Preview

Narrative Essay: Anything Can Melt In The Blazing Summer Of 1998?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1437 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Narrative Essay: Anything Can Melt In The Blazing Summer Of 1998?
1
Anything could melt in the blazing summer of 1998. Birds went silent; grass stood lifeless; even the old electric fan in grandma’s house seemed ailing and needed an occasional nudge. Everyone in town, including the primetime news, were complaining about the seemingly endless summer, with the exception of me. I found it quite tolerable. In fact, I loved summer. For me, summer was a great opportunity to catch up on some of the longer books on my reading list. Without school or homework, I could finally spend the whole day devouring The Catcher in the Rye, or Dream of the Red Chamber on my couch, only getting up to eat a meal or to use the bathroom. I couldn’t be more content.
One morning, while still in bed, I received a phone call from my
…show more content…
We were brought back to reality by a series of gentle knocks on the door. It was grandma bringing us two glasses of ice lemon teas. She seemed very pleased that her granddaughter had brought home a friend and even more pleased to find the two of us reading together. “Here, have a drink!” she handed us the glasses, “It’s so hot today isn’t it?” We thanked her and took our drinks. Grandma then turned toward me and asked, “I have never seen this friend of yours before. Is she from your new school?” I nodded. Grandma now seemed delighted. “You must be very good friends then. Alrighty, I will leave you two girls alone.” After grandma left for the kitchen, we finished our drinks and went back to …show more content…
Just her style. And my brief recollection was interrupted. There she was, the ponytail girl, raising her eyebrows and pointing to what seemed to be a very confusing chapter in Dream of the Red Chamber. As I explained to her the historical background of this book and why indeed it had two authors, the meaning of reading suddenly struck me like a heavy downpour in the summer – the social function of reading that I had never thought of. I suddenly came to the realization that reading builds lots of channels of conversations, which not only connects readers to the authors and the characters, but more profoundly, connects like-minded human beings to engage in meaningful discussions. Thoughts are exchanged, new ideas emerge, and friendships blossom all from a social activity we call reading. Thanks to reading, and thanks to my shared moments with the ponytail girl in a blazingly hot summer afternoon and many more afternoons thereafter, I could never feel lonely

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The novel Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, revolves around the life of Guy Montag, who is living in a time when society not only bans books, but burns them. People in this society spend their life in front of a screen, disconnected from their true feelings and emotions. Clarisse, however, is a seventeen year old girl who is different from others in her society. Unlike teenagers her age, Clarisse spends most of the time observing the people and places around her, as she sometimes rides“…the subway and look at them [people] and listen to them.” In addition, while teenagers her age are busy killing each other, she takes great notice of nature like the “… dew on the grass in the morning.” Clarisse focuses on the little things that life brings…

    • 312 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A summer reading novel serves a vital role to stimulate a student's mind over the break. Therefore, an assignment of such importance should include a book that not only captivates the reader but also forces them to think. Although Fahrenheit 451 and Cannery Row both have advantages, Mrs. Fleek Airne should not change the summer reading assignment to Cannery Row. The connection to the modern world, challenging writing style of Ray Bradbury, and relatable characters far surpass the positive aspects of its counterpart.…

    • 529 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    during the summer is not the best place to be at, but the way Momaday describes the…

    • 539 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The 21st Century is an era well known for teenagers whose parents beg them to get off their phones and people who worry about the Kardashians more than they should. The question arises as to how can a novel from the 1940’s, like “Catcher in the Rye”, still be relevant to today’s society? For instance, this book takes place during an era where people did not rely on their phones and did not even know who the Kardashians were, but believe it or not, “Catcher in the Rye” in many ways is still relevant and worth reading. There are many differences between the novel’s society and today's society, but despite the differences, there are an incredible amount of similarities between Holden and 21st century teenagers.…

    • 1192 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Hot Zone essay

    • 1755 Words
    • 8 Pages

    In the book the Hot Zone, by Richard Preston, the first few pages are introducing the reader into the world of contagious hot agents by going through the biosaftey procedures to access level 4. In part one, Charles Monet a fifty-six year old Frenchman living in western Kenya on the lands of the Nzoia Sugar Factory is introduced, but as his story continues he finds himself greatly ill by some unknown virus. It began shortly after a visit with a friend to Kitum Cave. Of course there’s no telling where exactly Monet really got the agent from, but where he got it probable wasn’t on his mind as it got worse.…

    • 1755 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Ariana’s experiences a variety of reading adventures. She gravitates towards books like Riding Freedom by Pam Munoz Ryan which include a strong female protagonist. On the flipside, Ariana enjoys reading biographies and loves to share facts with her peers. Ariana’s reading notebook reflects consistent effort during read aloud writing about reading. She can extend this effort to her independent work to support her progress. Writing about reading can help Ariana express her thinking using visual models or long responses. One major goal is for Ariana to hold on to major events in a book and connect those events across chapters. She can do this by keeping track of the major events on a timeline, then looking across that timeline to think, “This happened in chapter______. This is connected to chapter_______because. Furthermore, it’s critical that…

