Callie M's blog

The main conflict in my book is when she figures out that her dead father has raped her.  After her father died she had to move in to a new town, school, and now has a new stepfather. These changes are extremely hard on her and really take a toll on everything that she does. As Katie gets more involved with a boy she realizes that her childhood wasn’t as great as she remembered.  What she acts she gets flash backs about her father touching her and abusing her. As Katie’s memories get more intense she talks to her mother and tries to understand what happened when she was younger. She goes to counseling and gets more support from her friends. This conflict teaches the reader that sometimes by helping other people with their problems you can help yourself. Katie found out that her friends got rapped, and she really reached out and tried to help her. By reaching out, Katie understood how her actions would affect others and that she needs to talk about things so that people can actually help her.

I think that making mistakes is very important and that people make mistakes because they need to learn from them.  In the book I think the biggest mistake that Melinda makes in the book is going to the party in the first place.  It has pretty much ruined high school for her and she does learn from it in the end.  I make a mistake almost everyday and I always try my hardest to learn from them and try not to make the same mistake. When she goes to the party she doesn’t really think that she shouldn’t be there. But she really shouldn’t have gone to it, there were much older people that she didn’t know and there was drinking and she could’ve gotten in a lot of trouble. She has learned that people make rumors about something so minor and that you have to stay with your true friends and think before you do things. In the story everyone hates her because they think she rated everyone out, when really she was in a lot of trouble and needed help.  No one cares about her feelings or what actually happened they just think she wanted attention. All of her friends ditched her and no one liked her anymore. Calling the police affected a lot of people and made a lot of them angry.  I think that her being at a high school party is bad because she was in 8^th grade at the time, and I think that’s a little young. She didn’t know what high school boys are capable of and how powerful they are.  She made a mistake by going to the party but she’s facing the consequences. She learns a lot because she knows she didn’t do anything wrong and he just took advantage of her.

Leaving childhood traditions behind can be very hard for many people, Melinda was unable to go trick or treating and felt like she was leaving that tradition behind.   Melinda was relived but also sad because she couldn’t go trick or treating. She’s in high school now and most people her age think that they’re too old for trick or treating.  No matter how old people get they should still have traditions and keep making memories and have fun. I think that Melinda felt like if she went she would be judged and she was scared to go because of that.  When people get into high school they really start to care what other people think about what they do or how they act. There is a lot of pressure on teens these days to be rich, popular, and “perfect.” In reality no one is perfect and we will all end up in the same place one day.  If there wasn’t so much pressure and people didn’t care so much about what other people thought about them, I’m sure many more teens would still be trick or treating and being themselves. Melinda needs to stop caring so much about what others think or say because people can and will say whatever they want and it’s up to her to be the bigger person. Something Melinda should remember is that by not speaking up sometimes and not letting her anger out, she’s letting those people get the best of her. Those people that would care if she was trick or treating are below her.  Melinda needs to learn to do things for her and to be herself.

My book circle the soul softly takes place in a big city in california.  The main character named Katie moves from indiana and was originally from a very samll town. She gets a very rude awakening when she moves, people act differently when they live in different places.  In this story there are alot of stuck up and mean girls and the things the girls do to katie seem very unrealistic.  Much like the people at my school there are many groups and clicks.   Where I live, we don’t have that many stores or much to do for entertainment, but where katie lives there is many things to do for fun and places to go. I think that the setting is a really large part of the story. Katie lives in a rich town and there are many stuck up people and alot of pressure to fit in.  Katie always feels like she doesn’t fit in beacuse she has the smallest house and less expensive clothes. Before she moved, she was very confident and didn’ care what kids thought.  I think that peoel change when they are put in a situation where they have to live up to everyone else.  The town that Katie moved from represents here in many ways, she had weekly things that she loved to do, like going out for coffee or riding horses. In this new city she doesn’t do anything for herself and can’t find anything  that she really likes to do.