Homeless Bird
In the book Homeless Bird Koly travels through a lot of bad situations and a few good ones. I think the worst of all bad situations is when Koly’s sass leaves her in Vrindavan, and she doesn’t know where anything is. Koly doesn’t know that sass had left until a person, who gave her a ride on a rickshaw, tells her she saw her sass had gotten on the train. If I start listing situations from the beginning there is a lot of bad situations, like when Koly believes that she will have a wonderful husband and a kind in law family but that is all a dream. When Koly sees her bridegroom on her wedding day she sees that he is very ill. Koly’s sass and sassur only wanted Koly for the money and the dowry. Soon her husband Hari gets extremely ill and they all get a ticket to Varanasi, except Chandra, her sister in law. Once they all get there Hari soon dies, but on page forty-six and Forty-seven Koly says, “There was happiness that the death had taken place in Varanasi.” I think what was mean of sass is to give Koly a cheap white sari and say “Here this is what widows where.” Once they go back to the house everything was lonely, and on page forty-eight, Koly said, “When Chandra mourns for her brother we put our arms around each other.” I think even though Koly didn’t know Hari a lot they still feel the same way. As you can see Koly always sees the best of things
Throughout the book there are a couple themes. I think one of them is perseverance. I think it is perseverance because Koly goes through death, and being homeless but she still sees the world like a glass half full. Like when her sass leaves her in Vrindavan and Raji takes her in to Maa Kamala’s house which is for widows, Koly still keeps a smile on her face because she is around people that are willing to help her find a home. Also like in Bud Not Buddy one of the themes could be “One door opens when another door closes.” An example of that is when Sassur dies Koly and Sass get to go to Vrindavan. Although once they get there Koly gets left so that door closes. When the other one opens Koly gets invited to stay at Maa Kamala’s home. This theme is important because it travels all throughout the book. The last theme I could think of is courage. Koly has a lot of courage and bravery to stay strong when half of the Mehta family dies, Chandra leaves and when Sass leaves her too. Koly is a strong person to be able to go through all of those tragedies.
Throughout the book Gloria Whelan wants this book to not be upbeat, and to be sad. I think maybe Gloria went through some tough times or saw some where she lives. I think she compared the pariah dog to Koly on page 82. The pariah dog is homeless and is starving and Koly becomes homeless and she already is hungry. On page 77 Koly compares her marriage to Chandra’s marriage. Koly says, “Instead of a frightened gawky girl and a young doomed bridegroom, there were a handsome young man and a happy beautiful bride.” Koly is happy that Chandra can have a family of her own, but it brings tears to Koly’s eyes because it reminds Koly of her terrible marriage. Koly also is sad because Chandra will leave and won’t come back to dance in the rain, or laugh late in the night. Also when Maa Kamala says, “You wallow like pigs in mud.” Gloria is comparing a pig that is lazy pig to a sorrow story about how someone became a widow. One similarity I found was when Koly says, “My last doubts about the marriage flew from me like a flock of birds starting up from a field to be lost in the distance” on page 177. Koly thinks her doubts are similar to a flock of birds flying away. All of her worries about being scolded or accused can fly away like the birds, and she can live a wonderful life on the farm with a family of her own.
Slice of Life
My eyes snapped open when I heard an air pump. The jumpy is here! I jumped out of bed, got dressed and sped downstairs. There was a giant castle, half the size of the classroom, blocking the van it came in. It was bright orange, vibrant red and vivid blue. My flip-flops slipped off my feet and I was bouncing up and down. The castle smelled like new rain boots. It was Thanksgiving at the Stewarts!
Usually our family would have thanksgiving at a different house, but we decided to make a new tradition and have it at our house. Thanksgiving in 2010 started out when I was waiting for dad’s, brother’s family while I was on the computer. I saw headlights in the darkness and I ran outside with the leaves rustling in the wind. The car door opened and my cousins came out to hug me. My aunt Lynn asked why I was so tall while my uncle was getting the bags out of the trunk. We all chatted for a little while, and then we blew up the beds and went to sleep.
I saw my mom’s car drive up the driveway and she was sweating like a pig, she had a silver, shiny medal in her hand that said “2010 Thanksgiving Marathon”. My mom took a quick shower, because she had to start cooking. I waved to her, before she went inside, behind the net because she was too sweaty to hug, then I resumed bouncing. Soon I was bouncing even higher, Caroline, my sister, had come in! After ten minutes our legs got tired so we sat down. Later we had to bounce some more because my cousins, and Anna, my sister, were bouncing with us. We all got tired so we went inside to help cook. I cooked a warm casserole, and a delicious looking cake with crunchy nuts, cool whip, and chocolate sauce. Sadly, our turkey wouldn’t fit in our oven, so my dad had to cook it on his Big Green Egg, or a green grill in the shape of an egg. I heard the doorbell ring. Paw-Paw, our grandfather was here! I hugged him then ran outside, I was bouncing once again!
