Robert Lipsyte's Raiders Night

Dedication and commitment are great when it comes to becoming a successful football team. When it comes to becoming a "Raider" football player you are up for some extreme measures. Matt is a senior this year at Nearmont high school and is a captain on their Raider football team. He's their starting wide-out. Matt remembers what he had to do his first year at the end of football camp in order to become a "Raider", called "Raiders Night." They took a rag, blind folded him, and placed him on his back. Scared, in the background he could here sounds of belt buckles and pants dropping. "On your backs," a senior would say, "Open your mouths for the dipping of the tea bags." A few seniors would go around "tea bagging" the new kids using hot dogs and bagged rubber balls instead of the real things, but it sure scared them. Some would gag and others would throw up. This year as a senior, the same becoming a "Raider" ritual would take place. Ramp being the leader of the team. One of the new players lying on his back was some sort of threat and enemy to Ramp because they played the same position. Ramp was team contributor, but also a team bully. Ramp would go around doing the ritual, but when it came to Ramp's enemy Chris, something different happend. Something so vicious and cruel it would leave everyone in the room breathless and horrified. Knowing this could get into the public, the team kept it secret from everybody. Matt knew this wasn't right and fair. Chris was tortured with Ramps act upon him, leaving him scarred. Even though Ramp seems like a bad kid, it's only his decisions that hurt others. Like Matt's addicted to Vicodin, drinking, and steriods. Matt's drinking habbit caused a conflict over a girl he messed around under the influence with, and his preppy popular cheerleader girlfriend. That just adds on the stress for Matt. Who should he chose? Also with the whole Raider's Night putting extra heat in the air, his team is under the possibilty of losing it's popularty and royalty. It would break down the community if this got out in the open. The whole community is on crack down. No one cares about Chris, who had the potential to be a star athelete. All they want is for the football team to achieve their goal, winning state and earning scholarships for Matt and others. Will Matt play by Raiders rules, or do the right thing by telling what happend on Raiders Night? I thought this book was really good. It has real life examples of how teens react to certain things and how they go about their lives while committed to a team. This book may seem like the other one I read (Gym Candy), but it's totally different. Reading this book and Gym Candy can show how different other schools truly are and the hard hitting difficutlties a community have to go through. I give it a 4 out of 4.

Link to Author; Robert Lipsyte

Life of Pi

10/7/08

I am done reading my last book called "The Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore." Now im reading another book called "Life of Pi" This book is about a 16 year old boy named Pi Patel who lives in India. In the begining of the book Pi is talking about going to school in Brazil to become a zoologist. He also explains about a project he is doing for one of his classes. His project is about three-toed and four-toed sloths and how they are different, and also similure. He also starts to tell the reader about his life when he was little, and how his parents named him after a swimming pool in Paris, France. Pi talks about when he was 7, a good friend of his family took him down to the beach so he could learn how to swim. It took him awhile to get used to it but, once he got used to being in the water he learned fast. Every week Pi's friend would take him to the beach and swim. Pi's friend always told stories about when he was in the olympics in Paris. He told Pi all about the swimming pools and beaches that they have in Paris. Although, most of them were very dirty and crowded. Pi also tells the reader about his father who is a zoologist. (As you can see, Pi wants to become a zoologist just like his father.) Pi also talks about the days him and his family lived in the zoo, and how every morning the roaring of the lions woke him up, just like an alarm clock. And when he went to school, he would have to walk through the zoo, passing all of the animals that would watch him walk by. Then Pi tells us how his fathers zoo closed down because of the people who thought zoos were inhuman. And that's all that i've read so far.

Why do clocks run clockwise?

This book, by David Feldman is about imponderable questions people have but have never gotten the answers to. A lot of them are things you encounter every day like why do clocks run clockwise? What happens to the tread that wears off tires? Why do doughnuts have holes? This book was very interesting. I learned a lot of random facts. I thought it was a good book. I would recommend this book to any one that thinks about the small things in the world.