Drummer Boy Of Shiloh, Ray Bradbury

      In the story, "The Drummer Boy Of Shiloh", Ray Bradbury uses peach blossoms to symbolize character change throughout the story. Joby, a fourteen year old boy serves a a drummer boy in the Civil War. He looks at himself unimportant, weak and worthless.

    The first line of the story starts with a description of peach blossoms falling lightly from a peach tree. It also mentions a peach stone (or pit). I think the peach stone falling, represents Joby in the beginning of the story. He is young and innocent, but yet must go into the bloodiest battle of the war. The peach stone also represents Joby in the beginning of the story in a way where, the fruit has rotted away, and there is no more protection. Joby only has a drum, and nothing to shield himself. 

    The next time they mention peach blossoms is in the rising action. Quote, "Nothing stayed put, nothing had a name. Nothing was as it once was." This quote really illustrates Joby's confusion. i think that Joby feels alone, knowing that he can't count on anything any longer. This connects to the peach blossoms because this was right before, the moth was the peach blossom, and then the peach blossom was a moth. 

   The next time the peach blossom is mentioned, the general is speaking to Joby. The peach blossoms aren't directly mentioned, but i think it is referred to. the general says, "There's your cheek, fell right from the tree overhead." I think this line is referring to how young Joby is. he still only has peach fuzz on his chin and is still a young innocent boy. But i think the General is trying to empathize with Joby, but at the same time, not let his innocence give him an excuse to go softly into the battle. 

   The last reference of the peach blossom is in the last line of the story. Quote, "very close to the church named Shiloh, the peach blossoms fell on the drum." This quote, I think, shows how Joby has grown emotionally, and has taken pride and responsibility in being a drummer boy.  

    From beginning to end, Joby started as a pit, innocent and scared, and blossomed into a young man with courage and pride to win the Battle of Shiloh.  

Sweetheart, Theme Connection

I am currently reading sweetheart. This book is about a 17 year old girl, hudson, who has a dream of moving out of Watonka NY. her parents recently split, their dad leaving which made her give up her dream of becoming a figure skater. her mom is barley holding on financially, and is the owner of a restaurant that is famous for Hudson's cupcakes. hudson hides behinds her cupcakes until one day she decides to give her dream another shot. she gets involved with the hockey team and starts crushing on Josh Blackthorn.
one theme that i noticed is insecurity, and afraid to try. Ever since Hudson found out that her dad was having an affair with another woman, she has always been overly cautious and paranoid about a lot in her life. she gave up figure skating because she was afraid to move on after what happened with her parents marriage. I think that she hid behind making cupcakes for the diner and hid from the reality of her life. This shows the theme of being scared to try. she was scared because deep down Hudson knew that she couldn't pretend that everything was okay when it wasn't. when she met josh, it was sort of a reality check for her. it sort of just hit her that hey, not everything is okay, and i screwed up and i'm a jerk. But when she tried to give life another chance, the pain held her back. i think that a lot of times it is a lot easier to hide from a problem than to deal with it.
in my life, i can connect to this a lot. i'm a very timid person, and that is one thing that i don't like about myself. I try to make myself an outgoing person, and always say what I mean right then in that moment because if you keep it to yourself, you know that you'll regret not saying it. And the choice of leaving the problem alone is always so tempting, but if you know what you want, then i try to fight for it. for example, fighting with people that i love hurts, but the right thing is always in the back of my head. but i'm not perfect, and i give up. i like to hide. i like to hide from my family and from myself. i share this trait with Hudson in the way that we both want to get somewhere, but want to take the easy way, and sometimes fall behind when it hurts too much.

Reading Response; Summer reading; Make Lemonade

Over the summer I read Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff. This book is about a girl who needs money for college so she takes a babysitting job. She babysits these kids who have a seventeen year old mother who isn’t in school and has no job and the fathers of the kids have abandoned her. she was an orphan from the start so no family. LaVaughn loves these kids, and even though her mother is disgusted by the idea, starts working for this family for no pay. This book outlines the theme struggle very well.

LaVaughn feels connected to these kids, Jeremy and Jilly. Jeremy is a two year old, and LaVaughn feels the need to teach him why. Why you need to wait for the seeds to grow, why you need to help around the house, why Jolly needs to make sure he knows how to survive on his own. LaVaughn also felt a connection to Jolly. She is barely making it, struggling to even wash the dishes or make the bed. she cant pay for the kid’s meals or supply to clean the house.

Jolly is seventeen. she has two kids. no help. but yet she makes it through. I think that Jolly also connected to LaVaughn. Jolly was always jealous of her, but I think she really looked up to LaVaughn. Something in LaVaughn gave Jolly hope, that maybe her kids could be like LaVaughn one day. I think this is an example of how much struggle hurts, but when the feeling of desperation of hope is stronger, you can make it work. this book really made me think of how many people have it bad like Jolly, but still hope gives them a chance to make it through, even though jolly had to work hard to stay in school, and send Jeremy to school as well, she knew that she could always get there.

one of the signs of hope that I really respect is the lemon tree. Jeremy got seeds from his lemon, and planted them. He would water them every day, and watch and wait for them to come, but they never did. LaVaughn then gave him more seeds from another lemon, but after much waiting, the never came up either. “But you promised!” Jeremy would say, but they just wouldn’t come. Finally on the third try, something sprouted. Jeremy never gave up on the plant, and one day after much wait and pain, they came.

Another symbol that I really respect as well is the blind lady story. She got oranges, but bad boys switched them so she got lemons. So what did she do? She made lemonade. This shows, use what you have, even if it isn’t enough use it because it could slip away anytime, and you could have nothing at all.