47 By Walter Mosley pg 80- pg 167

Summary: This book is told from 47 and not the narrator, but its told in a duel narrative voice, So he is telling the story of his life as a child but he still gives comments and and things like that at random moments of a piece o his mind when he is older and has gone through everything already. Going back to the last blog, if anyone had been wondering 47 learned about his moms life and his past from Big Mama Flore, who was one of the elder house slaves who took care of 47 until he was put out in the Fields.So going back to the story well after being put out in the field a so called runaway slave appears. His name is Tall John. And he isn't at all like any of the other slaves. He tells these stories to the other slaves about freedom and how 47 is the one who is going to make it all happen. And of course no one believed it for a second seeing that 47 was barely able to get through a days work of picking cotton let alone changing the world. Tall John also didn't like to be referred to as a ni**er or a slave. He believed he didn't have to do anything that he didn't want to do. And he didn't like to call Mr.Tobias who was the slaves master, master. He believed he was his own master. When Mr. Tobias finds out that theirs a new slave on his plantation he wanted to meet him. Mr. Tobias had herd that Tall John had been a healer, which was true, and his daughter Eloise had been sick so this all worked to his advantage. So Mr. Tobias had Tall John go to find herbs that would cure his daughter. When Tall John and 47 went to look for herbs it started raining, and something weird happened. Tall John said that they had to wait until the sun came back out or they wouldn't had made it back to the plantation. So basically Tall John has some kind of powers and is something other than human. Tall John tells 47 while their waiting that he is the one that he has been searching for and basically now that he has found him the universe will change and there will be freedom.

Quote: "You notice things and you don't only notice but you ask why.Those are only two of the reasons you are destined to become a true hero."(Mosley 109)

Reaction: So in this quote Tall John is telling this to 47. He had told him this observation of him because earlier 47 had asked how Tall John had known were he was going seeing that he was supposed to be new to the plantation. So instead of just forgetting about what he had noticed had been going on, 47 asked how such strange things were happening.

47 By Walter Mosley pg1- pg 80

Summary: So, new book new story. This book seems to be a little more interesting than i had thought it would be when I first looked at it. This book begins in times of slavery on a plantation called the Corinthian Plantation. This story is told from a young slave boy actually named 47. This book starts off with the boy 47 being very young. So his story is that his mother was a well liked house slave who would calm the masters wife when she had like anxiety attacks and things like that. So 47's mom ran off to another plantation and fell in love with another slave there. Long story short she became pregnant and died giving birth to 47. After she died the masters wife had an attack and she ended up dieing as well because she dint have 47's mom there to calm her with her beautiful voice. So when his wife dies the slave master cant do anything but blame 47 for what happened to his wife, so he cant wait for him to get older so he can work him out on the cotton Field. So after his mother dies he is raised by an old house lady slave called Big Mama Flore. She raises him and looks after him. She also doesn't feed him any meat or gives him milk because in doing this he wouldn't grow then he wouldn't have to work in the Fields. But after a while the master says hes big enough and sticks him out in the cotton Fields. When he gets there he gets tortured at first but then is looked after by some of the biggest, strongest and most respected slaves on the Field. Champ who was the strongest became 47's bunk partner and Mud Albert who was very close with the master, so close that he actually is in charge of the slaves while the master was busy . So he had the best slaves looking after him and making sure no harm came to him.



Quote: " You really too little to be workin' in the Field yet. I don't know what Master Tobias was thinkin' to put you out here like that. But as long as you here I need you to know what it is to chop cotton. And now that you know Ima' put you out chere as a runnah for the slaves. "(Mosley35)



Reaction: So this quote is actually from Mud Albert one morning after he had 47 working in the cotton fields for a few days. So him being the nice and thoughtful slave that he is he gives 47 a new job. He gives 47 the job to basically get water and things like that for the slaves in the cotton field that are actually picking cotton and doing work. So hes basically a erin runner.

