The theme in Distant Waves is that you should be loyal to the people you love. I think that’s the theme in my story because Jane, Blythe, the twins and Mimi were all loyal to each other. One example of Jane, Blythe, the twins, and Mimi all being loyal to each other was when Mimi and Blythe went on the boat, Jane and the twins went onto the boat to go and save them because they had heard from so many people that the titanic was going to sink. Another example of all the sisters being loyal to each other is when all the sisters went to Mimi’s wedding. Even though Mimi had left them to go to Europe with the friends that she met in New York, the sisters all still went to the wedding to support her. They didn’t even know who she was marrying, and they still went. If I was one of the sisters, I probably wouldn’t go to the wedding because Mimi had ditched her family to go around the world, and I would’ve been mad. That’s why I think loyalty is the theme of the story.

My favorite character is Jane. I would like to get to know her because she seems like she can have a good time, but also does care about things.  She stands out to me because she’s caring and very protective of her sisters. In the book, Jane’s whole family goes to London, for a spirit meeting with a whole bunch of other people who talk to the dead. While they’re there, in the middle of the night, Jane realizes that her younger sister isn’t in her bed, so she goes outside to look for her. Jane saw her sister in the freezing cold ocean, sleep walking. Jane ran into the ocean and dragged her out. If I was Jane, I would go back to the house to get my mother to go and get her, but Jane didn’t run away, and let her sister freeze, and went to go get her. When she did that, she showed people that she really cares about her sisters.  Another example is when Jane went onto the titanic to tell Mimi and Blythe to get off.  Everyone kept telling Jane that the titanic was going to sink, and she risked her life to go tell her other sisters that they should get off. Jane knew that she wasn’t going to have a lot of time, but she still did it anyway and now she’s on the boat, fully knowing that tons of physics think it’s going to sink.  

My favorite character in literature is Annie in Don’t You Wish by Roxanne St. Claire. She changed from wanting to be rich to wanting to go back to her old life . At the beginning of the book, she was always complaining how her dad likes to invent tons of useless stuff, and that she wanted to be popular. Then, when she changed lives with Ayla, she realized that being popular was awful, and all she wanted was to go back to her other life. For example, one of the reasons she really hated being Ayla, was that she didn’t have a good relationship with her family. When she was Ayla, her parents were getting a divorce, because her dad had an affair and he was never around, but her dad didn’t want to go through with the divorce. Ayla didn’t want to get them back together, but she had lost her mom’s trust and her mom thought that Ayla was spying for her dad, but she wasn’t. Since her family didn’t really trust her, she only had her friends, and her friends didn’t even trust her. When she was with her friends, she was expected to be mean to everyone who wasn’t popular. Considering when she was Annie, she had experienced being bullied because she wasn’t popular. While Annie was being Ayla, she had been nice to people who weren’t popular, and her friends had basically left her because she was nice to people. Like when she was in the bathroom, her friends had cleared everyone out, and were really mean to the girl who was in band, but Ayla said they could stay, and because she said that, her and her friends had a fight. So I think that since Annie experienced what it was like to live in a big house, and be popular, she was ungrateful in the beginning, and at the end, she was glad to have a father who invents things, and is around all the time. 

My favorite book is Don’t You Wish. I like this book because it sends a great message to the reader. It made me realize that even if you don’t have lots of money, you can still be happy.  It also had a lot of suspense. The type of book I like to read is either realistic fiction or fantasy. The book I’m currently reading is Stork.

The book is about a girl, Katla, who has recently moved to Minnesota from California. Katla works at her grandfather’s store, which is across the street from an old women’s fabric store. Katla went into the fabric store and the old women took her down to the basement, because that day, katla had had a rash on her head, which the old women called the “cap”. When Katla went into the basement, there was a group of women sitting in chairs. The old women said that Katla was part of the group called Stork. The groups of women are all able to see when a baby is coming, and they have different powers to see who is going to have a baby and who isn’t.  Katla’s power, I think, is that she sees like a whirling wind above their head. Also, since she just moved, she still is making friends. One of her friends works at the local coffee shop. Her friend, Jaelle, has always wanted a baby, but her husband is always on the road, so she does not want to raise a baby on her own. In addition, she has become friends with jack. Every time jack and Katla touched, it made Katla feel freezing.  Katla and Jack went on a hike, they saw a bear, and Katla freaked out. Jack was forced to carry her because she could not walk. When he was carrying her, she thought she was dying. When they finally got far enough away from the bear, Jack told her that when she was younger, she went to Minnesota, and went ice-skating. While she was skating, she fell through the ice. Jack was the only person who saw her, and went to save her, and he fell through too. That was why it felt like ice every time they touched, because both of them were supposed to die under the ice.