do their chores and work.  The world is very different than books, in some cases the world is better and in others it's worse.