In The Wake of The Plague:The black death and the world it Made By Norman F. Cantor (pg 201- 220)

Summary: So in all of the other chapters this book gave imformation on what the Black Death was and what it caused. But this last chapter of the book debates wether or not the Black Death influenced the Rennissance and te Hundred Year War. The answer to wether the Black Death actually did effect these events is both yes and no. No the Black Death didn't have an impact on the Italian Renissance, but it did impact on the Hundred Year War. Some would think that the Black Death would have more of an impact on the Rennassance more than it would on the Hundreds Year War. But that is not the case. The case is that the Black Death and the Plague had little to nothing to do with the Italian Rennissance. I mean yea people died, but it didnt really impact the evolving of art and literature. On the other hand that was the whole reason why the Black Death and the Plague had an impat on the Hundreds Year war, because so many people died. And to top it off it was a war that was being delt with so not only did thousands of people die not too long ago but more were going to die because of this war.Not only was it the reason that the Black death scared so many people, but the number of people and the spped that it wiped them out was terrifieing and tromatizing in so many ways and to the leaders of the Hundred Year War. So it made people scared of it could happen again, if that many people in that time were to be lost again.



Quote: "Perhaps the Black Death weakened Faith i traditional midevil Catholic spirituality and set off a quest for a deeper naturalistic understanding of human pschology and behavior and the expression of a more personal sensibility."(Cantor210)



Reaction: What this quote is saying is that maybe the Black Death did in fact cause people to want to know more about the human body. Maybe it did destroy or make them curiouse about thir religon. Maybe the Black Death did in fact impact the whole Italian Renassance. The answer to this is yes it affected people and made them question and possibly want to know more and why, but the Black Death was not a major reason for the outcome or the way the Italian Rennissance was the way it was.

In The Wake of The Plague:The black death and the world it Made By Norman F. Cantor (pg171-200)

Summary: As everyone knows the Plague was caused by something, but back when the Plague started no one could figure out what this something was. Not only when the Plague first started but years after, people still didn't know what caused these massive numbers of deaths. Over the years science has found out that the black death was actually the mostly the bubonic plague. And the bubonic plague was spread by rodents, rats, and parasites. Even though the Black Death was mostly the bubonic plague it was also other things. Like Anthrax, which was a cow disease that spread from cows to humans by eating the sickly cattle. Over hundreds of years the Black death has had many explanations of how and why it was caused. For example the earliest explanation was reptiles, and another would be cosmic dust. Unlike the explanations for the cause of the Black death today. Which are animals like rats and fleas. Although the medieval times didn't talk or bring up rats and fleas as being some of the causes for the Black death , they did happen to bring up mice and ants. So although they weren't rite on point, still they were pretty close. Also being mentioned in both the medieval and modern times the ocean or sea was the causes for the Black Death and its spreading. Some people then even believed that serpent like creatures swam up streams and rivers spreading the diseases everywhere.



Quote: "People refused to eat spices, which might have arrived on infected galleys, and also sea fishes, "(Cantor173)

Reaction: So basically not only would people not eat certain things from infected places, but they also didn't eat certain fish because they thought that certain types of fish were also infected. Although modern science says that fish weren't part of the Black Death.

In The Wake of The Plague:The black death and the world it Made By Norman F. Cantor (pg123- 167)

Summary: During the Plague as everone knows hundreds of thousands of people died because there was no cure to help them servive. But what some may not know is that there were actually more men that had died from the disease than there had been women. This was because men were more outdoos han women. Most women stayed in doos were they cooked, cleaned , or just did house work. Men on the other hand did everything outside. They worked, farmed, and men were actually the ones that had to pick up and burry all of the corpses. So men had more contact with the plague than women had. And because of this many wealthy families died out and their names were lost forever.This actually worked to many women's advanteges (not saying that thats a good thing). The lucky women being the ones that married to a wealthy man weather they were already welthy or not. Because men had gotten sick more frequently from the plague than women had more families were left with widows and heirs. When this happened not only did the heir get money and property but the widow also got property and a dowery. Sometimes the widow even got more than the heir did. The women also got treated much better when they were wealthy or their husbands were wealthy. By treated i mean while it said that women were treated like property in those days when they really weren't. Wealthy women were not allowed to get beatin and werent as controled as books made them seem. When women married it was usually against the law to hurt them. So they were more protected than old books really made it seem.

