Cyber-Assignment, March 24, 2011
Post a summary of the book review. After you complete the book, return and analyze where or not you agree with the writer's conclusions. The review needs to be scholarly and minimally one and a half-two pages long.
If you review doesn't meet the criterion, find another one. The summary needs to be comparable to the article. Do it justice. I am thinking minimally 150-200 words for a one and a half, to two pages, review.
Post a summary of the book review. After you complete the book, return and analyze where or not you agree with the writer's conclusions. The review needs to be scholarly and minimally one and a half-two pages long.
If you review doesn't meet the criterion, find another one. The summary needs to be comparable to the article. Do it justice. I am thinking minimally 150-200 words for a one and a half, to two pages, review.
posted by Professor Wanda's Posse at 11:50 AM
28 Comments:
Stacey Kidder
Professor Sabir
English 1A 9-9:50am
23 March 2011
(Book Review from The New York Times, by Edward Hower, written August 3rd, 2003)
The reviewer, Edward Hower, is certainly fascinated with The Kite Runner. He begins by explaining what the book is initially about, as in Amir and his relationship with his father, as well as his servant somewhat-friend, Hassan. He explains the complexity of the relationships between each of the characters. Then, he briefly goes into the effects of the time frame as it plays a part in the lives of the characters, but mainly the protagonist Amir. After mentioning that Amir and his father are forced to flee to California in order to survive from their war-torn country, Hower then goes into the next portion of the book. Amir and his father must survive in America, where the originally successful Baba must face the music and do what he can to support himself and Amir. It sounds like their lives are really thrown into a complete one-eighty as they figure out the new lifestyle they were forced to adopt. As the time goes by, Amir eventually wants to, in some way, redeem himself for never being the true friend to Hassan that he could've been by going back to Afghanistan to see if Hassan and his father had made it through all of the darkness. In general, Hower makes it clear that this tale is one of friendship and all of the in and outs that an out-of-the-ordinary friendship can entail.
Diallo Ibrehima
Professor Sabir
English 1A 8:850am
24 March 2011
(Book review from a critical divination , by Chrictopher written Aprl 22nd 2004)
The reviewer , Christopher is a great and related to Sula.It all started providing a good concept of what the book is really about being black in America is hard as well life is life is complicated.It started of the relationship between the Irish immigrants and African Americans also demonstrated how the Irish immigrants came across the stereotype of the blacks is misunderstood.African american wasn't truely accept in white republic world yet.He explains the strange relationship between the Irish and the African American. He also , goes into the historical fact about race in this country.
He talks about the really reason Irish moved to this country because they wanted industralizing the United States and the Irish immigrants view America as " a promised land".
Althought blacks had been in Medallion early in civil war.The town didn't have house hold name.The Irish had a lot hatred , attitude toward blacks.
Diallo Ibrehima
Professor Sabir
English 1A 8:850am
24 March 2011
(Book review from a critical divination , by Chrictopher written Aprl 22nd 2004)
The reviewer , Christopher is a great and related to Sula.It all started providing a good concept of what the book is really about being black in America is hard as well life is life is complicated.It started of the relationship between the Irish immigrants and African Americans also demonstrated how the Irish immigrants came across the stereotype of the blacks is misunderstood.African american wasn't truely accept in white republic world yet.He explains the strange relationship between the Irish and the African American. He also , goes into the historical fact about race in this country.
He talks about the really reason Irish moved to this country because they wanted industralizing the United States and the Irish immigrants view America as " a promised land".
Althought blacks had been in Medallion early in civil war.The town didn't have house hold name.The Irish had a lot hatred , attitude toward blacks.
Zinaida Dzhilavdaryan
Professor Wanda Sabir
English 1 A
24 March 2011
Summary of the article
Edward Hower, The Servant, The New York Times, August 3, 2003.
Author Edward Hower in his article “The Servant” determined "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini as a powerful novel. According to the author, all the political events described in the book are not as important as the relationships of two boys, Amir and Hassan. He describes their friendship as two kites flying together. Hassan is a servant of Amir; he makes him a breakfast, cleans the house, and washes his cloths. But Hower emphasized that Hassan is also a protector and companion of the lonely boy. Amir pays Hassan back by reading him folk tales. However, Amir failed to protect his friend from being brutalized. As author says, “Amir’s failure to defend his friend will haunt him for the rest of his life.”
