Book 3 Project: Final

            In the Michael Lewis’ The Blind Side, the main character Michael Oher is one unique person.  Between his athletic abilities, his huge size, and his weird upbringing there is really no one like him in the entire world. In this true story about Oher’s life he grew up in the ghetto of Memphis, Tennessee battling many adversities. He lived in many places and slept many nights in different random places. He thinks he has twelve siblings, but it isn’t even sure of that when asked. Comparing him to any other human on this planet is just not a fair question to ask regarding Michael. His unbelievable strength, speed, and perseverance can only be compared to that of a super hero. Standing at six foot five inches and weighing over three hundred pounds, Michael is to say the least a genetic freak. He can run a forty-yard dash in 5.3 seconds. At the 2008 draft combine Michael’s broad jump was one hundred and nine inches.  If I had to compare Michael to one character it would have to be Super Man. They are very similar in their abnormal strength, but also on a deeper level. Super Man was born with out parents until the Kent family found him and took him in. This also happened with Michael. Oher’s mother could never really take care of him, which led to him bouncing around Memphis from home to home. His story begins with his childhood friend’s father Tony Henderson taking him to the rich private school of Briarcrest. From there Michaels amazing story took off. The schools athletic coach’s took a huge interest in Oher because of his amazing size. While at a Briarcrest basketball practice Michael first met his eventual parental guardian, Sean Tuohy. Tuohy had been a volunteer coach at the practice Michael was at. Although the tremendous difference in size and race Tuohy saw a lot of himself in Michael. The book explains how Tuohy growing up was also the poor kid at a rich private school, and he knew how Michael felt. It started with Tuohy giving Michael lunch money so he could eat at school and tranfromed into Leigh Ann Tuohy buying him clothes and offering him a home. Oher and his new family, the Tuhoy’s, could not have been more different. Much like how the Kent’s took in a child who would grow up to be completely different than them. The Tuhoy’s never knew that Michael would grow up to be an eventual first round draft pick or NFL star, just like the Kent’s would have never guessed there new son would grow up to be a savior of Earth. Oher’s story and Super Man’s are oddly alike.  Both of them grew up in homes not of their own, but gained the same thing, a solid and loving family life. Both Super Man and Michael Oher have their new family’s beliefs instilled in them forever. They will both be forever grateful for being given a chance to be part of a new family. 

Reflection 10: hero

The most memorable leader to me in any novel has to be Harry Potter. For eight straight novels Harry Potter battles good versus evil, and conquers all eight times. He saves his school from getting taken over by the evil death-eaters, who are led by the evil Lord Voldemort. We learn in the first book that Voldemort had killed Harry’s Parents and tried to kill him when he was just an infant. It is said that he is the only person who ever survived. Although Harry Potter does not technically have all of the hero aspects, he is a strong smart leader who is always helping people. Time and time again he saves the day, whether that is winning the Goblet of Fire or eventually fighting Lord Voldemort and conquering him. He is the greatest hero ever because for eight books he was stuck right in the middle of the good versus evil battle and he never quit or let down. Even when times were down, Harry stuck with it and in return he ended up defeating Lord Voldemort. Harry Potter is the greatest hero and leader of any other character in any book.

Reflection 9: Great Moments

Top 3 Moments: The Blind Side

            -Lawrence Taylor is described as the perfect example of a defensive end, literally making quarterbacks afraid to play against him for fear of getting sacked. At the time, the giants coach explains that he’s seen quarterback forget the snap count and call time-outs when they thought they saw Taylor but he was really on the sidelines. Taylor knew every quarterback looked for him before every play, and would even call out where he was to let the rest of the team know. One player in particular experienced his fury first hand, and that was Joe Theismann. The powerful moment is when Lewis describes Taylor’s hit on Theismann as “sounding like a gunshot” when Theismann’s entire leg snapped in the tackle. This is powerful because it was important in history, but it also sets up the importance of Michael Oher’s position. Oher, an offensive lineman, is responsible for protecting the quarterback. It was the mistake of someone in his same position that ended a great quarterback’s career too early.

            -Another great moment is when a high school coach, Hugh Freeze, sees Big Mike for the very first time because of the amazing language. Lewis describes Mike so that readers can visualize him completely. Some of the phrases he uses are “Good God! He’s a monster!”, “The kid’s shoulders and ass were as wide as his doorway”, “Whatever the dimensions, they couldn’t do justice to the effect they created”, and ”When football coaches describe  their bigger players, they can sound like ranchers discussing a steer… [using] words like girth, mass, and trunk size”. The descriptive language is so powerful because it’s the reader’s first impression on Michael and its definitely a lasting one.

            -The third great moment comes when Michael is shopping with Leigh Anne. It’s powerful first because of the language. “She was five one, 115 pounds of blonde hair, straight white teeth, and the most perfect pink dress. He was black, poor, and three times her size.” This creates such a great picture because at that time, that was just something you didn’t see. The comparison is so powerful because it shows the true and pure character of Leigh Anne. In the same shopping scene, Michael takes Leigh Anne to “ghetto” part of town where there a shops with clothes his size. When she expresses fear of being there, Michael says to her, “Don’t worry. I got your back.” This is an amazing moment because she’s supposed to be looking after him, but he feels a strong need to protect her. This moment explains their relationship and why it works. They depend on each other in different ways and both have had a great impact on the other’s life.

