Author: lamarcello

BOOK REVIEW

This novel by Byron Graves tells the story of a young athlete determined to play like the hero his Ojibwe community needs him to be.

The protagonist TRE Brun is happiest when he is playing basketball on the Red Lake Reservation high school team.

TRE is a Native teen who grieves the recent death of his older brother Jaxon  but despite the sadness that consumes his family , TRE Brun strives to excel in basketball as a way to make his dreams come true even struggling to come out from under the shadow of his old brother .

Jaxon, the brother, was a superstar basketball player and was killed in a car accident.

For this reason, the Tre’s dream was to play on behalf of his brother.

Tre Brun morphed from a short , dumpy, nerdy gamer to a good basket player.

After working hard all summer to hone his fitness level and perfect his shooting skills , TRE hopes to make the Red Lake Warrior’s varsity team.

But despite many efforts, TRE will have to wait another year to play in The Red Lake team.

And when Tre gets called up to the varsity team at the last minute, he has no idea the pressures he will face as he tries to fill his brother’s shoes, navigate peer pressure and keeps his grades high.

But stepping into his brother’s shoes as a star player means that Tre can’t mess up. Not on the court, not at school, and not with his new friend, gamer Khiana  who is falling in love.

WHAT I LOVED ABOUT THIS BOOK.

The author Byron Graves describes THE PAIN in a deeply way.

The pain that means about racisms, family loss, poverty and forgotten dreams.

The Tre’s life is full of pain: The death of Jaxon, his brother.

TRE have to face and to solve a great personal pain: the loss of his brother.

But this pain turns into a feeing of revenge that leads TRE to realize his dream and play in a great basketball team.

This book can inspire all of us.

This book exort us to never give up ad to pursue all our dreams with determination.

It is 1944.

A teenager named Rudolph (Rudi) Vrba has made up his mind.

After barely surviving nearly two years in the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, he knows he must escape. Even if death is more likely.

Rudi has learned the terrible secret hidden behind the heavily guarded fences of concentration camps across Nazi-occupied Europe: the methodical mass killing of Jewish prisoners. As trains full of people arrive daily, Rudi knows that the murders won’t stop until he reveals the truth to the world and that each day that passes means more lives are lost.

Rudi Vrba and his friend Alfred Wetzler devised a dangerous and ingenious escape. They would bring the famous Auschwitz Protocol with them exposing the hideous crimes of the Final Solution.

Lives like Rudi’s schoolmate Gerta Sidonová. Gerta’s family fled from Slovakia to Hungary, where they live under assumed names to hide their Jewish identity. But Hungary is beginning to cave under pressure from German Nazis. Her chances of survival become slimmer by the day.

Rudi Vrba is a normal teenager in Slovakia in the late 1930s. His close friend, Gerta Sidonova, comes from a prosperous family near Rudi’s home. Both are Jewish, but neither is particularly religious. Hitler begins taking over countries bordering Germany in 1938, and this includes Slovakia. Soon Jews begin to face ostracization, the loss of civil rights, and finally, their economic status.

As the Nazi hand of death begins to fall on Jews in Slovakia, both teens try to escape to Hungary. Rudi is quickly arrested and eventually sent to Auschwitz. Gerta will be arrested by the Germans, but makes a daring escape and survives the war. Rudi has a different reality.

Surviving the initial selections, Rudi works in a number of areas in Auschwitz. He makes friends with Filip Muller, who has survived death by becoming a Sonderkommando (he takes people to the incinerators) .This group takes the corpses from the gas chambers to the incinerators. Filip tells Vrba the exact accounts of what happens to those doomed to be gassed.

Rudi adds this to his list of steps taken by the Nazis as they prepare to kill their victims.

He feels helpless in the face of this demonic evil, but is determined to tell the world about the process used at Auschwitz to murder people. But the camp is so closely guarded that escape is nearly impossible. Vrba soon meets Alfred Wexler, and together they plan a daring escape. On the night of April 7, 1944, they elude the Nazis and escape from Auschwitz.

To deceive the guards, the two hid inside the camp for three days. They knew that the fugitives were being searched outside the camp for that period of time. They hid under a pile of wood .

To deceive the dogs , they sprinkled themselves  with tobaco.

 Once the three days had expired, on the night of April 10, the escape took place. After an escape on foot lasting almost three weeks, during which they risked being captured several times, they arrived safely in their homeland.

This is the true story of one of the most famous whistleblowers in the world, and how his death-defying escape helped save over 100,000 lives.

MAIN  CHARACTER

RUDI

On 7 April 1944, Rudolf Vrba and Alfréd Wetzler, both young Slovak Jews, managed to escape from Auschwitz. Walter Rosenberg, who later took the nom de guerre of Rudolf Vrba, was arrested in Budapest in 1942 and sent to Auschwitz. Who was assigned the role of collecting personal data on other prisoners.

The Vrba-Wetzler Report: While in the camp, Vrba decided to secretly write a detailed report. This document reported detailed statistics of the dead and their nationalities.

Although he escapes with his friend Fred Wetzler, the book’s focus remains on Rudi.

In just two years, RUDI is transformed from a rebellious and angsty teenager who leaves home in a rush of adrenaline with no real plan to a prison-hardened young man who has to calculate his every move to ensure he is not killed.

GERTA

Gerta Sidonová: Rudi’s schoolmate, her family took refuge in Hungary under false names to hide their Jewish identity. However, Hungary is succumbing to pressure from the Nazi Germans, and its chances of survival are slimming every day.

WRITING

 Sheinkin’s writing, while exhilarating, is also very chilling as he describes the Nazis’ final solution in depth.

The writer reminds young readers why contemplating the Holocaust is so important today.

HISTORICAL CONTEX

The Holocaust, or Shoah, was a time of unmitigated hatred and violence in the period of the Third Reich. Beginning soon after Hitler seized power in 1933, the Shoah – the catastrophic destruction of Jews – lasted until early 1945.

All Jewish people under German control were marked for annihilation. Non-Jews such as Roma (Gypsies,) Jehovah Witnesses, homosexuals, trade unionists and others were also placed on the death list. To carry out this lethal and horrifying plan, the Nazis eventually developed the “Final Solution.” This led to the building of death camps like Sobibor, Treblinka and the construction of the infamous concentration and death camp named Auschwitz.

The Holocaust, or Shoah, was a time of unmitigated hatred and violence in the period of the Third Reich. Beginning soon after Hitler seized power in 1933, the Shoah – the catastrophic destruction of Jews – lasted until early 1945.

All Jewish people under German control were marked for annihilation. Non-Jews such as Roma (Gypsies,) Jehovah Witnesses, homosexuals, trade unionists and others were also placed on the death list. To carry out this lethal and horrifying plan, the Nazis eventually developed the “Final Solution.” This led to the building of death camps like Sobibor, Treblinka and the construction of the infamous concentration and death camp named Auschwitz.

Knowing how evil their plan was, the Nazis tried to hide their monstrous crimes. Virtually no one could escape from Auschwitz because of the camp security measures.

 WHY IS IT IMPORTANT?

Testimony to the World: Once back in Slovakia, Vrba and Wetzler illustrated the statistics collected and showed some drawings, including a detailed map of the concentration camp. The executives were shocked by their story. They asked the two young people to write down their memories. From the two relationships the Vrba-Wetzler Report . This is an account of the crimes of Auschwitz.

It is sometimes called the Auschwitz Protocol. The Protocol is very hard  but needs to be remembered in the face of Holocaust deniers and the rise of anti-Semitism.

PERSONAL COMMENT:

I really liked this book because I am a fan of the second world war.

I like the books set in a historical context.

It is a true story, a story of hope and courage.

I think about this boy Rudi who was a few years older than me  who challenged  the THIRD REICH to save himself and to testify the atrocities committed by Hitler.

I think the most important value is THE COURAGE.

The courage to not be silent.

The courage to rebel even the risk of death.

I also think it is important don’t forget this  sad chapter in our history.

We have to not forget what it was the Olocaust.

It is important to remind young people in order that these horrendous crimes are no longer repeated

The rhythm of the writing is pressing, engaging, full of adrenaline.

It is a Thriller to read avidly.

Russell Boudreaux is guy from a very small town of Lousiana, hius only goal is to establish himself in the world of football in order to get out from his situation. Football represents the only way to salvation for these guys from poor region and cities of United States. Russell’s goal is very simple: get a scholarship trhough football to continue his studies in university.

Main character and narrator Rus is impulsive, loyal, and a good son in addition to being a good football player. His parents have scrounged and saved in hopes that Rus will have better opportunities than they had.

However an event changes his life; indeed his close friend gets arrested unfairly and this puts Rus in front of a crucial choice: stay in silence and accept thre system or take some risks and fight for a right cause.

That’s why he decides to kneel during the national anthem to show his protest against a “rigged system”, however this action results him a lot of hate towards him from the local population.

But during the story he founds more and more people on his side, who ask for a better society and who don’t let him fight alone.

This book is very special because it describes really perfectly the American society and his problems tied with racism and racial injustices, it describes also the life of the young boys who come from lower class and how they try to get out of their situations. Indeed it is written by the point of view of a black teeneger boy to make the reader understand better the life of the subjects decribed in the book.

I would advice this book for everyone who would like to read an adventure book based on realistic events and to everyone who would like to understand by a better point of view some issues of American society.

A novel

This book is about the story of two teenage boys, Jason Reynold and Brendan Kiely who experience racism and police brutality in America firsthand.
The story begins when Jason, an African-American boy, is brutally beaten by the police after being wrongly accused of shoplifting.
This event shakes the local community and will change the lives of the protagonists forever.
Quinn, who is Rashad's schoolmate, is at the scene of the attack, and therefore becomes a witness. Consequently it will be imbued with community expectation and personal conscience throughout history.
This book is written in the first person, and is told from the point of view of the two main protagonists, who alternate narrating.
This original way of narrating the story allows the reader to identify with both protagonists and to see reality with two different eyes.
It is a book that I found very interesting because it describes and talks about American society and its main problems such as racism and violence, with which young people find themselves involved on a daily basis.
It makes us understand the weak points of the society in which we live and invites us to reflect on these problems, encouraging us to always act for a more just society.
I recommend this book to anyone, especially if you are passionate about sociology or social policy because, as well as a story, it is a true photocopy of the world we live in.

BOOK REVIEW

“Booked” of Kwame Alexander

This book is a novel that follows the jouney of a young boy named Nick Hall. Nick is passionate about soccer and poetry. The story explores his life and the typical challenges of adoloscense, such as love, friendship and academic pressure. When Nick’s parents announce their separations Nick will face the complexities of school life and soccer and poetry become emotional refuge. This book emphasizes the mportance of facing difficulties with determination and appreciating the power of words and relationships. The main characters in Kwame Alexander’s “Booked” include the protagonist, Nick Hall, along with his father, best friend and soccer coach.

The peculiarity of this book is the use of poetic form to tell the story. This poetic form can capture the emotion of the protagonist Nick and helps to create a unique and intense reading experience.

I really liked this book because I identified a little with Nick and his adolescent challenges. Like Nick I too experienced the separation of my parents and for me too football has always been not only a passion and sport but also a refuge. Furthermore I really like the protagonist Nick because I appreciate Nick’s resilience and his personal development that makes him a fantastic character.

I recomend it to everyone expecially to young people because this book shows that sport and friendship can really help to overcome the difficulties of growing up.

BOOK REWIEW

“Game Changer” of Tommy Greenwald

This book is very adrenaline-pumping and exciting. 

You often feel the need to have to read it to understand how the story will end and to figure out the ending.

It is not written in the tradition written in prose but the dialogues and thoughts of the protagonists are described in the first person. In addition, the author, in certain cases decides to write and show the text of certain conversations, for example on phone chats or social media posts.

I really liked this change in the way the text is written because it makes the text smoother and more exciting to read.

It tells the story of a boy named Ted Youngblood, during the preparatory phase of the early soccer season, is severely injured in the head, going into a coma for the next few days.

Initially thought to have been a purely accidental and unfortunate incident, in fact the whole school sympathizes with the family’s grief and several classmates create a Facebook social in support of the boy.

However, the behavior of certain people, especially Ethan,ted’s best friend, suggest that the truth behind the tragic accident is a little deeper.

In fact, right on the social profile, an anonymous nickname begins to somment under posts suggesting that there are motives behind the accident.

It will eventually be Ethan who confesses that on that day, the Senior boys incited the Freschmen boys to clash as hard as they could through tough contrasts, to prove that they are good players and not afraid of anything. Ethan himself, encouraged by the crowd of boys (including even the coaches) and Ted himself, hits his friend with full force, subsequently causing him to suffer a head injury.

The story ends with Ethan confessing the story to Ted’s parents, who just then miraculously wakes up saying, “I remember.”

It is a book that succeeds in drawing you into the story, and I recommend it for all readers who like mystery or stories with an ending to be discovered