Paulson

Reading Journal

Found: Book 1 January 7, 2010

Question: Why did you choose this book? Does it thus far meet your expectations?

Well I picked out this book randomly, like I didn’t really think about it. When I pulled it out I thought the cover looked pretty cool. I sort of looked like a mystery book to me and I really like mystery books. Then I turned it over to read the back and my suspicions were confirmed. This book is a mystery, but not the one that you would expect. It is not a murder or a crime mystery. It is sort of a supernatural mystery about things that you wouldn’t expect to happen. And I should put in that it also has suspense, adventure, choices, and a hint of love thrown in to.

Does it meet my expectations? Well it has a lot of things that I like in there. And so far in the last 30 minuets that I have been reading it I am thinking that this book it great. At first it seems like it doesn’t have much adventure in it, but then it takes an unusual twist in a direction that you wouldn’t expect. But does it meet my expectations? I have to say YES!! It totally does. Well I guess that is all.

January 8, 2010

Question: Select a Character and state their goal. Discuss their thoughts, feelings and motivations in relation to their goal.

My character that I have chosen is Chip. Chip is a boy that is in seventh grade. He just moved to the town and has become friends with the main character named Jonah. Jonah is a boy his age that is adopted. Near the beginning of the book Chip finds out that he two is adopted, which is a real shocker because his parents have always told him that he was their child born to them. Chip gets really mad and upset because of they didn’t tell him. His goal is to find out who he really is.

His motivations are as I said before. Now that he knows that he is adopted, he wants to find his birth parents. He had no idea that he was going to be involved in a wild ride that included the F.B.I, secret meetings, people who can disappear and reappear at will, and much, much more.

January 11, 2010

Question: What emotions did the book invoke?

After reading the first little bit, I realize that the book has a lot of mixed emotions in it. At the beginning there is laughter and fun when Chip and Jonah (the main boys) are playing basketball in the driveway of Jonah’s house. Then the emotions start to get a little scary when Jonah finds a letter addressed to him in the mailbox. The envelope is white and only has his name and address on it. No return address. In it is a sheet of white paper that only has 6 words. YOU ARE ONE OF THE MISSING.

A little later on the emotions of Chip get mad and sad when he finds out that he is adopted. His parents just told him that day because he got a letter to and they told him (after 13 years) that he was adopted. The emotions of Jonah, Chip, and Jonah’s sister Katharine are scared when weird things start happening to them like ghost appearing out of no were and more strange letters. Those are the basic emotions going on so far in the book.

January 13, 2010

Question: Would you like to be one of the characters? Which character would you be? Why? Is there something about the character that you would change? What is it?

Well I think that I would like to be a character in the book. I would say that I would be Jonah. He is very concerned about his friend and sister. He is very careful and yet very brave at the same time. He doesn’t want to jump into things before he can think through what he is doing. But sometimes he can be to careful and ends up in wasting time by going over the plan so much and trying to find mistakes with everything. That would be what I would want to change about him. But above all he is a pretty good guy. Jonah would deffently be my choice if I wanted to be a character.

January 15, 2010

Question: Are you confused about what happened (or didn't happen) in the book? What events or characters do you not understand ?

In this one part I am confused on what happened. Jonah and Chip were invited to an adoption conference; they allowed Katharine to tag along. The kids were split into two groups and Jonah, Chip and Katharine realized that all the kids in their group where from the survivor list. Their leader, Mr. Hodge, took them on a hike into the woods with his accomplice Gary. They took them to a cave and had each kid touch a rock that was sitting outside of the cave entrance. Mr. Hodge said “If you touch the rock in the right spot, you can feel one patch of the stone that’s about 15 degrees colder than the rest of the rock.” But Jonah and Katharine find out before their turn that it is really a finger scanner and Mr. Hodge just wants to check to see if all the kids are there.

When they get inside, a bunch of bizarre things happen. Like a stone rock blocks the entrance, a guy that Katharine named JB comes in to “Rescue “ them from Gary. Angela DePru comes in with a taser to taser Mr. Hodge and Gary. A character that I don’t understand is JB. You don’t hear much about him and at first it seems like he is trying to help the kids and Jonah really trusts him. But later on Jonah doesn’t seem to trust him anymore. Well those are the characters and scene that don’t make sense.

January 18, 2010

Question: Does the book leave you with questions you would like to ask? What are they? Is there a character you would like to ask a question?

