Journal 3 from Cole

        So far my active reading is going well. In high school I used active reading quite often for things such as setting, character details, and important events that happened throughout each chapter. It made it easier to know what happened in the chapter and helped keep track of each character as the story went on. With the active reading now, it’s even easier being able to write in the book so you don’t have to worry about losing or forgetting your notes for the chapters.
        A strength for “The House on Mango Street” is with the chapters being so short, it’s easy to get through the book quickly and retain what you read from each chapter without having to look back in the book. Like we also talked about in class, Cisneros does a good job of keeping the point of view and thoughts in a young girls point of view. She’s also good at being descriptive with the characters by explaining details about the individual. A weakness is with the chapters being so short, it’s also hard to stay engaged or interested in my opinion. I like the chapters to be a little more in depth and have some length so I can get as much information as possible. In “A Long Way Gone”, Beah does a nice job of explaining the setting that they’re in. He gives details that helps me visualize the place where they are in the story. It’s also much more entertainment and interesting to read personally because I like more action type of stories. I don’t really see any weaknesses for this book.
        An important theme to me was perseverance. He had to overcome a lot of things throughout the story so far. Losing his family, being so hungry it hurts, and having fear of the rebels. They kept running away despite their hungry because they feared the rebels. The group overcame that fear though when they returned to Mattru Jong due to hunger. As they got further and further away, hunger set in but they overcame that hunger so they could keep moving and get to a safer place away from the rebels. Beah wrote “ We were so hungry that it hurt to drink water and we felt cramps in our guts. It was as though something were eating the insides of our stomachs.” (pg 30). This shows how hunger was affecting the group but they were able to find food, overcome the hunger and continue moving to get further away from the rebels. However they were caught by the rebels heading back to Mattru Jong.