Book Club Post # 2

My Book Club Book :
SPEAK by:Laurie Halse Anderson

Summary: In this weeks reading I read that Heather , Melinda's only friend in school, has turned her back on her. Heather decided that she can't hang out with Melinda because she's depressed and too weird , so she went to the Martha's clan and left Melinda to be all by herself again ( p.gs 104-107) Melinda has been skipping school and people started to notice, so her parents had to have a meeting with the principal. The punishment she got was that she had to go to school everyday, she couldn't be late to her classes and that she had to do all her homework. If she didn't all that the only thing that she had to do was write an essay but she skipped school again and had to go to In-school suspension. While she was having her suspension with Mr.Neck ( The Social Studies Teacher ) Andy Evans walked into the room , every time Mr.Neck would turn around he would blow in Melinda's ear ( p.gs 113-118)
Melinda is having trouble with drawing her tree so Mr.Freeman gives her a book called
'Picasso' to inspire her. At first she thinks that the book has a lot of naked women but then she starts to get more into the book and at the end she drew a tree for Mr.Freeman ( Its still not the tree he wants though) ( p.gs 118-119) For a whole week Melinda didn't skip school , went to all of her classes and did all her home work , so she and her mother were going to go shopping to buy her new clothes. But when Melinda left school there was a blizzard outside and she was just standing out in the cold with no hat , mittens and with her rear end freezing. Mr.Freeman then offers Melinda a ride home in his car. They start talking about Melinda's tree and how she doesn't seem to put any of her feelings into the drawing. Melinda then shocks herself when she tells Mr.Freeman : " All right , but you said we had to put emotion into our art. I don't know what that means. I don't know what I'm supposed to feel" . Mr.Freeman then explains to her why a drawing should have feelings put into it and then he drops her off at home. (p.gs 120-123)


Opinion: I think that Melinda should really tell somebody about her problem and what happened to her but she doesn't speak to anybody. When people talk to her , some times she doesn't even answer them so they think shes mute or that shes being disrespectful to them. Mr.Neck doesn't like Melinda because he thinks that she doesn't talk because she's a quiet trouble maker. I don't really like Mr.neck because HE'S the one thats disrespectful to other people and he can't tell when somethings wrong with a person. I think that when Melinda finally tells somebody what happened to her , she will be able to draw a tree thats filled with all of her emotions.

Prompt:

This week my group was suppose to have a meeting but we didn't because I'm ahead of my other book club members and Sakeena ( One of my book club members ) was absent.

I had a meeting with Mrs.Hameed about my book.

In the book club meeting two things that we both agreed on was that the movie "SPEAK" and the book are very different. The movie is not as detailed as the book. The next thing that we agreed on was that When Melinda had to draw a tree in art class, she has to express her feelings and put it into the drawing but she can't because of the Issues she's going through.Two things that i disagreed with my book club group was that the main character's name was Heather ( O_o ) and that Melinda is mean to her mother.

I really liked talking to Mrs.Hameed about my book , even though she hasn't read it.She saw the movie so that helped her understand of parts of the book. I was able to tell her the things in the book that have been happening and the things that Melinda is going through. We compared things that happened in the movie to whats happening in the book. I feel that even though Mrs.Hameed hasn't read the book she now has a better understanding of how the book is and whats been happening to Melinda and the troubles shes having. I hope that the next time that the book club groups have a meeting that my group in complete and everybody is closer to being on the same page (that may take a while :[ ). I try to help my club members as much as I can without giving them to much information and to get them to have a better understanding of the book. Even though they do get on my nerves and make me want to rip all my hair out , I can't give up on them because i have to keep them from falling to far behind and help them with things that they don't understand about the book.

How do you feel about your first book club book? What have you liked most about it so far? What do you think is going to happen over the next week's reading?

I really like my book club book. The thing I like most about my book is that it is given from a persons own point of view and as I read the book I learn a lot more about Melinda and what she's going through at home and at school. Over the next week of reading I think that I will find out why Melinda is so quiet , why at the beginning of the book everybody was glaring at her and why she calls her self an outcast. ( Even if I did see the movie :p , I still wanna see what they're gonna say in the book )