Quote: "Not only were widows priviledged by the law of the dower, but brides bringing substantial landed wealth to their marriages were protected from abuse and impoverishment by prenuptial agreements giving them a joint ownership in the real estate that wsa the main part of ther dowries, defending such wives from abuse treatment and curt dismissal."(Canton142)

Reaction: So this quote is basically telling how prtected certain women were. They werent allowed to be abused and beaten. They also got property and money if their husband were to die seeing that they got basically half of what they shared. So some women did not have it that bad in the day of the Plague.

In The Wake of The Plague:The black death and the world it Made By Norman F. Cantor (pgs62-123)

Summary: In the late 1200's to be specific the 1280's, England' weather patterns began to change. The winters got longer and colder, and the summers became shorter and cooler. Because of this weather cycle change crops became difficult to grow and people became malnourished. As if this wasn't already bad enough in the summers of 1316 and 1317 it got even worse for England. Because there was a volcanic eruption in Indonesia, from this eruption there came huge dust and ash clouds to cover the sky of England. The clouds wee so bad that the sun couldn't even shine through them. This caused an even bigger problem for England in the area of growing crop. This caused more problems because when the clouds covered the sky, and the sun it brought a lot of rain making it nearly impossible to grow anything, because it was too wet. This ash cloud soon went away, but when it did it left its weather patterns, so even though the cloud was gone the rain kept coming. Because there was so little food because of the bad weather patterns there were even more Mal-nourished people than before. And Undernourished people were even more likely to getting the Black Plague than a well Fed person was. In the late 1370's England's landlords were under pressure on prices and getting rid of all communal labor so they turned to the Parliament. This ended up with the greatest medieval working-class rebellion, Peasants Revolt of 1381. This revolt ended up with most of these peasants getting killed for trying to survive and live. Because of the Black Plague the rich and the peasants separated more and more.

Quote: "The wealthiest peasants took advantage of the social dislocations caused by the plague and the poorer peasants sank further in dependency and misery"(Cantor91).

Reaction: This quote is saying that the peasants became more poor and had to become more dependent on other people to get what they needed to survive. And that the people with the money, peasants or not, took advantage of their wealth and tried to stay away from having to dependent on someone else as much as possible. And this all happened because of the plague.

In The Wake of The Plague:The black death and the world it Made By Norman F. Cantor (pgs1-62)

Summary: In THE 1500's in England Children sang a song. This song was Ring around The Rosie's. Children still sing this song today. But what many children don't know is that this rhyme describes the dreadful flu like symptoms of the horrific Bubonic Plague. This song was made along with other games to reflect adults anxieties and to get rid of scare and concern from the Black Death of 1348-49. The Bubonic Plague did not only affect people but also animals as well. The Plague was spread through not only rats but as well as cats, fleas, dogs and even cows. In the 1950's there was a large spread of disease, because there had been a forest clearing, there was large amounts of cattle in small areas, and most of these cattle were infected with mad cow disease, and killed many people. Long before the 1500's there was the beginning of the plague in the 1340's. One of the places it began was Bordeaux, one of the greater port cities of the middle ages. Here the Black Plague affect the royal, with the king of England sent his 15 year old daughter to be wed to the heir of the throne of Castile, Prince Pedro. Unfortunately The Princess Joan was killed by the Plague on September 2, 1340's. After she had died her royal families attempt to invade Spain failed. The Plague later killed of another ruler, Henry of Grosmont, which ended up being a good thing for the young princesses family because her relative, John of Gaunt to inherit the dukedom of Lancaster. Which was an event that shaped the centuries English political history.

