Jeannette in The Glass Castle

Jeannette is one of four children in the Walls family.  The Walls family was very poor and moved from place to place.  The Glass Castle was a true story all about the family's life from the point of view of Jeannette, the second oldest child.  Jeannette is her fathers favorite child and tends to hang out with her younger brother, Brian, the most.  She doesn't connect well with her older sister, Lori, because Jeannette liked to explore and play while Lori would rather read, paint, or draw.

In the beginning of the book Jeannette if carefree, has lots of friends and explores the desert.  But as she grows older she has to take on the role of earning money for the family.  She also finds that when she begins high school that she has no friends.  But she soon becomes busy at her job at a jewelry store and staying after school writing for the newspaper.

As Jeannette grows more aware of how bad her family's financial situation there is more conflict between her and her mom, her mother does not want the responsibility of taking care of a family. Jeannette has to drag her mother out of bed and make her go to work as a teacher.

Theif Lord by Cornelia Funke, Reading skills

Right now I’m reading the Thief Lord by Cornelia Funke.  This book is about a group of orphans who live together in an abandoned movie theater that they call The Star Palace.  Their leader, Scipio, didn’t live with them but he helped them by sneaking into houses and stealing valuable things.  The children would then go to a pawn shop and sell the things they stole to the shop owner, Barbarosa.  But one day they got an offer, Scipio would break into a house to steal a wooden wing for a old man known as the Conte.  In reward they would get a large reward, five million lire. I wonder why the Conte would pay so much for a wooden wing.  They found out that the wing belonged to an old magical merry go round.  The merry go round made children into adults and adults into children. 

I predict that Scipio and the kids will go try to find the merry go round, I also predict that Scipio will want to ride it and become an adult because he always tries to act grown up.