Summer Reading free essay sample

The Silver Kiss * Canyons Title: The Bronx Masquerade Author: Nikki Grimes Point of view: First Person Setting-Time and Place: Present Day, in theBronx, NY All Main Characters and Descriptions * Tyrone Bittings: Dad Died, doesn’t like white people. * Chankara Troupe: Abused by her boyfriend, writes very good poems. * Raul Ramirez: Painter, Writes a well-written Zorro Poem. * Diondra Jordan: Painter, father wants her to play basketball due to her height. * Devon Hope: Plays basketball, but his favorite secret pastime is reading. Lupe Algarin: Wants to have a baby, for someone to love her, and she never smiles. * Gloria Martinez: Had a baby (B, Angel) father abandoned them, and its hard work. * Janelle Battle: Smart, loves to read, chubby, and low self esteem. * Leslie Lucas: White, mom died, scared of black people, only friend is Porscha * Judianne Alexander: Abused by father, low self esteem, and she is jealous of Lupe. * Tanisha Scott: Light Skinned, Long Hair, â€Å"caramel cutie†. We will write a custom essay sample on Summer Reading or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Most people are jealous. * Sterling Hughes: â€Å"Preacher† Believes in God intensely and plays the guitar. Amy Moskowitz: Has no friends, is afraid of being hurt again since her mother died. * Sheila Gamboroni: Italian, Hates her blonde hair, wants her Africana name Natalia. * Steve Ericson: Wants to design sets on Broadway, is moving out of New York. * Raynard Patterson: Dyslexic doesn’t like to read, but poetry raised his self esteem. * Porscha Jackson: Everyone thinks she is violent b/c her mom abused her. Plot Summary: When a high school English teacher uses the method of a poetry slam to bring his students to the realization that they are all different and equal. That the color of their skin does not matter, its their knowledge, and prosperity that will take them places in life. Conflict: Each student wants something that a different student has. When they look at each other, they look at what they have on the outside, but they don’t really know what each other has deep down inside. They don’t know about each other’s personalities. They don’t think about how hard it might be to be them. Theme: (if there is one) To be comfortable in your own skin and persevere until you reach your goals. Title: The Silver Kiss Author: Annette Curtis Klause Point of View: Third Person Setting-Time and Place: 1990’s Chicago, Illinois All Characters and Descriptions * Zoe: (16) Black Hair, Grey Eyes, mom has cancer, dad stays with mom, BFF is Lorraine. * Lorraine: Zoe’s Best Friend. Moving to Oregon Soon. * Zoe’s Mom: Always in the hospital. Has bone cancer. * Zoe’s Dad: Is always busy with her mom, argues with Zoe a lot. * Simon: (300) Zoe’s â€Å"crush† who is also a vampire. * Christopher: Simon’s younger brother. Doesn’t like Zoe with Simon. Plot Summary: Zoe feels alone because her entire life is falling to pieces. Her mother is dying of cancer, her best friend is moving out of state and she barely ever talks to her dad anymore. But then one night she meets Simon, a vampire. She instantly falls in love with him. Then he reveals to her that he was changed to a vampire more than 300 years ago when he was sixteen when he was kidnapped by a linkboy that he followed home one night. Conflict: Simon wants to avenge his mother’s death by killing his little brother Christopher, who is also a vampire but is inside of a little boys body. Simon is too afraid to fight Christopher by himself because he is weak. But he thinks that Zoe can help him beat his brother. Theme: (if there is one) No matter what you are going through, someone else is going through something worse. Title: Canyons Author: Gary Paulson Point of View: First Person, Flashback Setting-Time and Place: 1860s and present day El Paso, Texas All Characters and Descriptions * Brennan Cole: Lives in El Paso, Texas with his mother. * Coyote Runs: An Apache boy who looks forward to manhood. He will have to survive a raid in order to be considered a man by his tribe and family. * Magpie: An Apache man that lent his pony to Coyote Runs to use during the raid. Sancta: The leader of the raid. * Bill: The pastor that Brennan’s Mother is dating. Plot Summary: Canyons is a story about two teenaged boys on a journey. One day when Brennan goes camping, he feels something poking him from beneath his sleeping bag. He unearths the pest to find that it is a human skull. Well part of it. He carefully examines it finding that the rear is missing and there is a bullet hole in the center of the forehead. He takes the skull to his former biology teacher Mr. Homesly. Mr. Homesly then uses his many connections in an effort to extract information pertaining to this find. When Mr. Holmesly received the information from his friend he called Brennan right over. Brennan stayed up the entire night reading through the boxes for information. After much research he found that the skull was almost 250 years old, and belonged to an apache boy, his age named Coyote Runs who went on a raid and didn’t survive. The police or the â€Å"bluebellies† shot him point blank in the forehead. His manhood was short lived. Conflict: Brennan finds a human skull on a camping trip and exercises all of the help he can get to find out who it belongs too and why it was there in the first place.