Although boys belong to different ethnic groups, they respect each other. The civil war changes lives of boys and their fathers. Amir is moved to California. And his father Baba has to work at the gas station to pay for his son’s education. Hower feels that Amir is followed by his past; he cannot forgive himself for not saving his friend. Finally, Amir decided to return to Afghanistan to help Hassan. The part where Hassan shares stories of county under the Taliban regime, Hower defined as “dark.” Country is suffering from tyranny.
Hower says that the story is “vivid and engaging,” and supports the Khaled Hosseini idea to remind us how people struggling with violence.
David Odza
Professor Sabir
English 1A
24 March 2011
on NYTimes.com
THIS powerful first novel, by an Afghan physician now living in California, tells a story of fierce cruelty and fierce yet redeeming love. Both transform the life of Amir, Khaled Hosseini's privileged young narrator, who comes of age during the last peaceful days of the monarchy, just before his country's revolution and its invasion by Russian forces.
But political events, even as dramatic as the ones that are presented in ''The Kite Runner,'' are only a part of this story. A more personal plot, arising from Amir's close friendship with Hassan, the son of his father's servant, turns out to be the thread that ties the book together. The fragility of this relationship, symbolized by the kites the boys fly together, is tested as they watch their old way of life disappear.
Amir is served breakfast every morning by Hassan; then he is driven to school in the gleaming family Mustang while his friend stays home to clean the house. Yet Hassan bears Amir no resentment and is, in fact, a loyal companion to the lonely boy, whose mother is dead and whose father, a rich businessman, is often preoccupied. Hassan protects the sensitive Amir from sadistic neighborhood bullies; in turn, Amir fascinates Hassan by reading him heroic Afghan folk tales. Then, during a kite-flying tournament that should be the triumph of Amir's young life, Hassan is brutalized by some upper-class teenagers. Amir's failure to defend his friend will haunt him for the rest of his life.
Hosseini's depiction of pre-revolutionary Afghanistan is rich in warmth and humor but also tense with the friction between the nation's different ethnic groups. Amir's father, or Baba, personifies all that is reckless, courageous and arrogant in his dominant Pashtun tribe. He loves nothing better than watching the Afghan national pastime, buzkashi, in which galloping horsemen bloody one another as they compete to spear the carcass of a goat. Yet he is generous and tolerant enough to respect his son's artistic yearnings and to treat the lowly Hassan with great kindness, even arranging for an operation to mend the child's harelip.
As civil war begins to ravage the country, the teenage Amir and his father must flee for their lives. In California, Baba works at a gas station to put his son through school; on weekends he sells secondhand goods at swap meets. Here too Hosseini provides lively descriptions, showing former professors and doctors socializing as they haggle with their customers over black velvet portraits of Elvis.
Despite their poverty, these exiled Afghans manage to keep alive their ancient standards of honor and pride. And even as Amir grows to manhood, settling comfortably into America and a happy marriage, his past shame continues to haunt him. He worries about Hassan and wonders what has happened to him back in Afghanistan.
The novel's canvas turns dark when Hosseini describes the suffering of his country under the tyranny of the Taliban, whom Amir encounters when he finally returns home, hoping to help Hassan and his family. The final third of the book is full of haunting images: a man, desperate to feed his children, trying to sell his artificial leg in the market; an adulterous couple stoned to death in a stadium during the halftime of a football match; a rouged young boy forced into prostitution, dancing the sort of steps once performed by an organ grinder's monkey.
When Amir meets his old nemesis, now a powerful Taliban official, the book descends into some plot twists better suited to a folk tale than a modern novel. But in the end we're won over by Amir's compassion and his determination to atone for his youthful cowardice.
In ''The Kite Runner,'' Khaled Hosseini gives us a vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence -- forces that continue to threaten them even today.
Kaijie Zhang
Professor Sabir
English 1A 9:00-9:50AM
03/24/2011
Review of The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.