Well at the end of the book Jonah, Katharine, and Chip are transported back to the fifteenth century. The reason they were all transported was because Chip was supposed to go but then Katharine and Jonah held on to him and they refused to let go. I would like to ask Jonah if he thought what he did was a good decision. Like did he think that holding on to Chip and going back to the fifteenth century was a good decision. I would also like to ask Chip what he thinks of Katharine and Jonah’s loyalty to him as their friend? Does he feel happy that he has such good friends that would do anything for him?

The book leaves me with lots of questions, especially the end of the book. What is going to happen in the fifteenth century? What are Katharine, Jonah, and Chip’s parents going to think when they don’t come back? What is going to happen to the other kids no that Jonah has taken the time device with him to the fifteenth century? How will they get back if Jonah doesn’t know how to work the time traveling device? I guess I will just have to read the next book to find out.

January 20, 2010

Question: Sometimes books touch you, reminding you of your own life, as part of the larger human experience. Are there connections between the book and your own life?

Yes there are connections. In the book when Chip finds out he is adopted he is mad at his parents and as the book goes on he feels like he is drawing farther and farther away from his parents. I can connect to that because in this past year I have found that on certain subjects I am drawing farther from my parents. Like they don’t understand me. I can understand how chip feels, when he says that his parents seem like strangers to him now, like aliens from another planet.

I can also relate to Jonah when he is going through a time as his parents say, “to connect to his inner self, to find out who he really is.” I think that every teenager goes through a time in their life when they are not sure whom they are a need to find it. Like kids will were different cloths or change their hair color. They are experimenting to find out who they are.

January 22, 2010

Question: If you were the author, would you have changed the name of a character, or altered the location of a scene?

If I were the author I would change the name of Chip to Luther. Why you ask? Well I will tell you right now. Luther means “Warring One” which describes Chip really well. Because when he finds out that he is adopted he has two different “Wars” going on. His first one is with his parents. He is horrified when he finds out that his parents had kept things a secret for 13 years. He is sad and mad after that. He doesn’t trust his parents any more; you could almost say that he hates them.

Also he has war with himself. He doesn’t know who he is and that itself opens the door to a lot of conflict. One side of him, the side that his parents had influenced told him to stay were he was and be happy were he was and to not let this thing get in the way of his futer. The other half, his independent half, tells him to strike out on his own and to do what he wants and to act up. Then he’ll get his way. His two half’s battle each other for every decision that he makes.

January 25, 2010 Question: Is there an idea in the book that makes you stop and think, or prompts questions? Identify the idea and explain your responses.

Yes there are some ideas in the book that made me stop and think. When the kids are in the cave, Gary and Mr. Hodge showed a video to the kids explaining why they are doing what their doing. They wanted to go back in time to save little children from mass destruction and death. But they only saved the unimportant ones, ones that no one would miss. Then they started to get careless and started taking people like Chinese princesses. This affected history and created (what some people called) the “time ripple effect” Just picture for a second a pond on a windless day. The water is calm and there are no waves. No imagine dropping a rock into the pond. There is a ripple that runs from the drop point and expands till it touches the ends of the pond. This is what happens when you disturb something in time. It effects everything.

January 27, 2010

Question: Which character from the book is your favorite? Describe this character and what you like best about them.

I would have to say that my favorite character is Katherine. She is Jonah's sister and I can really understand her the most. She has Jonah as a brother and he is really annoying to her. She really doesn't let on that she likes him but you can sort of tell later on. See in the book, when those creepy letters start coming and things start happening, Katharine really shows her loyalty to her brother and his friend. We find out that Katharine really loves Jonah as a brother and even though he teases her she would do anything for him, to protect. Near the end of the book she even has a chance to run, to protect herself. But she doesn't. She stays by Jonah because she thinks that he might get hurt and she might never see him again. She forgets about her own safety and only thinks about the safety about her brother Jonah and his friend Chip. See Katharine is my favorite character because of her loyalty to her brother.

February 4, 2010

Question: Would you like to read more books by this author?

Yes I would like to read more books by this author. I think that the author is a very good book writer. She really knows how to capture the mind and attention of the reader. She also knows how to keep there attention and mind. She is very good with description, every time that I read it, no matter what chapter it is, I always had a descriptive clear picture in my head of what I was reading. __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

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