The book Navy Seal Dogs: My Tale of Training Canines for Combat is a dramatic story told by Mike Ritland of his life growing up and learning his passions of being a trainer for Military Working Dogs, also known as MWDs. The book shows how to not let others control you. Rutland's passion was dogs and because he didn’t let others control him he was able to fulfill his passion and work with dogs and make a special bond with them. The book is based on Ritland's experiences in training dogs in the US but a lot of the book tells the dog’s stories that he trains over in Iraq so the setting is constantly switching between the fun, happy times training the dogs in the US and the dirty, dark times in Iraq.
The book "A Long Walk to Water" by Linda Sue Park explores the life of Salva, an 11-year-old boy living in South Sudan, after he is displaced by the Sudanese Civil War. First, in 1985, Salva and his classmates are instructed to run into the bush to escape the gunfire that was heard not far from the school. Then, he joins a group of travelers who are walking away from the war in Sudan, but they abandon him in a barn one evening while he is still asleep. After spending a few days with the barn's owner, Salva is sent away with a different group of travelers, must of whom accept him grudgingly. The group walks for a month toward Ethiopia, and eventually they arrive to the Itang refugee camp in Ethiopia.
"Crossing the Swamp," a poem by Mary Oliver, confesses a struggle through "pathless, seamless, peerless mud" to a triumphant solitary victory in a "breathing palace of leaves. " Oliver's affair with the "black, slack earthsoup" is demonstrated as she faces her long coming combat against herself. Throughout this free verse poem, the wild spirit of the author is sensed in this flexible writing style. While Oliver's indecisiveness is obvious throughout the text, it is physically obvious in the shape of the poem itself.
The book Sunrises over Fallujah, by Walter Dean Myers was an accurate representation of the conflict in the Middle East. Myers incorporated real war strategies, like false intel and Improvised explosive devices (IEDs). The book was about strategy that the United States used called counterinsurgency. PTSD was a factor in this and it was brought on by everything in the war from seeing dead bodies from getting shot at.
Touching Spirit Bear, by Ben Mikealson, teaches you that Justice should heal not punish. Cole Mathews is a troubled kid who beats up a kid named Peter Driscal. He gets in trouble and gets an opportunity to go to Circle Justice. Cole is banished to a remote Alaskan island where he gets mauled by a bear. This helps Cole realize that he has been taking the wrong path of life.
Chains, a novel written by Laurie Halse Anderson follows a young enslaved girl named Isabel at the beginning of the American Revolutionary War. Isabel is sold to Elihu and Ann Lockton, along with her five year old sister Ruth, after her original owner dies. The girls are shipped to the house and Ann Lockton, who demands to be called Madam Lockton, is terrible to them. She beats the girls and constantly yells at them. After this, Madam Lockton sells Ruth, making Isabel mad.
'Across Five Aprils' is a novel written by Irene Hunt that takes place on the farm of Creighton's family in southern Illinois during the American Civil War. This book extends five Aprils from 1861 to 1865.The American Civil war was happening between the Union and the Confederate Army. The American war is breaking families apart because of the disagreement of the concept of war. When the war begins, Creighton's son, Jethro sees that the war may be dividing north and the south from each other but also dividing people between his family. It wasn't what Jethro imagine the war would be like.
In this extremely controversial work, Glenn C. Altschuler takes aim on the government’s accusations, the prejudice from the police, and the affect that rock ’n’ roll made in America through the late forties and fifties. Glenn makes many accusations of his own through the way he shifts the momentum of the story from time to time. Through the years back then and now, music has caused many racial and gender controversies. In this book, Glenn explains all these problems and what rock did to start or get of them.
Two Old Women: An Alaskan Legend Of Betrayal, Courage And Survival by Velma Wallis is a novel that highlights the themes of loyalty, old age, betrayal, and the power of friendship between women. The two women named Sa' and Ch'idzigyaak fight for their lives in the cold Alaskan territory, after their tribe decides to leave and label them as weak. The two women survive by thriving off each other’s friendship and knowledge to help weather the bitter cold. In the process of being left by their tribe The People many realizations are made by the women, that later shape their viewpoints on forgiveness.
Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™ by Rebecca Roanhorse is a thought-provoking sci-fi short story that explores the tensions and paradoxes inherent in the representation and commodification of Native American culture. Using New Criticism Theory to analyze the ways in which Roanhorse uses language and structure to create these tensions and paradoxes. In this short story, Roanhorse uses a second-person point of view to immerse readers in a “virtual” experience, providing readers with their own Indian Experience™. The story follows protagonist Jesse Turnblatt, who works as a “guide” at a virtual reality company. Throughout the story, Jesse Turnblatt experiences the commodification and cultural appropriation involved in this virtual world,
Although it defines and affects everyone, the topic of “race” is a difficult one. To some, race is the most important aspect of their life, while to others race is what they check off on forms. James McBride’s memoir The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to his White Mother demonstrates racial topics and issues that discuss origins, sense of self, sense of identity, and neutrality.
A book author on the verge of his name-making exposé depicts his belief of success, though one might find it controversial. The word success derives on the tingle of enjoyment about what one does, sticking with what matters through hard times, and living out the full potential of a soul. Protagonist Chris McCandless, from the novel Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer, was in his early years of adulthood from El Segundo, California. He embarked a journey (by foot) to his destination goal--Alaska. Chris left most of his possessions and ‘became one with nature’ during the process.
Flannery O'Connor (1925-1965) is one of the most influential Southern Gothic writers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Verde). She draws readers time after time through her grotesque and haunting short stories. Two of her most acclaimed stories, "A Good Man is Hard to Find," and "The Lame Shall Enter First" focus on the same theme; good versus evil. As well as using theme to convey her message, she utilizes irony to shock and mystify the readers. The internal struggle between a person's will power and humanity is highlighted often through her many complicated characters.
The short essay “Night Walker” by Brent Staples is a story of alienation, and how he experiences it, feels about it, and deals with it. He is just beginning his first graduate year of college, walking down the street when he experiences a strong feeling of alienation. He gets strange looks from people and is avoided, like a leper. Elie Wiesel in Night also feels alienation from the people around him, being forced into a prison by the Nazis and barely surviving, going through beatings, starvation, illness, and other horrible trials. Both Wiesel and Staples feel alienation because of their culture and their community, which causes their public lifestyle to be less than normal.
Symbols in Looking for Alaska. In John Green’s novel Looking for Alaska there are many symbols ranging from cigarettes to flowers. The symbols in this novel play a major role in helping to better understand the novel and it’s meaning.