Critic: Ronny Noor
The Kite Runner is Khaled Hosseini's best-selling first novel. It is the very first novel in English by an Afghan in which a thirty-eight-year-old writer named Amir recounts the odyssey of his life from Kabul to San Francisco via Peshwar, Pakistan. The protagonist was born into a wealthy family in Kabul. Raised by his father, his mother having passed away during his birth, Amir lives a relatively happy life until the Soviet tanks roll into Afghanistan. Then he and his father flee to Pakistan and end up in America. In the United States, his father becomes a gas station manager, selling junk on weekends with his son at the San Jose flea market. Amir meets Sorava, the daughter of a former Afghan general, and soon ties the knot with her.
For fifteen years the young couple tries in vain to have children. Then Amir receives a call from Rahim Khan, a friend and former business partner of his now-deceased father. Amir flies to Peshwar to meet with him. Rahim Khan reveals that Hassan, Amir's childhood friend, the presumed son of the family servant Ali, was in reality, Amir's half-brother, his father's illegitimate son with Ali's wife. Hassan and his wife were killed by the Taliban. Rahim Khan wants Amir to go to Kabul and bring Hassan's son to Peshwar. After much hesitation, Amir goes to Kabul and frees his nephew from the clutches of an unscrupulous child molester. Later he brings the child to America for adoption.
This lucidly written and often touching novel gives a vivid picture of not only the Russian atrocities but also those of the Northern Alliance and the Taliban. It is rightly a "soaring debut" as the Boston Globe claims, but only if we consider it a novel of sin and redemption, a son trying to redeem his father's sin. As far as the Afghan conflict is concerned, we get a selective, simplistic, even simple-minded picture. Hosseini tells us, for example, that "Arabs, Chechens, Pakistanis" were behind the Taliban. He does not mention the CIA or Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security advisor to President Carter, "whose stated aim." according to Pankaj Mishra in the spring 2002 issue of Granta, "was to 'sow shit in the Soviet backyard.'"
Hosseini also intimates that the current leader handpicked by foreign powers, Hamid Karzai--whose "caracul hat and green chapan became famous"--will put Afghanistan back in order. Unfortunately, that is all Karzai is famous for--his fashion, Hollywood style. His government does not control all of Afghanistan, which is torn between warlords as in the feudal days. Farmers are producing more opium than ever before for survival. And the occupying forces, according to human rights groups, are routinely trampling on innocent Afghans. There is no Hollywood style solution to such grave problems of a nation steeped in the Middle Ages, is there?
Summer Hurst
Pro. Sabir
English 1A 9-9:50am
24 March 2011
Published Book Review-Summary:
According to http://elise.com/books/el/archives/the_kite_runner_-_khaled_hosseini.php, “The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini is a story of betrayal, love, and redemption.” The story takes place in modern day Afghanistan. A wealthy businessman's son, Amir, becomes friends with the household servant, Hassan. Through out the entire story, Hassan is bullied for being different. Since Amir is discouraged to stand-up for his friend, the fate of both of their families experience many changes. Khaled Hosseini reflects back to the original hardships of Afghanistan after September 11th. .Soon after the Soviet invasion, abundant amount of Afghans fled from Afghanistan. The story begins with Amir and his family coming to the U.S. From the beginning to the end of the story, Amir's journey is hard; he must re-open wounds from his childhood past along with the struggle of making the most difficult decision, doing the right thing.
Audrey Topacio
Professor Sabir
English 1A 8-8:50 a.m
24 March 2011
Summary for the Sula Book Review by Sara Blackburn from the New York Times
According to the author, the book Sula is, with no doubt, another one of the magnificent books that Toni Morrison has written. The characterization of the setting and the people are brilliant that it "seem almost mythologically strong and familiar" (Blackburn). However, the critic also argues that the novel is too confined of a story, and "refuses to brim over into the world outside its provincial setting." Blackburn believes that there is a need for Toni Morrison to address the issues in her novels with urgency. Blackburn suggests that Toni Morrison is aiming to maintain a serious audience, then she needs to "address riskier contemporary reality than this beautiful but nevertheless distanced novel."
