Rules-review [[If it fits in your mouth..Its food]]

Rules by Cynthia Lord.

A very common story about a girl who's younger brother has a disability and she feels like she gets thrown to the side...

You have heard this story before right...WRONG! I started reading the book and I had to keep putting it down because it made me so frustrated. This girl I thought was too shy. She was very selfish and I could not even get into the book let alone think about writing a review about it.

However, somewhere in the story I was pulled in.

Yes the girl is embarrassed by her disabled brother as they are in most the stories.

Yes. She is overly shy around boys even though I am sure she is very pleasing to the eyes

But this girl has rules in which to keep her brother in check.. SHE HAS RULES.

These rules tell him how to behave in public and how to respond to people. Some of the rules are made to make his life better.... however others.. are just to keep him from embarrassing her.

SELFISH.

She finally meets a friend that she thinks she will like and the only thing she worries about is is her brother gonna embarrass her... [[Catherine]]Is only twelve years old. Having a "normal life" is pretty important to her and just the crazy things she goes through while attempting to create this normal life is worth the 200 pages.

NO bad-mouthing at the lunch table!

The biggest and longest fight I had ever had with any of my friends, and it included my ENTIRE table....

I had been best friends with *Samantha since the fourth grade. We did everything together. We were sisters at heart. However, there was one thing that we did not have in common. I was in band and she was not. Granted, that is not that big of a deal. If you think that. You have never been in band. Band is a social paradise. The people in band are the people you spend all your time with, your best friends sometimes. Samantha was not in band and Breanna was. That is how it all started.

Sam and I had been best friends for so long that it was hard for both of us when we could not hang out as much because of my band trips and football games. We both changed in the three years from seventh grade to tenth. We had both found totally different types of friends and we were not the same fourth grade girls talking about Jesus, music and playing on the computer.

One day Sam came to me and said that I was stuck up. My head was spinning! Really? I am stuck up? All day long I was running round and round thinking "How in the world am I stuck up?" So finally I texted her. She cannot give me any reasons I thought to myself. But oh she had reasons...

1. I was mean to one of my BEST FRIENDS

No. I will not even listen to that , I thought. She is my best friend and I am NOT mean to her.

2. I talked about people.

Haha. I refused to listen to that one too! I talk about people the same way I did when I was in the fourth grade. Not excessively and not in a gossipy like fashion......

3. I was hanging out with Breanna.

She thought Breanna was just so mean and so horrible. Note: She did not hate Breanna. She just did not like her.

NOT COOL. Breanna had become my very best friend and I could not let her talk about her the way she was. She said Brea was rude, stuck up and she basically was not a good christian. SO SO NOT COOL. I stood up for Breanna and told her how great she was and how nice she was. I also told her that she cannot just make accusations about people when she really does not know them at all! Of course Breanna did not need my help too much...she also stood up for herself.

Needless to say Sam did not like that one bit. There was a big, long argument that went on for a couple weeks. Our relationship is still strained to this day. We get in arguments all the time about the same subjects. Sam still thinks the same things about Breanna and me but I know that Breanna and I will always be close because we always have each others back in any situation. It feels good to know I always have one person that will side with me and vise versa.

* name changed to protect her identity.

The Giver Review

Do you ever wish life was not always so complicated? That you did not have to make as many tough decisions?

The Giver by Lois Lowry gives you just that. A perfect community, a utopia. In this community everything is the same, everyday. They always know what to expect. They always have enough food. They are always happy.....no [precision of language] satisfied.

The main character in the story is Jonas. Jonas was weighted with memories from the past, before the sameness. Memories the rest of the community could not carry on their own or at all for that matter. They were raised in a world of sameness. Can they have real feelings? Real emotions?

When he was twelve he was entrusted with all the secrets the Chief Elder was hiding from the rest of the community and he had to bear that weight alone. Many people can identify with Jonas. Having to grow up too fast. Seeing the world from a different view point than everyone else.

I complain all the time. Why does she get all the best clothes? Why can not i have shoes like that? I worry about what I will do in the future. What career I will have. They did not have to worry about those things... it was all decided for them. They all wore the same clothes. They all had the same belongings.

But what happens when one or two people decide to push the limits of the community. Decide that they know whats best and only they can bring the people real and true happiness.

The Giver by Lois Lowry. READ IT. It will give you a whole new outlook on life....It did me.