Of Beetles And Angels Book Analysis

In the book Of Beetles and Angels, by Mawi Asgedom, a Sudanese refugee family immigrates to America, seeking a newer, better life. The value of reading Of Beetles and Angels is that it shows that you can become something from nothing in the hardest situations. It shows the value of setting goals, working hard, and being kind to others.
First, in OBAA, Mawi shows the value of setting goals and persisting to reach them. For example, when Mawi is in the summer of his oncoming senior year he sets a big goal for track, he had made minimal progress in his sophomore and junior years so he decides he wants to achieve more in his senior year. . “I made myself a promise: That summer, I would run six days a week and lifts weights every other.
When Mawi is talking about his father Haileab he describes what he did for work. “Haileab, the son of Zedengel… Deliverer of babies. Stitcher of the bloody. Mender of the broken. He would travel any distance. On foot. On mule. At night. By day. In the blistering heat of summer. In the flash floods and deep mud of winter.” (88) To put it differently, Haileab was raised by almost know one. He had nobody to care for him and he had to scavenge for food. He lead his own journey and found a job at a government clinic. He cleaned and eventually became a doctor there. He did crazy things to help people even though people had never helped him. He worked very hard to achieve the things he wanted and he never made excuses. He just kept on grinding. Another example of hard-work in OBAA is when Mawi is applying for colleges. He isn’t sure if he can get a scholarship. He comes back from one of his college trips and he finds a letter from Harvard and a letter from Yale. “I opened them and read their contents. Then I walked over to the living room to tell my parents. Their dream had come true. Their boy had earned admission to the best universities in the country. And Harvard --- the best-known one in the land --- had offered him a full-tuition scholarship. (119) Mawi grew up a poor refugee who knew zero English. All those years in school, he pushed himself to work harder and harder because that was
When Mawi and Tewolde take a trip to the library during winter they see a guy shivering outside. Tewolde: “ ‘We should give him our sandwiches’. I nodded and took the sandwiches out of my backpack. I offered them to the man. ‘I hope you like aldi ham bro” About a year later Tewolde receives a spare bench press and weights and decides to give them to a friend who can’t afford workout equipment. Mawi goes with Tewolde to deliver the stuff. When they are leaving the man’s apartment Mawi realizes that it is the guy from the library. Tewolde had found him a job, housing, and helped him out with money when he could. He had expected nothing in return. What he got is more important than things or money: Friendship. During Mawi’s sophomore year in highschool, he asks his friend to nominate him for class president. He doesn’t think he has a shot at beating the popular kids, but he figures that it can’t hurt to try. “We closed our eyes and voted. We opened them again, and I was the president… Half of the class wouldn’t have voted for the cool kids if their lives depended on it. Why? Because all throughout high school, the cool kids had made them feel like beetles. I hadn’t. And that’s how I got elected. I had treated everyone as an angel. Being nice to people seems like such an easy task, but most people struggle and some are just mean to others. Mawi was nice to everyone no