Summary of The Servant By Edward Hower
Published Aug. 3, 2003
Kite Runner is a compelling novel written by Khaled Hosseini who lives in California, the book is about ferocious brutality and saving love which transforms the life of Amir (Hosseini). Political events are just a part of this book, the strong friendship between Amir and Hassan (the son of the family’s servant) is what makes it a fascinating book. Running kites together represent the sensitiveness of their relationship. Despite being almost the same age Hassan is Amir’s servant, he makes him breakfast and cleans the house. Yet Hassan does not resent Amir and has him as his best friend, protector and companion. Nevertheless Amir fails to protect and help his friend Hassan when he is bullied by upper-class boys of the neighborhood. And that is something that will follow him for the rest of his life. Even though they are part of different ethnic groups they treat each other as equals, but as Civil War began to ruin Afghanistan Amir and his father moved to CA to save their lives. As Amir grows older he worries about his friend Hassan that still lives in Afghanistan and decides to go back there to help, he faces the tyranny of the Taliban but he wins by overcoming his “youthful cowardice” as Hower states.
Vanessa Rocha
Professor Sabir
English 1A - 8AM Class
26 March 2011
Summary of The Servant By Edward Hower
Published Aug. 3, 2003
Kite Runner is a compelling novel written by Khaled Hosseini who lives in California, the book is about ferocious brutality and saving love which transforms the life of Amir (Hosseini). Political events are just a part of this book, the strong friendship between Amir and Hassan (the son of the family’s servant) is what makes it a fascinating book. Running kites together represent the sensitiveness of their relationship. Despite being almost the same age Hassan is Amir’s servant, he makes him breakfast and cleans the house. Yet Hassan does not resent Amir and has him as his best friend, protector and companion. Nevertheless Amir fails to protect and help his friend Hassan when he is bullied by upper-class boys of the neighborhood. And that is something that will follow him for the rest of his life. Even though they are part of different ethnic groups they treat each other as equals, but as Civil War began to ruin Afghanistan Amir and his father moved to CA to save their lives. As Amir grows older he worries about his friend Hassan that still lives in Afghanistan and decides to go back there to help, he faces the tyranny of the Taliban but he wins by overcoming his “youthful cowardice” as Hower states.
ps: The post with no name is mine, I forgot to add the info.
David Guzman
Professor Sabir
English 1A 9 a.m.
24 March 2011
Cardwell, Jewell. “The Three Doctors Find Safety in Numbers: Friends Stick Together to Better Themselves.” The America’s Intelligence Wire (2008), 23 Mar. 2011.
In the article Jewell Cardwell introduces the authors of The Pact. They are three doctors who are young black men from poor, fatherless families and drug-dealing neighborhoods of Newark, NJ who in their early lives chose to work hard to achieve success through education. According to the article, their secret is their bond of friendship. Since high school they supported each other to overcome the difficulties of life and also while getting through medical school. Cardwell describes this book as “inspiring”. Through the book the doctors are helping children from the ghetto see options in their lives. I agree with her opinion because this book is realistic and optimistic. When targeted teenagers read it they can visualize a goal to accomplish in their lives and see hope for their future. In addition, the article focuses on what the doctors are doing nowadays to help their community. They established a foundation to help students through scholarships and mentorships. Cardwell describes their mantra well: “Doing the impossible when you’re told it can’t be done.” I also believe that through hard work and strong friendships everything is possible to achieve.
Julie Phoukeo
Professor Sabir
English 1A 8AM
25 March 2011
Review for Sula by Gisele Toueg
Published April 5th 2002 by Plume
In the book, “Sula” by Toni Morrison is a great novel about two best friends that grow up together only to lose their friendship over a bitter situation. It takes place in the 1930s in a poor town called the Medallion. The people of Medallion hold standards for each other and some have higher than others. The author, Toni Morrison talks about Sula more in depth which her character is based on friendship, love, relationship, and truth.
I agree with the writer’s conclusion because Sula’s character may seem like a one dimensional, but she is actually very complex one. It is a novel that can get a person thinking how serious the value of friendship is. Sula took Nel's friendship for granted and cannot control her immoral ways and it seems that the book teach a great deal about life’s hardships. The author definitely got her message of how one action can affect everything around them and it show on Sula’s life. As Toueg say, “Her old friend had come home.... Sula, whose past she had lived through and with whom the present was a constant sharing of perceptions. Talking to Sula had always been a conversation with herself."
