letters about literature.

Dear A.S. King,

In my junior English class, we are participating in Read for A Lifetime. Your book Please Ignore Vera Dietz was the book that I chose to read. We read one book a semester and make blogs posts each week about the book. Our last blog post for this semester is to enter in the Letters about Literature contest and post it to our blog. This is the reason I am writing this letter to you.

Your book was probably one of the most interesting books I’ve ever read. Since it was a book about a teenagers life and the struggles she went through, it was easy to connect. Although I’ve never been in the same situation as Vera, I can picture myself in her situation. Every teenager in high school can connect to Vera in some way, how she had a best friend and they drifted apart. Also there are always people who don’t like you in high school. Unlike Vera, a close friend of mine has never died. Reading the book, I imagined that I had lost one. When someone just thinks about that sort of thing it makes them upset, as it did me. I noticed in the book that Vera never really opened up to anyone and talked about her feelings for Charlie. She mostly keeps to herself, and bottles up her feelings until she’s alone. I can understand that because sometimes I am like that as well. Vera’s confidence in the book inspired me. She never let the words and actions of the “detention heads” get to her. Which made me realize you shouldn’t really care what other people think of you as long as you like who you are. Your book also showed me that you shouldn’t take anything for granted. Grudges shouldn’t be held against the people that you care about. It kind of opened my eyes because I am the kind of stubborn person who will hold a grudge against someone for as long as I can. I realize after reading your book that that is a terrible thing to do. You should always resolve things with people because an argument that you’re having could be the last time you speak or even see the person, because they could be gone in a second. The thing that surprised me the most about myself while reading this book would have to be that I actually thought about it and tried to connect it to my own life. I put myself in the story with the people in my life as the characters and thought about what I would do if this actually happened to me. I could actually feel emotion while reading this book as well. Usually I don’t care much about books and I can never really connect to them as I did to your book. It may seem weird but your book actually taught me something about myself that I should change the way I act sometimes. Thank you for writing this amazing book.
            An inspired reader,
                        Abbie Weil

vlogging it up bro

I apologize for my awkwardness on camera.. (:

let's link! (:

http://www.radicalparenting.com/2009/05/19/learning-to-cope-a-teens-story-of-losing-a-best-friend-teen-article/

This is a link to a page about how to help teenagers cope with the death of a friend. In my book, Vera loses her best friend Charlie. Vera's dad has to try to help her move on from Charlie's death, this link would show Vera's dad how to do so.

http://www.thetreehouseguide.com/

This is a link to a page that shows you how to build a tree house. In the book, it talks about when Vera and Charlie were little and they built a tree house. This link can show you how to build one and you can see what it was like for Vera and Charlie.

http://helpguide.org/mental/domestic_violence_abuse_types_signs_causes_effects.htm

This is a link to a page about the signs of domestic abuse. In the book Charlie's dad beat his mom. This link will help you understand what kind of things his mom was going through.


http://www.as-king.com/index.php

This is a link to the author of the book A.S. King's website. It gives reviews of the book and shows the other books she's written. Seeing the reviews and the other books and the whole website I think would help people better understand the book.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagoda

This is a link to a page about pagodas. The pagoda was a place that is talked about constantly in the book. Vera always talks about how her and Charlie used to go to the pagoda. Reading about pagodas and seeing pictures of them would help you understand the setting of the book when they are there.


http://thebooksmugglers.com/2010/11/book-review-please-ignore-vera-dietz-by-a-s-king.html

This is a link to a page that has a review of the book. It also has some quotes from the book. Seeing the review of the book can help you understand it more and see if you are interested in reading the book or not.


http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/01/opinion/l-children-without-mothers-are-at-special-risk-954179.html

This is a link to an article in the New York Times about children without their mothers. In the book Vera's mom left her and her dad when she was 12. Vera has to grow up without her. This site could help the reader better understand the kind of things Vera is going through without her mother.



http://tipthepizzaguy.com/stories/

This is a link to a website that has all sorts of crazy stories about pizza delivery workers. In the story Vera worked at a pizza place and delivered all over her town, she had some instances where the deliveries were very awkward. This website can help you understand what her job was like.