Quote: "The princess was a martyred angel looking down from Heaven to protect the King and the royal family: "We give thanks to the God that one of our own family free from all stain (she was after all a virgin) whom we have loved with our life has been sent ahead to Heaven to Reign among the choir of virgins, where she can gladly intercede for our offenses before God Himself"(translated by R. Horrox)"(Canton 50).

Reaction:This quote is from the King of England after his daughter, the young princess Joan was killed by the black plague. She had been a virgin so she had been still pure, which I guess in some ways made her closer to God. I fell like Her father the king of England and her royal family felt that no matter what they did, like if they killed people in war, that god would forgive them because they had their princess Joan looking over them with God on her side, making t so that they couldn't be harmed.

Bee Season (The Movie)

Summary:In the movie Bee Season with Richard Gere as Saul and Flora Cross as Eliza. In this movie it ends up being almost exactly the same as the novel by Myla Goldberg, with the exceptions of the little deatails like Aaron plays a violine rather than a guitar, Eliza isn't seen in school in the movie as much as she is in the book, and Aaron and Eliza dont really bring up the past when they were younger. Also in the movie it maks it seem as if everything that happens to the family is most of Saul's fault. Like it makes him seem like the bad guy. But in the book it makes it seem like its Mariaa's fault like she is the bad guy. In the movie everything is similar to how it is in the novel. Other than the little details its the same.

Quote:Mariam puts her coat on as if she were going to leave, there is a very long pause then she turns back a goes to ask Saul to hold her.

Reaction: Mariam seems like she knows what she is doing is wrong, but she still does it still afterwords, even though she stopped herself this one time.

Bee Season By Myla Goldberg(117-273)

Summary: So since the last post alot has happened. After Saul and Eliza get back from the Bee in D.C. its like everyone has changed. Aaron is more secretive about hat he does after school and Mariam, their mother is comming home later and later everyday. When Saul confrunts her about what she has been doing this whole time she avoids him by bringing up somthing els, trying to change the subject. What Saul doesn't know is that Mariam has been sneaking into peoples homes and stealing little things that she finds around the houses. Things like earings, coins, little nick nacks. Not like money and jewls, just little things. Even if its not of much value its still a crime. One night Mariam gets caught and Saul has to go up to the police depatment. When he finds out what had been going on for years before now. When she goes to cour she pleads not guilty because she feels she didnt do anything wrong. After Mariam is put in the hospital for her illness. Meanwhile Aaron is studying new religions while Saul thinks he is inroled in all different types of after school clubs. When Saul finds out what he is actually doing he basically bands him from practicing other religons, Aaron doesn't really care because he is almost an adult. So after all of this Eliza still has her final Bee. Saul takes Aaron and her and she makes it to the final two. On her last word ORAGAMI she decides to purposly spell it wrong. She wanst to see what would happen, what her father would do, what she would do. But nothing happens, her father is proud of her, and she feels good about not winning.



Quote:"I think she left us" Aaron said



Reaction: Aaron said this to his father after a few weeks of not hearing or seeing from their mother. He knew Eliza wanted to know too but she would never ask. So he did and when Saul told him the truth he didnt want to believe it, any of it, nor did Eliza.