Mahmood Kohgadai
Professor Sabir
English 1A 8-8:50
28 March 2011
Summary of The Servant By Edward Hower
Published Aug. 3, 2003
The book "The Kite Runner" is a powerful novel by a first time writer Hussaini. It is about the good times and hardships best friends living in Afghanistan. One is the son of a bussinessman and the other is son of his sevant. The two friends loved to fly kites. Hassan (the servant's son) is a good and loyal friend to the main character Amir, but Amir's shortcomings as a person kept him from returning the favor. His failure to aid his friend during his brutal rape haunted him throughout the book. As chaos spread through Afghanistan forcing people to flee to Pakistan or the United States, now older Amir slowly began to find the courage to face his past, and make right with Hassan and his son. In the end he not only saved his former best friend's son from the Taliban, but he also made peace with his own soul.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ashante Washington
Professor Wanda Sabir
English 1A, 9-950a
28 March 2011
Book Review Summary: The Kite Runner
NPR Interview: ‘The Kite Runner’ by Liane Hansen - Weekend Edition Sunday, July 27, 2003
Author Liane Hansen speaks with the author of The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini and correlates his life with the one of the main character of the novel, Amir. Hosseini is able to go into a deeper depth of his personal childhood, actual kite running in Afghanistan and the ethnic backgrounds differences between the two main characters: Pashtun and Hazara. Hansen and Hosseini are able to cover the three main relationships that occur in the novel: friendship, the challenges between sons and their fathers and betrayal.
Hansen describes the closeness of the two main characters: Amir and Hassan by pulling lines from the book referring to how they both were motherless, fed from the same breast, and were the same age. She shares that Amir has a hard time with his father because he feels that his father treats Hassan more like a son than he. Hosseini explains that with a mother and their son, love will always be given, but with a father and his son, that same love must be earned and Amir has a very hard time with that. Hansen describes how Amir betrays Hassan, how the guilt from the situation leads Amir to disrupt their families and the two boys separating from each other.
The interview closes with Hosseini’s description of his experience of first coming to America and his return to Afghanistan. He said some of the situations that he encountered in his personal life were included in the novel.
Khaled Hosseini’s hope for readers when they read his novel is that they do not forget Afghanistan.
Dereje Bizuneh
Professor Sabir
English 1A
9:00 – 9:50
28 March 2011
Published Book Review fro Kite Runner: www.curledup.com. © Luan Gaines, 2003
Khaled Hosseini's quietly powerful debut novel The Kite Runner fulfills the promise of fiction, awakening curiosity about the world around us, speaking truth as the lessons of history echo down the years. The themes are universal: familial relationships, particularly father and son; the price of disloyalty; the inhumanity of a rigid class system; and the horrific realities of war.
In Afghanistan, young Amir's earliest memories of life in Kabul are blessed with a cultural heritage that values tradition, blood ties and a deeply rooted cultural identity. Upper class Pashtuns, Amir enjoys the luxury of education, material comfort and a constant playmate, the son of his father's longtime Hazara servant, Hassan.
Twice in his lifetime Amir is morally tested in his relationship with Hassan. The first time, a victim of his own arrogance, Amir fails his companion. Hiding behind the superiority of class, Amir chooses the path of least resistance, but the scar of betrayal cuts through his soul and never heals. That first failure dictates Amir's inner dialogue throughout his life, even in America, until he is offered another chance at personal redemption. Returned to his homeland at the request of an old family friend, the second challenge is equally perilous, and Amir recognizes the very real implications of his decision. This internal struggle is the underlying theme of the novel, which spans Afghani history from the peaceful 70's to the repressive rule of the Taliban in the late '90s.
Played out on the world stage, a desperate battle to preserve the cultural heritage of Afghanistan spans Amir's life in Kabul and America. While Amir and his father reside safely in America, their homeland is decimated by constant warfare -- streets lined with beggars, fatherless children whose future is marginalized by poverty: "There are a lot of children in Afghanistan, but little childhood." The sweet simplicity of youthful winters spent "kite running" with Hassan seem light years away, illuminated by the boys' unfettered innocence.
Against this stark landscape, the adult Amir is challenged as never before, charged with the protection of a young life already scarred by the random violence visited upon the disenfranchised. With inordinate compassion and stunning simplicity, Hosseini portrays Amir's impossible dilemma. Complications abound, but the answer lies in humanity's capacity for kindness. The grace of acceptance heals the wounds of brutality, for with forgiveness anything is possible, even the wild joy of soaring kites against a winter sky.
