The Wayward Bus - John Steinbeck

The small intersection called rebel corners lies in central California, 42 miles from the nearest town of San Ysidro. Very little happens at rebel corners - Juan Chicoy and his wife Alice (two of the only full time residents of Rebel Corners) own a small restaurant, and a bus. The bus (driven by Juan) which they call "Sweetheart" travels between Rebel Corners and San Juan de la Cruz where other buses run. The restaurant serves the passengers of Sweetheart. Alice and Juan have two employees - Norma, the waitress, and Ed or "Pimples" (because of his acne) who serves as an assistant to Juan.

The interesting thing about "The Wayward Bus" is that very little happens in terms of story - the book is mostly character development, and interactions and relationships between characters. There is also a lot of description about the characters, and the setting. This book is interesting - but not for people who are looking for a complicated plot. The descriptions are good - I understand the characters and how they change, and understand the setting. Read this for a light read - it is a good book - but under the right circumstances.

Hatchet

Brian is thirteen years old. He lives with his mom in New York, (Brian's parents are recently divorced) but is going on a trip to Northern Canada to visit his father. Brian is the only passenger on a flight from New York to Northern Canada, which has only one pilot. Part way into the flight, while over Canada, the pilot suffers from a fatal heart attack. Brian miraculously manages to crash land the plane in a remote lake, also miraculously surviving the incident with little to no injuries. Brian swims to shore, where there is no sign of civilization. Alone in the wilderness, Brian must face many obstacles alone in order to survive - let alone finding food, and shelter.

Hatchet is a book people have always told me I should read - but I have obviously not gotten around to it until now. Hatchet was a fun book to read - it was super easy and it was exciting. I would recommend this book to people younger that A.S. students, but an A.S. student could still enjoy it. The plot line was basically just one problem after another, and then a little bit about Brian's life at home. The characters were relatively believable - besides the fact that Brian was a little bit to craft for a thirteen year old.

Slice of Life

One summer, (I believe it was after third grade) Daniel and I were shipped off to a summer camp at the Denver Center for Performing Arts. It was a comedy class, where we did a lot of improv - at one point we even staged a flashmob on another camp. But don't get me wrong, the camp sucked. Once the teacher asked us: "how do you whiz?" as a joke and just laughed. During the day we went to several different courses - the most memorable and bizarre class was dance.

I don't even know why we were doing a dance class in a comedy camp in the first place - but we didn't have a choice. The main teacher for the camp showed us into the dance class, and we all shuffled in totally quiet. I don't know what I expected the teacher to be like - maybe someone in tights or something - but this teacher was definitely not what I expected. I kid you not, he was in a wheelchair. It was not just some ordinary wheelchair, either. It was a legit wheelchair - it was motorized and had a big panel of controls. The first few people in the class stopped and stared awkwardly, probably very curious if they had the right teacher. I even though for a minute: "Is this the right class? Is this guy for real?". Once everyone was in the room, the class started - with a demonstration.

The teacher suddenly drove his wheelchair in a random direction, spun around and drove around some more. He would drive straight at a wall then stop just before he hit it, and make a weird facial expression and do it again. It was a fast wheelchair, too. The only thing he moved the whole time was his face and his hand. After five minutes of this, he drove up to us and said: "That is an example of dance." and everyone was totally silent and really surprised. No one said anything about the fact he was in a wheelchair for the whole class, and neither did he.

During the class, we had to get in groups and dance to a song. We had something like two opportunities to experiment with the song, then we had a test. There was a set of guidelines we had to follow to get points; one was to lie down and stand up, another was to move fast and slow, another was to move all around the stage, move every part of our body, spin around, etc. So, everyone had to watch while the other groups ran around the stage and fell down and did weird stuff with their hands and randomly spun around. I got 200 of 200. If there had been no music the dancers would have literally looked insane. It was the weirdest class I have ever experienced, and I will never think of dance the same way again.


 

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian

Junior is a native american adolescent who lives on a Spokane Indian reservation, or as they call it, "the rez". He was born with many mental disorders - in his words: "water on the brain" because of the execs fluid in his skull. He is made fun of by everyone but his best friend. He is the smartest kid in his school, and he knows the school and the rez will never allow him to live life to the fullest - se he transfers schools. He goes to an all white school in the neihboring farm town. Junior must face the alien world in his new school, facing ridicule from his new classmates and being thought of as a traitor from his previous classmates.

This book really was nothing that special. Mostly because it didn't feel like new material - it was a little like a mix of" he Rock and the River" and "The Wednesday Wars" just not as good as either. It was nice, kind of funny, but really just another coming of age story, except this one is about a slightly mentally handicapped Native American boy. The comics were a plus I guess - but I didn't care for that either. This book was not really for me, but if you feel like reading another coming of age story, this is not a bad place to look.