Independent Reading- Book recomendation

I read the book The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. This book is about a country with 12 districts. In this country, every year, they have a fight to death called the hunger games. Katniss Everdeen has a little sister named Prim. Prim gets chosen to be one of the tributes for the hunger games. Katniss volunteers to take her place. The book is about Katniss's battle to survive in the arena against the other tributes. If you want to know what happens you should read this book. I would rank this book an 8 out of 10.

Independent reading-Reading skills

For the book The Host I made predictions throughout the book. In the beginning I thought that Wanda would be taken over by Melanie and Wanda would be taken out of the host body. This prediction was not correct because Melanie did not have enough power to do this. In the middle of the book I thought that Jared would kill Wanda when she showed up at the underground cave. He did not kill her and then I started to wonder how Jamie would react to her prescence in the cave. I thought that he would be curious and this turned out to be true. Jamie snuck to the end of the cave where Wanda was and was spyingon her because he wanted to know more. I predicted after that, that the humans would be captured by the seekers. Although a seeker did find them, they were not captured. I wonder why the other seekers let that seeker go looking for the humans by herself? I think this book relates to the world because the humans judge Wanda by what she is not who she is. This relates to the world because often racism occurs and people judge what a person is like based on what they look like. This book also reminds me of the book Twilight. Like The Host, Twilight has an "alien" or not real species in the novel. In both books the main character fallls in love with someone that isnt thier species and who are dangerous. The Host relates to me because Wanda does in the book, I form my opinions on people based on thier actions and character.

Independent reading- Analysis

Conflict in the book The Host is what helps the reader get to know the characters. You get to know Melanie through internal conflict between her and Wanda. The author uses both internal and external conflict to have the reader get to know Wanda. The internal conflict that Wanda experiences is the disagreements between her and her body who is Melanie. The external conflicts that she experiences are the ones with the other humans. An example of one of Wandas external conflicts is when Kyle tries to kill her. Wanda was able to defend herself and he fell into the rushing rapids of the underground river. He is about to drown in the river but Wanda saves him. I think the author was trying to show the reader through that conflict that Wanda is a very caring person because she didnt hold a grudge against Kyle and she risked her life for Kyles. An example of an internal conflict that Wanda faces is when she has to decide if she wants to tell the humans how to turn an alien back into a human. Wanda struggles with both the pros and cons of this decision. She finally decides to tell the humans how to do it. This reveals that Wanda is a very unselfish person and very ethical because she did the morally right thing even though it did not benefit her. The author uses imagrey when describing the conflict which really adds to the story. As readers we can then picture what is happening. For example when the conflict between Kyle and Wanda happend, the author described sound,touch, vision, and smell so that the reader could picture it.The following link helps explain why imagrey is important and why you should include it in your writing like Stephanie Meyer did when she wrote The Host.  http://poeticvine.hubpages.com/hub/The-Importance-of-Imagery-in-Writing

Theme of The swimming contest

Friendship can still exist through hard times. 

We said this because even though the two characters on opposing sides of war, they still were going to swim together in the end which shows their lasting friendship. 

Independent reading-Book recomendation

I read the book The Host by Stephanie Meyer. I would recommend this book to young adults who like mystery, action, and romance books. I think this book is very good because you are always on the edge of your seat wandering what will happen next. I think this is important because it keeps you from getting bored. The Host is about the future of the earth is taken over by another species. This species thrives by living in a human host body. The story begins with most humans already captured but a few remain in hiding. Melanie Strider is one of the remaining humans. She gets captured and Wanda, an alien, gets put in her body. But there is a problem, Melanie is still present in the mind of the body. If you want to know what happens you should read this book.
I would compare this book to Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. Just like The Host, Twilight keeps you on the edge of your seat and they are both mystery and romance books. If you liked Twilight you will definately like this book.

Independent reading- Theme and Summary

The theme of The Host by Stephanie Meyer is don't judge someone by what they are but by who they are. This theme develops over the text because Melanie, Jared, and the other humans start to like Wanda even though she is an alien. They start to let go of the stereotypes and judge Wanda by who she is not what she is. Wanda begins to do the same thing with the humans because in the beginning she thinks all humans do things violently and by the end she realizes not all humans are like that. A specific detail that shows that Wanda is not like the rest of her species is when she saves Kyle's life even though he tried to kill her. Another detail is that Wanda gave Melanie her body back which none of the humans thought that an alien would ever do. A summary of the end of the book is Wanda and Melanie start to like each other. Wanda begins to feel guilty for taking Melanie's body so she decides she is going to give it back. The humans are all shocked and thankful to Wanda for this. This supports the theme because it shows who Wanda really is.
The following link takes you to a short story which I feel further describes how Wanda might have felt when people wrongly judged her.
http://www.wanttoknow.info/dontjudgeabook

Independent reading-Characters

The main characters in the book The Host is Wanda and Melanie Strider. In the beginning Wanda is very loyal to her species and has no sympathy for the humans. As Wanda begins to interact with Melanie through memories and thoughts, she starts to see the world by a humans perspective. Wanda then decided to go to where the rest of the humans are and turn against her species so that she can help Melanie. This is really revealing of Wanda's character. In the beginning of the book I didnt really like Wanda because I sympathized with the humans and Wanda was against humans. Wanda is a dynamic and round character because she is a fully developed character who changes throughout the book. Melanie in the beginning of the book despises the aliens and is loyal only to her family. As she gets to know Wanda she starts to like Wanda. Even though Melanie was always taught to hate aliens, she loves Wanda because she did great things for her. Melanie shows that she can judge someone by their personality and not what they are. The characters really learned who they really are when they got put in difficult situations. When Wanda saved Kyle's life even though he tried to kill her, showed she is genuinely a good person. The author revealed the characters personalities by the actions they do and their interactions with other characters.