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A Book Report On Night John By Gary Paulsen

472 Words2 Pages

The story “NightJohn” is about a slave named John who traveled to plantations to educate young slaves. When John is bought by Waller, a young slave named Sarny learns that there is more to life than working their days away for their masters. John does whatever it takes to educate other slaves - even if it puts his own life at risk. The book “NightJohn” by by Gary Paulsen, Sarny learns that anything can be accomplished when you have the courage to stand up for what’s right. First, Mammie is put in a difficult situation when Waller caught Sarny writing in the dirt. He ties Mammie up and demands to know who taught Sarny to read. It was clear that everyone expected Mammie to get punished for the wrongdoings of John. “She don’t know nothing. It was me that taught the girl the letters” (page 72). John had the courage to …show more content…

In fact, she didn’t even think it was possible for her to learn. But when John showed up, he showed her that he wasn’t going to give up on his goal of educating slaves. “That’s the next letter. H. It sounds like huhh, or hehh . . . He makes the letter in the dirt” (page 79). Even after John was punished for teaching Sarny to read, he is determined to teach her more. This showed that John would keep trying to educate others, no matter what happened to him. He fought for what he thought was right. Lastly, after John was punished for teaching Sarny to read, he decided to run. Everyone knew the punishments if a slave was caught running away but John still took the risk to get away to help others learn to read. “John. Be right there, next to me. “Come on,” he said . . . School---we got to go to school. Don’t you want to learn the rest of the letters” (page 85)? After every horrible thing that happened to John, he got clean away. He had a lot of courage to come back and risk even more punishment just to teach a few young slaves. Sarny learned that anything can be done when you have

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