Grow

Author's note: I wrote this post because sometimes I feel like a small seedling to begin with, but I know someday I will become a beautiful tree. 

I feel like one of those plants that nobody likes because another plant is taking all of the sun and growing bigger and more colorful. I can either shrivel up and let the other plant get all of the attention, or I can try as hard as I can to get more sunlight and grow taller and taller, until I can be as big and bright as the other plant. I choose to grow, even though it will take time... Soon I am taller than the other plant, it's grown all it can. I reach up to the sky, and before I know it, I'm a full grown tree.

A Bubble's Journey

Author's note: I wrote this creative piece because I used to love playing with bubbles when I was a kid. I thought about what it was like to be a bubble, so I wrote this to get an image into my mind, and others minds.

I started out in no shape in a bottle as a liquid. Then I was being blown from the bubble stick and getting bigger an bigger... Before I know it, I am floating in the air, getting higher and higher... The city is so beautiful below me: The sparkling lights and the occasional voice of a person. I drift through the air watching what is going on in the world. I know that sometime I will have to pop, but now I am trying to enjoy my short life in the air. The breeze carries me on,  through the night soundlessly. Just a short time later, I know my time has come. I get too high, then "pop!" I burst. The tiny drops of the bubble I once was fell from the sky and onto the pavement far below. Being a bubble is terribly difficult, but hardly any work because I last for such a short time.

Figuring Things Out

Author’s Note: Mindblind is a story that I will never forget. It is about a boy that has Asperger’s and he goes through things that not all teenagers go through. It is emotional for him and his friends as they go through bad times and extraordinary times together.

Do you wish that your mind was like a computer? You could store all of your memories on an imaginary j-drive. You would know a ton of facts and information about everything. This is how 14 year old Nathaniel Clark spends his entire life. He is a talented young man with Asperger’s Syndrome. Asperger’s Syndrome is a disorder where a person lacks communication skills but it’s not autism. Physical clumsiness is also common in Asperger’s. In Mindblind, Nathaniel battles his disorder and figures out why he is here.

    Jenifer Roy, the author of Mindblind, made the main point of the book is that even people with disabilities can do great things. Nathaniel writes a song about math, one of his strong spots, with his band. Soon this video goes viral and becomes a big hit on YouTube. The author put this as a special part in this book to get her main point across. She did a fantastic job of putting the main point in, because other readers understand why she wrote the book. Jenifer Roy has great ideas on how to connect the main point of the book to what the characters do. It isn’t completely random, it actually makes sense. Teenagers around the country can relate to Nathaniel. They all have ups and downs in life, but soon things will turn out right.

Jenifer Roy did a great job of making the characters and their emotions and personalities. I understood each of the character’s personalities, what they did, and why. The author also did an excellent job of connecting all of the characters in a way that at the end, everything came together. All of the characters, all of the things they did, and the different memories that the main character had.

There is a very important part in the book Mindblind that has to do with these connections with the characters. Nathaniel’s dad makes him go to a party, and while he is there he gets drunk. While he is drunk, he sees things that make him mad. This is where some of the connections with the characters comes in. After he passes out, his friends talk to him and explain what happened. Nathaniel learns that everything that he thinks was bad, was actually a good thing and he freaked out over nothing. His friend’s “boyfriend” really turned out to be her cousin that Nathaniel had first met many years ago. He soon forgives and forgets about the problems they had between each other. That is a connection with characters that is really important in the book Mindblind.

The author did an amazing job of distinguishing the things that happen in this book. She put an image in my head of everything that was going on or what the character’s emotions were, or how they felt. Jenifer Roy also made sure that all the important details were noticed, so she made a character do something to make sure that her reader would understand that it was important. I admire which particular details that she chose to put the story together on.

Everything in this book made me realize that kids can do anything, as long as they can figure out what is going on. So many books have situations like Nathaniel’s, but the author made this book better than any of those similar books. Jenifer Roy did a fantastic job of composing this book. I recommend this book to anyone who likes any kind of book, because this book has everything in it.