Good Book, Good

       Every one will have a different opinion on what makes a book good, for some it's the genre, some it's the style of writing, some just don't like reading at all. I've never really become attached to a certain type of genre, which is pretty much true for every aspect of my life. I have no favorite genre of films, music, no favorite style of clothing, no favorite foods. I prefer to take something from every type of genre. I believe if you commit yourself to one genre you could miss something that you might really enjoy. One thing that I look for in a book is the author's ability to make you feel. I think if the author makes you completely hate one of the main characters, but still like the book, that is a good author. I mean I really can't think of a lot of books where the character is so well developed that you can feel such emotion towards. I don't mean in most books, where there’s the good character that's the protagonist, then the evil character that you're supposed to hate is fighting against the good character.

       I guess I look for in a good book is the author's ability to really develop the characters. Also when the author takes a character that would originally be looked at in the traditional evil light, and changes the reader's feelings towards that character. To be honest there aren't a ton of books that I have deemed a "good" book. My favorite is Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and it doesn't exactly fit my good book criteria, but I love that book. I can't really point out what makes it good to me but it just is. When we read it last year in class, a lot of people hated it, but I thought it was wonderful. I still don't understand the book completely, because of the way it's written, and maybe when I figure it out I won't like it anymore.

       I still can't say exactly what makes a book good. There defiantly is stuff that makes a book crappy, but it's like that quote "the beauty is in the eye of the beholder". I don't know if that's right but it sounds good. I think that a good book is when the author is able to really bring you into the book, mess with your feelings and have the book come to life.

Books, books, books

      Has technology impacted my literacy? Of course it has. And I absolutely hate it. As much as I hate how the way human kind communicates now days, I can't say I don't buy into it all. I text all the time, I have a facebook (I don't use it a lot though) I have an email, and at times I love it all. To be able to be in contact with someone in a second is great at times but if that's our only way we communicate with those people, then it's just sad. 
     Let me just go on a tangent about communication for a second, our generation is frowned upon so much for our use of the internet and texting. And I can't say it's great but now that people other than our generation are using things like texting and facebook, good god they are worse than we are! I mean maybe it's just the adults I know, but it's the only way they communicate with each other and they lose so much in the internet or through text. They'll get all mad at each other and it's just ridiculous. I must say that since we grew up with this stuff we learned at a certain point what a good idea to talk about over texts was and through facebook and what was bad. (Okay not EVERYONE has learned, but it's gotten a lot better) I think we learned in middle school when we all first started using these things, and at first it was really bad. But as we grew up we got some common sense about how to deal with these things. Now that adults are using this stuff that seems new to them, and I hear about these miscommunication over the internet I feel like I'm hearing about a middle school student. I mean come on! Grow up and just call them or go visit them! Okay that is my very opinionated tangent about these things. 
       Back to my literacy...I prefer not to blend literacy and technology. I hate it when teachers assign reading on the computer. I just go home and print out what I have to read because it hurts my eyes to read all that. And just books in general are better, and then have a feeling and a smell and you can bring it where you want with you. I don't really want to snuggle up with my laptop. It's a machine, I'd have to bring the charger just in case the battery dies, and then I'll get distracted with facebook or a TV show. 
       Books are just wonderful. It's like opening another world, and you forget where you are. When I read on the computer it's like working, I don't enjoy it at all. Technology I guess has really made me appreciate the wonderfulness of a book, how each is different, even if it's the same story each book is unique. Maybe I'm old fashioned...which would be weird because I'm 16 but I'd take reading a book over reading a nook or on the computer or whatever else there is, any day.

      My Literacy history is much like anyother kid's. It started out when my parents would read to me as a kid, and pogressed from there. I don't remember being read to by both my parents or before they got divorced, but they both read to my siblings. My mom would read us short stories before we went to bed on week days. We would read Go Dog, Go, or Ferdinand the Bull. Nights when my mom was tierd she would start to fall asleep in the middle of the story, and she would start to read the book in spanish, and we would have to wake her up to finish the book.
      My dad, on the other hand would read to us on the weekends when we were with him. We didn't have a t.v. at his house, and he didn't have any childrens books either. So, when it was time for bed we would sit on the couch and he would read us My Side of the Mountain, by Jean Craighead George. That's what we would do every other saturday night when we were at my dad's house.
     My parents reading to me didn't really make me become a die heart reader, and I never really became one anyway. Some kids read books, some watched t.v., some played outside, and I played outside. I guess I read more as I got older, I used to read alot in Lenaepe and middle school, but not as much on my own now. I read the books we read in school and between that and everythiing else I do I don't really have time to read. But every once and a while I get the chance to read a book that takes me away from where I am, that takes me away from time.
      My Literacy history has no definate point in time that I can pin point and say "This is when it begain!". My Literacy history is a mystery, I don't know when, what, or who started it, it could've been the little kid books, or my mom making me go to the Elting Memoriol Libabry, or my dad reading to me. Some where aloong the road i decided to pick up a book and read it by myself, and that's where it started.