    • 527 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Books can cast a strange spell over you. It’s the intimacy of being let into such details of a character’s feelings and being that draws you to read The fluency of the writing and the drama, heroism, and intrigue exhibited by the characters can almost be too much for a person. The pure power of literature sometimes wont allow you to set the book aside and leave the characters life. The attraction and attachment of humans to fictional characters through reading is seen in the poem “The Reader” by Richard Wilbur and an excerpt from the short story “A General in the Library” by Italo Calvino.…

    • 375 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    With increasing technology, we embraced the introduction to the world wide web, providing new ways of communicating. We heard about global warming and the threat to our climate. Literary Responses to culture shock gave us “mainstream” or “highbrow” stories that focused on the chaotic events of our time, with characters that intertwined with it. Also came the style of “commercial” or “lowbrow” fiction, which focused more on events and the plots instead of the characters…

    • 290 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A book is a beautiful thing. They give us sanity and imagination. Books take us to a place of many wonders. So why get rid of them? The beloved author Ray Bradbury creates a New York Times bestseller Fahrenheit 451, a fictional future when books are outlawed and burned. The book shows how absent-minded humans can be without books. How unimaginative we are without them. Another author, Bernard Malamud, once wrote a story named A Summer’s Reading. This story talks about a young man who has dropped out of high school and cannot find a job because he does not have an education. Since he has no education, he decides to read 100 books, hoping he can get a job with that. The political and social themes of both Fahrenheit 451 and A Summer’s Reading…

    • 355 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Richard Rodriguez Thesis

    • 694 Words
    • 3 Pages

    I yearned for that time when i had not been so alone. I became impatient with books. I wanted experience more immediate. I feared the library’s silence. I silently scorned the gray, timid faces around me. I grew to hate the growing pages of dissertation on genre and renaissance literature. (In my mind i heard relatives laughing as they tried to make sense of its title.) I wanted something i couldn’t say exactly what. I told myself that i wanted a more passionate life. And a life less thoughtful. And above all, I wanted to be less…

    • 694 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In Richard Rodriguez’s essay, “The Lonely, Good Company of Books”, his purpose seems to be a mixture of an analytical, persuasive, and entertaining view on reading books. This is achieved by the author sharing bits of his life which were intertwined with reading. For example, his first opinions on reading where formed by watching his parents read. Because of this, Mr. Rodriguez considered the context of reading to be more about educating people on a subject, rather than being entertaining. The author grew from a child struggling with reading to a college student accomplishing quite an endeavor by reading a book written by Plato.…

    • 257 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    summary/narration essay

    • 1015 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Rodriguez found reading more of a central activity than leisure. It took one on one sessions, personally with the teacher so he can develop a better understanding. For six months he gradually processed communication between the reader and the writer through the books. Therefore, when he read, it started to respond to him on a more personal level. It got to the point that if he read a book and understood it, it was like a friend. If he read a book and did not understand it, he would avoid it.…

    • 1015 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines by Thomas C. Foster is a book that explains there is more to literature than just a few words on a paper or a few pages in a book. Thomas Foster’s book portrays a relatable message to a wide based audience. This book is relatable for two reasons, the way it is written and the examples it uses. The book is written in a conversational manner, as if the reader was in a group discussion about books and writing. As for the examples, they are informative, descriptive, relative, and entertaining.…

    • 782 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A distressed 14-year-old sits alone in his room, searching for entertainment. Perusing his bookshelf, he finds nothing, and resorts to his video games he’s already been playing for hours on end. Books don’t catch his attention anymore; the same tiresome stories, told again and again, became dull. His energy wanes and his drive slackens; his homework remains blank. The next day at school, as he stares into space, words from the people around him fade into the background and become a faint buzz. Certain words begin to cut through the monotony: book, disgusting, hilarious, amazing. These words, which were painted with an array of expletives, drew him out into the conversation. Stating his interest, the book, John Dies at the End was handed to him; he began flipping through it, reading chapter titles and the beginnings of paragraphs. That afternoon, he immediately went to the bookstore after demanding a ride from his mother. The book cost a hefty price, but it was well worth it. Getting home, he shed the book from the plastic bag it was in and closed himself off inside his room to begin reading. Sentence after sentence, page after page, chapter after chapter. Every word engrossed him and brought him deeper into the story, the story he was beginning to live himself, becoming the characters and living their lives. In three days, the nearly 400 page book was fully absorbed into his psyche, becoming part of him; but he still desired more. Right away, he read the book again. It had him.…

    • 591 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    One day on Christmas with my mom, dad, brother, cousins in Iowa in there was no snow on Christmas and all the little kids are crying and yelling because they want snow there was no snow no snow they we're so loud that everybody could hear them. They would not stop until there was no snow and they would keep going and going I can't wait until they be quiet it would be so much better and after all, you don't need snow I understand that there just little kids but they we're loud little kids they did not know the real meaning of Christmas. They were looking and staring out the windows wanting snow, they would not stop.…

    • 623 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays