Drummer Boy of Shiloh

I just finished reading the story, The Drummer Boy of Shiloh, by Ray Bradbury, and it's starts off with a fourteen yearold boy that's a drummer boy named Joby, in the civil war, and he takes part in the Battle of Shiloh. Joby doesn't have any confidence in himself until he has a talk with the General and he gains his confidence from talking to the General.
          The author does a good job by using something to symbolize Joby through out the story. The author uses a peach blossom as the symbol, to symbolize Joby's lack of confidence and how fragile he is. A peach blossom is young, small and fragile and it fits to symbolize Joby, a young boy who has yet to become a man. You can also hear how low his confidence by him admitting he would die in war," Me, thought the boy, I got only a drum, two sticks to beat it, and no shield " and in the beginning you can hear, he is hesitant and says " I think so sir ,". 
    One quote that stands out from the General's speech is when he says," You are the heart of the army ," and the quote matters so much because it's telling him he does matter and it also boosts up his confidence up even more, and if he is the heart of the army and he dies then it's saying if he dies then the whole army dies because he matters that much in the army.
    Towards the end you can hear how much confidence he gained when he answers the General with no hesitation he says ," yes sir ," . At the end also it sounds like he has full confidence in himself and is ready for war when it says, " He swallowed, he wiped his eyes. He cleared his throat. He settled himself  ". So I think he finally changes in the end and turns from a young boy and into a man.
   In the end the lesson Ray Bradbury is trying to teach us is to, be more confident in yourself and I guess it is also showing that we always need a friend to lean on whenever we need help. And I guess he is also showing us that sometimes you can mean more to people then you really think.

Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry

In the book Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry a girl named Cassie learns how to deal in a world full of racism and hate towards her for her skin color, and tries to understand why the land her family owns is so important. Cassie lives with her father, mother, grandmother ( known as Big Ma ), and her four brothers Stacey the oldest, Chritopher-John the third child, and Little Man the youngest. The family has their own acres of land and struggle to keep it with the only money they have is when their father goes off to the North where he works getting paid to lay out rail road tracks. Cassie is a smart character and brave of the things she's seen and experienced in the book like hearing about burnings, seen fights, but most of all fought through the comments of racism.

Some problems in the story that the family have to deal with is a group of white men called the " Night Men ", start to kill black people when they feel like they are stepping out of their place but really they haven't done anything but defend themselves. Another problem is one of Stacey's " friend " T.J, he's a mischievous boy who gets into a lot of trouble but, sometimes get's out of it but, not this time. When T.J start to hang out with white people and gets in trouble, he goes back and ask Stacey for help but, Stacey's always tired of helping his " friend " T.J. Another problem that happens to Cassie and her brothers the most is dealing with a school bus that always mud or water on them. The school bus that bullies them belongs to a white school, and the driver wants to " entertain " the kids so, he speeds up splashes mud towards Cassie and them. Little Man always wondered why they never had a bus but, they just told him that one day we'll get a bus but that day might not come so soon. And finally another problem is dealing with the land. They own their own land and it's a bug piece of land that a man named Mr.Granger is out for, he's always asking if their going to sell any land or if they need help by borrowing money, when really he just wants the land and nothing else.

In the story Cassie starts to experience some changes by trying to understand why the land is so important and since she has seen/heard of the burnings, Night Men, the bus, T.J, the racism and the land. Cassie stars to understand that they lived in a world where two colors would never mic and that hated each other and most of the tome her color is the one getting picked on. Even when she gets bullied by a white girl named Lillean-Jean she stood up for herself and it took a lot of bravery to beat her up since, back then if a black person beat up a white person, the black person would have to suffer the consequences. So Cassie does change through out the book and so does Stacey, he starts to realize that T.J isn't so much of a friend and he just uses people but, Stacey is a caring boy and is more of a friend to T.J by always helping him.

Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry is a very good book that has a lot of Climaxes and Problems in the story that could teach some lessons in then too.