Reflection 8: Top Five

Eric’s All-Time Top Five:

1. The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald

·     > Jay Gatsby is in search for his love, Daisy. He is constantly trying to get her attention with extravagant parties, but her cheating husband is in the way. A small-town man, Nick Carraway, gets in the middle of things when Jay asks for his help.

·     > I like this book because it’s an easy and very entertaining novel and very well written. It has a lot of symbolism and addresses different moral issues. >RIYL: short, fast paced reads, books set in the twenties, historical fiction, drama, unhappy endings

·      >New Movie Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rARN6agiW7o

2. Holes
Louis Sachar

·      >When a teenage boy, Stanley Yelnats, gets accused of stealing a pair of famous shoes, he is sent to a correctional camp where the boys are told that digging holes builds character. He finds out the truth as to what the warden is actually looking for and digs up a wild story about a famous outlaw known as Kissing Kate Barlow.

·      >Holes is a funny story that keeps readers guessing. I liked a lot of Louis Sachar’s books because he always tells interesting, far-fetched stories that he convinces you could actually happen. I loved all the well-rounded characters and the way he gave them names like Armpit, Zero, Squid, and X-Ray.

·      >RIYL: funny, young adults novels, Wayside School, books with mainly male chracters, subplots

·      >Holes Trivia: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0311289/trivia

3. Moneyball
Michael Lewis

·      >Billy Beane transforms the game of baseball by basing the scouting of players on statistics and math rather than looks and tradition. With this method of recruitment, against all odds, he leads the team with the lowest budget in the MLB, the Oakland A’s, to a twenty game winning streak, setting a new AL record.

·      >I liked that it was a true story about sports. It’s very interesting to learn about baseball from the perspective of a general manager compared to just reading the news and watching on tv.

·     > RIYL: sports novels, Heat, true inspirational stories, non-fiction

·      >Take A Look Inside: http://www.amazon.com/Moneyball-The-Winning-Unfair- Game/dp/0393324818

4. Brave New World
Aldous Huxley

·      >In Huxley’s utopian novel, citizens live in a stable, technologically advanced world where individuality doesn’t exist. People are genetically created in lab with countless look-a-likes, take a drug to prevent emotions,  and don’t have their own thoughts in this totalitarianism society.

·      >It was interesting, but scary, to read about what our world might come to. I liked it because Huxley wrote this in 1935 predicting what the world would be like so far into the future, and what right about a lot of things. I loved reading about this crazy world that predicts the downfall of where we could be headed.

·      >RIYL: utopian novels, futuristic worlds, The Hunger Games, books that make you think

·      >Interview with Aldous Huxley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TQZ-2iMUR0

5 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
J.K. Rowling

·     > Harry Potter learns that he is a wizard and is sent to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  Him and his new friends, Ron and Hermione, embark on a series of adventures to stop the dark lord, Voldemort, who wants to kill Harry and destroy the all-powerful stone before it gets into the wrong hands.

·      >Harry Potter takes readers to a whole new world and it’s so easy to get lost in it. When I read this when I was younger, I thought about how cool Harry’s life would be. Rowling is a fantastic writer and there’s a twist in the story at every corner.

·      >RIYL: fantasy, magic, unrealistic fiction, long reads, action and adventure

·      >Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geNlXmmIp7w

Book 2 Project: Comparing to the Movie

 

            The novel Moneyball is a true story in which a MLB general manager, Billy Beane, changes the entire process of selecting players to play on his team. Moneyball is a very strange book in the way that it mostly had to deal with statistics and the business aspect of the game of baseball rather than the game itself. In comparison to many other action packed sports books this one was very different. I was curious to see how the book would compare to the movie, which came out in 2011.

            When Moneyball opened in theaters, September of 2011, it climbed its way straight to the top of the box office. It grossed over 75 million dollars while it was in theaters. When I finally saw the movie, I really enjoyed it, but just recently after reading the book I don’t understand why it would be made into a movie. Of course there is the great story of how one of the lowest budgeted teams goes on to win twenty straight games setting an American League record, but the book mainly focuses on the business side of the MLB. To make the movie more interesting they clearly needed to add more than what just the book had to offer. In the movie there are several scenes in which Billy Beane and his daughter have meaningful long conversations, giving her a major acting role. In the book they do talk about Billy’s daughter, but never to an extent in which she would play a major role in the movie. On page 246 Billy calls his daughter to ask her simply, “Are you watching the game?” That is pretty much the most they mention Casey Beane in Moneyball, Lewis doesn’t even give her any dialogue in the book. My favorite part of the book was not even included in the movie, which made me upset. I really enjoyed the first fortyish pages because Lewis went into detail about Billy Beane’s childhood and how he had been selected in the first round of the 1988 draft. Reading about Billy’s past changed the way I view the book completely. The book basically described him as a legend of California high school baseball. I think the movie could have been a lot better if it included at least some of the scenes Lewis describes in the book. The movie did do a good job of showing the setting. I pictured exactly what the scouting room looked like in the movie while reading. The movie really didn’t give the book any justice however on the statistical and business aspect parts. I understand the movie would have been really boring if it was just about stats and business in the MLB, but the amount of time spent explaining the process, the number of players scouted, and how interpret the right stats for a player was a majority of the book. The Movie needed to at least explain that a little better.  

            Overall however, I feel that the movie was a fairly good interpretation of the book. Moneyball had to definitely be one of the hardest books to make into a movie. Although the movie was missing some of my favorite scenes, added character plot lines, and missed out on really showing the business aspect of baseball I really did enjoy the movie. They are pretty different, but I enjoy both the book and the movie.