Jared Ramos     806                            "Age Rated Books Right or Wrong                                ELA

           

            The article "Age Rated Books: right or wrong," discusses how books should be age appropriate, like movies if it they are PG 13 or under. But Anne Fine, is against it she says that children feel the sense of achievement toward the end of books till they turn it around and see that the age is rated for 5+ and they're 8. The main interests of the article is how age rating books to be a let down for kids who thought the book was challenging at an older age than the recommended age on the book.

           

            Kids at the age of 8+ are finding that the books they read are challenging to them and when they are almost finished with the book they find that it is for the ages of 5+ which brings the children down making them not want to read. Anne Fine, thinks that, "why should the child of eight who struggles with dyslexia, or has English as a second language, or learning difficulties of any sort (and they are legion) struggle to the end of a book and feel their sense of achievement turn to humiliation as they see 5+ on the back? I understand exactly what Anne is trying to express in this article, she is trying to say that some adults might think that a book might be for that specific age group but really they don’t know, because they don’t know how kids are comprehending what they read.

            As others agree with age rating books how do they know what kids think? How do they know what the kids understand? These questions are mainly what Anne Fine is trying to explain, show and I agree with her. I agree because they have no clue what reading level the kids are, they don’t know the speeds of how fast the kids can read. So that is why I side with not having age on the back of the books so they don’t bring some kids down when they are almost finished.  

Jared Ramos 806                                       Push                                                                 ELA

            As I notice why Precious Jones, is always trying to escape her home, its because of the environment that she is exposed to and living in. her environment is her father would go as far as getting his own child pregnant, and her mother beats her senseless, "till I cant feel no more." But all she wants is a normal life, "like them white girls that don’t have there father getting them pregnant." Reading this book makes me feel that the author is trying to express the main idea, that there is always some kind of happiness as you progress through life but the author is expressing the main idea by using race and how Precious wanted to live a normal life. She wanted to live a normal life with someone who can care for her and care about her and that is why she is always trying to escape her living environment.

            Precious, has gone through many traumatizing things that she has to live with forever, and a lot of these problems can not be solved. The main problem that I see is, what had occurred with her father. What happened was that her father raped her and then he finds out that she is pregnant and he abandons her. The mother thinks that "she stole her husband," made him leave her so she begins with the beatings. When her babe comes out something wrong had occurred the babe had down syndrome, and as the doctor explains " because of the beatings to the stomach the baby's face had been smashed in."

All she wanted was a normal life, to be able to have happy child hood memories. But as I read this in disgust and sadness, I felt that she had no way of having a future with a little happiness I just couldn't see that as I read those parts. This is important because it made me see that there are worse things that are happening to kids everywhere and these children have to live with this memory with a rewind button replaying that experience, and it is just so messed up that there are people so disgusting that they could do that to a little girl.  

            Although Precious, has gone through a lot she wants the best for her and her child she wants to be educated unlike her family, she wants that one person who would help her in such a rough time and care for her. She finds this one person at her school the one person she needed to get her through her times and this person was Ms Rain, she was the nicest to her she made precious feel good and smart about herself, and the biggest thing was that she cared for her like she was her own child. What this says to me is that there is always something bright when least expected meaning that there is always something good waiting for you or a better opportunity lurking right around the corner. This matters because, reading this book is just so depressing and to know that there are children that are being abused like she had been just makes me sick to read and hear stuff like this and its very disturbing. And also not being able to do anything at such a young age to fight back and tell anyone because the person potentially threatened them and it was just a traumatizing thing for them.