Lunch was ready! I ran inside and the first thing I saw was turkey. My mouth was watering, because I was so hungry! We ate sugary ham and delicious turkey. We also had warm mashed potatoes, green beans, buttery rolls, and green vegetables. I got everything. Dessert was next! This was my favorite part of the day. I ate the cake I made, it was really tasty, and a delicious chocolate chess pie. A chocolate chess pie is like an apple pie except with yummy chocolate. Everyone got a little bit of everything, except for me. I got a lot of everything.
Soon it was dim and we were all exhausted and stuffed. We cleaned up, and sat around, watched football, played basketball, played football, and jumped. Paw Paw left for Marietta to go home. We were now looking at stars and throwing the ball to Bella, my dog. As a family we went indoors and dozed off.
The sun had peeked through my bedroom blinds. I opened my eyes and walked downstairs. My aunt and my mom were drinking warm coffee, while my dad, my uncle, my cousin, and Anna were out on the porch. “Our bags are packed” my cousin said sadly. I jumped in the castle for a little, then went inside and sat on the porch. Caroline came from upstairs later, and a while later my other cousin came from downstairs and sat with us. Three hours later their car left for Wilmington, North Carolina, it was just the five of us, and our dog Bella.
-Lily Stewart
Northern Lights
Who: A storm watcher from Arkansas
What: Northern lights
When: October 25 2011
Where: You can see them down in southeast United States
Why important: This might be the only time in your life the lights come near your home, and if you miss it you probably won’t be able to see them again. Also, we don’t normally see them as south as Georgia, and sometimes it’s nice to see something that we don’t see all the time.
Website: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/space/news/article.cfm?c_id=325&objectid=10761898
Pumkins
Plump and
Unusually large with
Many
Puny
Kinds of seeds
In them.
Normally in orange,
Sometimes with a carved face
Mesopotamian Art
Mesopotamia is full of different things to learn about. I decided to learn more about art of ancient Mesopotamia. I think it is cool to learn about something millions of years ago in a different country. You can also learn about their culture from what they did in their artwork. For example, what types of supplies they had where they lived, or what types of tools they had by if the piece of art was messy or neat. My essential questions were what helped me research. My essential questions were, “What types of art did they do?”, and “How did they make the art?”Those questions helped me research.
In ancient Mesopotamia they would make art. One of the pieces of art would leave a mark of the owner, this piece of art is called a seal. A seal is a piece of wet clay that is stamped with a animal or a picture of some sort. After that, the clay would be rolled into a cylinder, or a tube shape. For example, someone would take a bag, put items in it, then tie it. Then on the knot the owner would tie the seal.If an artist decided to make a sculpture, would be based on cones and cylinders, arms and legs like tubes. Most of the sculptures would have big eyes. If the sculptures were taller it would be of someone important. Skirts on the sculpture would be smooth and flares out at the bottom. Decorations on sides of buildings would be 3 denominational. They would be painted in red black and white. These pictures would be of animals such as, cows, dragons, lions and other animals. The decorations would be made out of pieces of cone shaped clay that is baked. Other pieces of art would be on a Stele (STEE lee) or a stone slab. It would have pictures, that were 2 denominational.
I liked learning more about Mesopotamian art, it was fun seeing what the people did for other people to see. Although most books and websites I found didn’t have the information I needed. But my social studies book had some information and one or two websites did. I liked the experience of finding information about something I didn’t know anything about.
Websites:
http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/m/mesopotamian.html
Mesopotamian Art
Books:
My World History
Frank Karpiel, and Kathleen Krull
Page 131
2011
Post Number One
Christopher Paul Curtis is very descriptive he made me feel sad, happy, and sometimes even scared. Although most of the time it’s funny. When he was in the shed I felt scared because, the author said there was a blood stain, it was dark and scary. I felt sad when he was left by the side of the railroad and Bugs was on the train going west, because he had been waiting to go with Bugs. When he got food from the bread line it made me feel happy for him because he hadn’t had food in a while. I think it was very nice for the family “claimed” him as they’re son so Bud could get food.
I think Christopher wants you to feel all different types of ways, like maybe when we keep reading we will feel surprised, or even more happy and sad. I think he wants some of it to be funny, because it is during the Great Depression and the Great Depression is sad so maybe he wants some of it to be happy. Although it’s still the Great Depression so it can be sad too.
