A Girl Made Of Dust

Title: A Girl Made Of Dust
Author: Nathalie Abi-Ezzi
Copyright 2008

Summary:
"A Girl Made Of Dust" is a about an eight-year-old Ruba and her family lived in the village of Ein Douwra outside of Beirut. In their hometown of Lebanon, they're in the midst of a civil war and filled with Israeli invasions. But Ruba has to go through that and he things that are going on within her household. Her mother is pretty much depressed and basically sweeps and cooks to keep her mind occupied. Her brother is slowly getting pulled away from the family because he spends more time with older boys and her father just sits on his chair all day without saying a word and avoids the world and his family. Ruba becomes concerned and decides to try and figure out why her father is in the position that he's in and she uncovers many secrets in her family. And at the same time the war is getting more dangerous and closer to Ruba's town. And it almost seems like there's no hope for Rubs's life, her family or anything. but at the end everything comes together as the family realizes that all they need is their unity to be happy.

Quote:
As I burrowed into the quiet place where the wall met, the floor, i had one last thought: i was glad he'd drunk all that water, and he was no longer a cactus standing motionless in a pot full of dry cracked earth." (page 236)

Reaction:
This line completely caught my attention and made me smile because the whole entire book keeps mentioning a cactus that Mama waters when she can but it always droops towards the floor. The cactus was motif and it stood for the family because Mama tried so hard to unite the family but it didn't seem to ever be working. I loved how in the end Ruba is able to bring the cactus up to show the reader that Papa (the family) would no longer be an undernourished plant.

The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr

Title: The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr
1998

Summary:
      Martin Luther King was born on January 15 1929. he grew up in Atlanta Georgia with a beautiful and loving family. His family was a very religious family whom were christian. Dr. King Senior was a big influence in King's life, he was whole reason why King became a pastor and was the serious and well educated man that he was. He would always come to his father and mother, if he ever wanted advise and they'd always be there to protect him and keep him safe. But there was one thing that they could really protect him from. Discrimination. There was a point in king's childhood where he first came face to face to face with discrimination. As a child, King would play with a kid who happened to be white and they were great friends until one day the boy told him that his father didn't want to play with King anymore. And that's how it came up. He came home with questions that his parents just had to answer and at a young age they were bound to come. As King became more enlightened about his life and society, he grew a strong interest in being more involved in creating a solution to racial ills.
      King graduated high school and went to college at a young age and participated in many meetings and dedicated his life to making everyone equal. King's life was threatened many times but that didn't stop him from moving forward and never fought with violence, but with peace. On April 4, 1968, King was assassinated but he dies successful. King defended African Americans to death and was and still is an iconic figure to the United States and the whole world.

Quote:
" With this heritage, it is not surprising that i also learned to abhor segregation, considering it both rationally explicable and morally unjustifiable." (page 31)

Reaction:
I really thought this quote was strong because i got see how King ties in his religion and what he truly thinks about segregation. He saying that because he's been introduce to Christianity at such a young age, he's known what's right and wrong. But even if he wasn't, he would've still believed that the racial problems existing are  "morally unjustifiable".