Bee Season By Myla Goldberg (pg77-117)

Summary: So since I last read Eliza was getting more attention payed to her. Well she ends up winning the Bee and makes it to nationals. Her parents are so proud. Well now she has to go to D.C. for the national bee. But this time instead of the whole family going it is only Eliza and her father Soul. Before they leave Soul pays absolutely no attention to Aaron. He asks him if he'll be OK without them there for a few days. Aaron basically replies by saying no it'll be the same because you don't pay attention to me anymore anyways. But because Soul wasn't paying attention to Aaron he didn't hear him make this smart remark. Long story short because Soul hadn't been paying as much attention to Aaron its given him a chance to practice new religions. Something that he father would never approve of. Aaron even visits a christian church to just experience of it all while Soul and Eliza are in D.C. While Eliza and Soul are in D.C. all they do is study. Even though its not as bad as some of the parents there but she still is under pressure. Now that Soul has seen this hidden talent in his daughter he wants her to go all the way even if it means that he is ignoring everyone else like Aaron apparently. Though when he did stop paying attention gave Aaron the opportunity to meet new people and experience new things he still had to hide what he was doing and experiencing. Because of the fact that his father wouldn't approve of him acting this way.

Quote: " On his first fatherless night Aaron actually removes A Buddhism Primer from the book sandwich of Eastern Religions, Faiths of the World, and Are You A Hindu? under his mattress and places it on his night table were everyone can see it."(Goldberg 107)

Reaction: This quote is explaining how comfortable and good about what he is doing while his father is gone. Even though he knows what he is doing is wrong in his fathers eyes, he feels safe with it around his mother. He gains something but at the same time looses something by his father not paying as much attention to him if not any. He looses their bond but at the same time he opens himself up to new things and new religions.

Bee Season By Myla Goldberg (pg40-77)

Summary: Last I left off Eliza was on her way to the District Bee. Long story short Eliza ends up winning the Bee and moves on to the next round. She qualifies for the Area Finals in Philadelphia. When she tells her father he is so proud of her. Like hes never been proud of her before. Eliza and her family for the first time even come close to a family vacation with them all going to Philadelphia for Eliza's spelling Bee. To cut to the chase Eliza ends up winning this Bee aswell and move up to the next round. When she See's how proud her father is of her she can't believe it. They all end up with their faces in the next mornings paper. When Eliza sees this picture she doesn't recognize her or her family. It was like they were all strangers and was forced to crowed around close to take a picture. When they get back home Eliza's father asks to study with her. After a few weeks Eliza's father Soul pays less and less attention to Aaron her older brother and more on Eliza's studies. When Soul just finally forgets about him and his sons guitar lessons and pays all his attention on Eliza. He cuts all their time off for Eliza.

Quote: "Aaron shakes his head. All the extra height from his growth spurt disappears. He is the size of a shoe.(Goldberg 76)"

Reaction: This quote is from when basically Soul tells Aaron that Eliza's studies for the next spelling bee is so much more important than him and his sons guitar lessons. Aaron is put down by what his father says. He feels like he is worth nothing. But at the same time he can't blame Eliza after all these years Soul hasn't payed an attention to her and all of it was payed to him.

Bee Season By Myla Goldberg (pg1-40)

Summary: This novel is about a young girl who is basically thought of as someone that is not so smart and can not really do much. Eliza, this young girl is put into a slow learners class and that just makes it even worse on her self confidence. When Eliza's elementary school spelling bee comes up she surprising herself wins. She ends up going to sectionals. When Eliza goes to tell her father about the good news she doesn't believe this news will make him feel any better about her disappointing report card that he had just gotten. So she decides to slip it under his study door and hopes that he sees it. What she doesn't know is that his study floor was filled with papers so there was no way he could have known her sectionals paper was ever there. After a few days of Eliza's dad not saying anything about her good news she thinks he was disappointed so she asks her older brother for a ride to sectionals. When her brother hears the news he goes to tel their father. Come to find out he never even got the letter but when he told him he was the happiest parent in the world about Eliza's accomplishment.

Quote: "Years and years before hairs and spelling bees, Aaron drives Eliza places all the time."(Goldberg 23)

Reaction: This quote is saying that before Eliza and her older brother grew apart like before he hit puberty and before she even thought about spelling her and her brother Aaron would go places in their imagination all the time. They used to spend a lot of time together just having fun. But now its changed and their not as close as they used to be though they are still pretty close, its still not as close as it was before all of this happened.