Blog 8: The Final Four

I have continued reading my book "The Final Four" and things have gotten intense and interesting. While attending Michigan State university and playing for the basketball team, Malcolm, Roko, M.J., and Crispin wished to make the NCAA tournament and win the national title. Now, they are getting a chance for their dream. In the book, Malcolm and his friends had a good enough regular season and made it to the tournament! They know that this is their only chance to prove that dreams do come true and the only chance to win the national title they wished for. As they begin the tournament, they only have one team to worry about who they are enemies with. The Troy Trojans. Neither of the teams like each other, and tempers are going to flare if they ever play against each other in the tournament. Roko hates playing against the Trojans because he loses his focus on the game because of the aggressiveness they bring. An example from the book is during one of their games when a player from The Trojans pushed Roko and they started fighting. He knew that they were a dirty team, but he did not think they would pull anything like that. Ever since that moment, Roko has hated playing against the Trojans. But as the book continued, his friends and teammates encouraged him that they have his back and that he is going to be alright in this tournament as long as he remains focused. As they play their first game, they continue to push to keep their grades steady and know what is on the line. Not only are they participating for the championship for the school and for teammates, but also for their dreams to continue and to make their parents proud. Let's see if the Michigan State Spartans win the national tittle.

After getting close to the end of the book, I think I am able to tell the theme of the story. I believe the theme of this book is to never give up and that nothing is impossible. The reason I believe this is the theme of the book is because throughout the whole book, Malcolm knew that making it to the tournament and keeping their grades high was not impossible and that him and his friends would be able to succeed. All it took was confidence and the urge to accomplish those goals. While Roko started giving up, Malcolm was always their to remind him that nothing was impossible and to remind him of the reason they were here. An example from the book is when Malcolm tells Crispin, "We aren't here because of luck, we are here because we fought hard and had the courage to succeed and to push ourselves to the farthest limit." This is a good example of the theme because it proves that Malcolm was going to do whatever it took to be successful for his education and sports because he knew nothing was impossible and that dreams could always be chased. Malcolm is my favorite character in the book because of this. I too believe that if you really try and give it your all for education or anything you like, you can always achieve your goals and chase your dreams, because nothing is impossible.

Blog 7: Final Four

After finishing my last book I am now reading "The Final Four" which is a book about college basketball teams playing in a huge tournament, and the tournament coming down to the final four teams. This book took place in 2009, during what is called the NCAA tournament. I started the book a few days ago and have gotten pretty far in the book. So far they have talked about how the seasons are going for the different teams but mainly the Michigan State Spartans, and the Troy Trojans. The main characters in the book are Malcolm, Roko, Crispin, and M.J. All of the boys play for Michigan State and are fighting hard to accomplish their sports goal, which is to win a national title for their school. All of the students have kept their grades good enough to participate on their team and are fighting to make everyone on their team happy. I chose this book because I can easily relate to the book. I also chose this book because it includes one of my favorite sports which is basketball. As I get near the more interesting parts of the book, the tournament is about to begin and the four close best friends are hoping to bring home a national title this year. It is win or go home, and being a Michigan State Spartan, they understand how hard they are going to have to fight in order to be successful in the tournament.

I chose this book because I can easily connect to the book. One way I can connect to this book is how Malcolm and his friends push themselves to succeed in school and have good grades knowing how important their education is if you want to play sports. This connects to me because I quickly learned and understood that education is far more important then sports because without the books, you aren't able to play. Another way I connect to this book is how the book contains college basketball and the final four. I connect to this because my dream is to play college basketball because of the atmosphere and because I watch college basketball and the final four. I believe college basketball is part of the big stage, because the fans get tremendously loud and make you feel the hype and enthusiasm. But I think I mainly connect to this book because all of the friends in the book love the sport of basketball. They all love waking up everyday, going to practice, and playing in all of their games. And that is how I feel about basketball. Knowing that if I chase my dreams for basketball and that there is a chance of me making it big, I love playing this game and I love that I was introduced to this sport from my family. I enjoy playing with my AAU team and wish to go somewhere with this sport just like the characters in this book wish to do. That is how I connect to my book, "The Final Four."

Blog 6: The last invisible boy

I am near the end of my book The Last Invisible Boy and the book has sort of changed in terms of the tone. In the beginning and middle of the book, it was more of a dark and awkward tone from the author while talking about Finn's family and how his life has continued without his dad. But towards the end of the book, the tone changes to more of a sad and upsetting tone. One reason is because Finn thinks about how he is no longer important in this world and he believes that without his dad, he is a nobody type of kid. Another reason it get's sad is because Finn's family starts to have rough times after just recovering from a long tragic loss, and Finn breaks down and cries about it for a few chapters. As I get farther and closer to the end, Finn continues to have a sad attitude and continues to explain how he still is being picked on at school and how he does't think he can go any farther without his father. Besides the sad scenes towards the end, Finn has finally went back to school and fought through the pain. Throughout his first week back he quickly was able to talk to normal friends and live a normal kid life. But as the second and third week of his return to school arrived, the reasons in which he didn't want to go to school in the first place arrived again. Finn started to get picked on again about his dad, about how he has changed and about his family in general. After that was when Finn started having more of his emotional breakdowns. Hopefully at the end of the whole book, Finn finds away to avoid these obstacles and overcomes the long and painful conflict.

After reading far into this book I was able to tell what the theme was. I think the theme is about having to overcome problems in life because if you don't, you go nowhere except for the path of pain. I think this is the theme because it has been two years since Finn had lost his father. He was just ten years old when his dad had died. Now, two years later at the age of twelve, Finn still avoids some of school and doesn't bother to meet new friends because of what happened. He is avoiding the solutions to his problem which is why it is hard for him to continue with a normal kid life. It's understandable about how much pain he is going through because he has lost his dad, but he just has to not think about it for a while so he can overcome this conflict and take a path towards more happy feelings. That is what I believe the theme of this book was all about. If Finn doesn't want to continue getting picked on, he has to avoid all of the negativity and see where more of the happiness get's him rather than staying by the sad side of his feelings.