Originally published on Curled Up With A Good Book at www.curledup.com. © Luan Gaines, 2003
Cherefah Obad
March 25, 2011
Professor Wanda Sabir
English 1A
Review for “The Servant” By: Howard Runner; New York Times.
In this review for “The Kite Runner”, Howard Runner states that the “political events, even as dramatic as the ones that are presented in ''The Kite Runner,'' are only a part of this story.” I agree with what he is saying. The certain political aspects of the glorified book “The Kite Runner” are only a small yet very important part of the book and its major themes. Although there are many aspects of the book that exemplify many different things, friendship is the most important concept that’s portrayed in the book. With that being said, the main characters Hassan and Amir are the ones who throughout the book show different sides of themselves. I believe at one point, Amir shows his courageous side by helping his step brother in a time of need. Runner continues on saying that “the novel's canvas turns dark when Hosseini describes the suffering of his country under the tyranny of the Taliban, whom Amir encounters when he finally returns home, hoping to help Hassan and his family.” I like the way Runner used a sense of imagery to create a picture in our mind so we can understand what he’s trying to get across. He finishes his summary with the following statement: “In ''The Kite Runner,'' Khaled Hosseini gives us a vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence -- forces that continue to threaten them even today.”
Thailea Boykin (Revised)
Professor Sabir
English 1A 9 am
28 March 2011
Book Review:
'Pact' Gives Peer Pressure a Good Name;
Three N.J. Teens Turned From Streets For Medical Careers
(Sara Gebhardt, Washington Post Staff Writer)
July 4, 2002 Thursday Final Edition (Newspaper 703 words)
Summary :
In the article written by Sara Gebhardt, a Washington post writer, the book "The Pact" was about three men overcoming their childhood and growing together to become successful doctors. All three men grew up in New Jersey projects and motivated each other. The three made a pact in high school, to graduate high school and go on to medical/dental school together. Two of the three fell into the fast life, but learned quickly that that was no life for them. It was friendship and the lack of role models in their lives that pushed the three men to achieve their goals. Instead of letting their troubled past consume them they allowed it to boost them in the right direction. Now the three men have put their heart into helping other by their operation of the nonprofit, Three Doctors Foundation.
Tyler Mecozzi
Professor Sabir
English 1A 8a.m.
29 March 2011
Summary for the Sula Book Review by Sara Blackburn from the New York Times.
Blackburn starts her review with an introduction to Toni Morrison's first novel "The Bluest Sky." She praised Morrison for her way with fictional language. The novel told the familiar story: "understanding tragedy forces the surrender of innocence and topples wide-eyed, precocious kids into unwilling maturity,"but how it was portrayed, Blackburn suggests, was beautiful. Although the article started out with praises and admiration, once the author reached "Sula," she did not have much positives to say other than the book had "strong" and "familiar" characters.
Sara Blackburn critiques "Sula" as a fixed setting; the characters can not be viewed in today's society. And if today's society is irrelevant, then it is hard for the reader to relate to the story. She tries to see the bright side of "Sula" when she depicts it as an allegory "about people so paralyzed by the horrors of the past and by the demands of just staying alive that they're unable to embrace the possibilities of freedom until the moment for it has passed." But then she condemns Morrison for writing a novel that is too "distanced" from the reader.
The characters outlined in this review, however, are fully detailed. She writes that Sula was "perceived as a sinister force, sex-hungry, man-stealing, death-dealing. . . ." Then she quotes key lines from the book to give the reader a sense of the setting. Blackburn may have not been able to the relate to the book as much as she would have liked to, but I am willing to give it a chance.
Eman obad
Professor Sabir
English 1A 8 a.m
29 March 2011
Summary of the book review published by www.Caribousmom.com Jun 14th, 2008.
The writers starts off by quoting the book "Hassan and I fed from the same breasts. We took our first steps on the same lawn in the same yard. And, under the same roof, we spoke our first words. Mine was Baba. His was Amir. My name. Looking back on it now, I think the foundations for what happened in the winters of 1975 – and all that followed – was already laid in those first words."
-From The Kite Runner, page 11-
After reading the book review I became very interested in knowing how the book would end.In the review the writer talked about The Kite Runner being a story of two boys – Hassan a Shi’a, Amir a Sunni. One came from wealth and the other a servant. The two grew up in Afganistan the best of friends, until one fateful day when Amir was twelve in the winter of 1975. Amir saw something that changed the boys’ friendship forever.
In the book review the author states "there are graphic scenes which involve child rape and molestation. The violence in the book is painful to read…and heartbreaking.":(
It kind of sucks that every time I come across a book about middle eastern people it has something to do with rape and violence.But I know this book is based on true friendship and the power of love. So I will just wait and see and hopefully I gain some kind of knowledge.
Vanessa Dilworth
Professor Sabir
English 1A 9-9:50am
The Pact Review
George always knew what he wanted and found programs that could help him go to college - unheard of in his neighborhood. One program specifically assisted blacks and minorities to enter medical programs, promising to pay medical school tuition. He knew that program could help not only himself but Rameck and Sam as well. After their discussions, those two also agreed that they should go to medical school and perhaps become doctors. The three friends made a promise to help each other through and that they would all graduate from college.
All the odds were against them. Rameck and Sam both spent some time in jail as teenagers. Their school, although good, was not up to the standards of most white high schools. They had to take some remedial classes the summer after they graduated high school before they could start college classes in the fall. Not all the school finance programs came through. They had to leave their neighborhood and live near campus. They had to buy books. And they had to study no matter how easy or difficult a class. There were the normal life crises that happen within their families and to themselves. They were subject to racial profiling. Yet the three lived together when they could (dental school and medical school were on different campuses) and constantly helped and challenged each other. In May, 1999, they all graduated from the same university with their respective medical degrees.
These three doctors took it further. Their residencies were all there in the same area close to where they had grown up. They have stayed there. Sam, as an emergency room doctor, often sees friends and family members come in. He sees many people from the neighborhood come in with the same troubles he was able to shake off. Rameck and George are also there, treating people who don't have enough, making a difference. When they graduated, they gained some fame and notoriety for their accomplishment. With the gifts they received and the encouragement they now spread to others in their life situation, they have started a foundation to help other young adults with the support they needed and gave each other.
The Pact is a triumphant story. It is written in first person narrative by all three men, each taking different chapters and describing their life from elementary school through medical school. It isn't very long (about 250 pages) but is rich in experience. The story is simply told, but not simplistic. It's an inspirational story that is written well and worth reading.
By Jandy’s room
Response
I got my review from a site called Jandy’ Room, it is a woman’s blog where she posts book reviews and other topics that interest her. I think Jandy did a great job in hitting all the main points summarizing the book. She really enjoyed reading The Pact and broke the book down very well, she included all the major themes of the book. She
talked about where the three doctors, Sam, George, and Rameck came from, what happened in their families, and the trials and triumphs they encountered while becoming doctors. I agree with everything that she stated and feel that she had a nice flow with sequence of events in her narrative. She also included details about the book such as the amount of page numbers that are in the book. I like the end piece, how she said that it is a very motivating novel although it isn’t very long. The review that she wrote is a true summary it’s like reading the entire book but without every tiny detail.
Adalie Villalobos
Professor Sabir
English 1A 8-9
6 April 2011
Book Review on Sula
The book review I read is by Sara Blackburn from the New York Times. Sara Blackburn mentions that Morrison has shown herself as someone of considerable strength and skill in confronting current realities. She also mentions “it's frustrating that the qualities which distinguish her novels are not combined with the stinging immediacy, the urgency, of her nonfiction”. Blackburn feels that Toni Morrison is far too talented to remain only a marvelous recorder of the black side of provincial American life. Toni Morrison has to address a riskier contemporary reality than this beautiful but nevertheless distanced novel. If she were to do this, Morrison would be among the most serious, important and talented American novelists now working. Morrison is undoubtedly one the most interesting authors that I have encountered. Her short novels are interesting and full of drama.
Adrieanna Williams
Professor Sabir
English 1A 8 o'clock
6 April 2011
Book Review on Sula
Rose De Andelis, "Morrison's Sula"
The book review by Rose De Angelis begins her review by stating that Toni Morrison's novels often deal with tragic lives of black families raising children in poor, racially divided communities. She then states that Sula addresses the difference between the characters, Sula and Nel. De Angelis describes how the book shoes how to completely different people can form a bond to help them deal with their reality.She then says that Morrison shows that such a clear-cut difference is not as obvious as it may seem.
Stacey Kidder
Professor Sabir
English 1A 9-9:50am
7 April 2011
After having read the book, The Kite Runner, I can now see where the reviewer that I chose was coming from. I think he was absolutely right about this book being so well done. It was certainly a story of friendship and very much so one of redemption, as well. It was very amazing how the choices Amir made truly affected his life and led him to the point where they did. Overall, I agree with what Hower (the reviewer) said.
Alex Peña
Professor Sabir
English 1A
8 April 2011
Published Book Review
To tell you the truth after reading the hole book I do agree with the author of the book review because it is a very compelling story and you would have never guessed the ending in any part of the book. I really liked that the book report never did mention that Hassan and Amir were brothers or how was the father of Hassan. I think that the writer did a good job of telling what the story is about without ruining the whole book for the reader. I agree with the writer that it is a very catchy story with an awesome ending and I too encourage everybody to read this book. With this book I think that other than just reading a great story I also learned a lot of the history in Afghanistan. And also the USA and Afghanistan relationships with each other.
Jeffrey to
Professor Sabir
English 1A 8-9am
4 April 2011
Sula Book Review by Sara Blackburn from the New York Times summary
I agree with Sara Blackburn review of sula. This is of of the authors best book that describe the theme of friendship, good vs evil, and black and poor sisters. The new York times review mention how much the author Toni Morrison base her book Sula from her previous book “The Bluest Eye”. “The Bluest eye” was Toni Morrison’s first novel that had the same themes and concepts as Sula and it attracted a lot of reader. HE book started a movement that open up readers to read about blacks and the ghetto.
Her new book Sula, talks about the friendship between two girls and how life drastically changed when Sula betrayed her best friend Nel. The book had a lot of different themes and made the characters in the book seem as if it can really happen in real life situations. The review quoted “Toni Morrison is far too talented to remain only a marvelous recorder of the black side of provincial American life” she is talented and her books are something new. It let others know the black side of American life.
Sherri Short
Professor Sabir
English 1A 9-9:50
26 March 2011
"The Pact" Published Book Review Summary
A dental visit sparks thirteen-year old George Jenkins interest. The dentists’ reception to his curiosity instantaneously forms his dream of becoming a dentist. He carries this dream into high school, where he inspires his two best friends into going to medical school.
With each other they reach their goal and become doctors. George Jenkins becomes a doctor of the dental discipline. Sampson Davis becomes an emergency room doctor and Rameck Hunt becomes a doctor of internal medicine. These men are real-life hero’s of our time, with their postitive influence truly something to celebrate. Their memoir-style book, The Pact, was a New York Times bestseller and been made into a documentary film.
They are referred to as the ‘Three Doctors’, also the name of their organization created to facilitate other youth following their dreams. As three young African-American boys living in a crime-laden part of Newark, New Jersey, studying medicine appeared very distant. They saw no reputable professionals in their neighborhood. The strength of their pact paved the way to their success despite the negative factors surrounding them. They made mistakes, and now give youth speeches telling their story. They intend to encourage more youth to link together with friends that have positive influence on each other. They are compelled to do this because of how their continual support of each other made education pay-off.
Their friendship enabled them to get through medical and dental school successfully and now they share their story to help other youth do what they did. They emphasize education and the power of adult role models. They have gone on to write another book, The Bond, about the importance of father-son relationships.
The obstacles that typically prevent youth from success (poverty, unequal school options, poor legal system), demonstrate in this book that these can be overcome and The Pact attempts to outline a recipe for success. More adults are needed to redirect more positive help into the suffering and neglected neighborhoods, to help improve these areas and to help end the cycle of failure.
Sherri Short
Professor Sabir
English 1A (9-9:50)
7 April 2011
Reflection of Published Book Review
Upon completion of this book report project for The Pact, I do agree with the writer of my book review, Marian Wright Edelman. Her summary touches on the key elements of friendship’s power, opportunity through education, and the importance of giving back to one’s community- which are all running topics in the book. The foundations that these men formed during and after college are truly inspirational. The motivation of the book is heart warming and surely will result in more doctors in the neighborhoods that are left in the dust by those who find success.
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