9/30/13-

The Day I Got Lost and A Dark Brown Dog both are stories written in different perspectives, but they also have a lot in common. The Day I Got Lost is written in first person and the person who is the main character of the story is telling his the story, but A Dark Brown Dog is written in third person and the narrator is telling the story for us.

A Dark Brown Dog is a very melancholy and depressing book, but it can also have some dark humor. “He came home and held carnival with the cooking utensils…” They try to take things that would normally be fun, like a carnival, twist the meaning, and make it unhappy. In The Day I Got Lost the tone is kind of almost too exaggerated to be true. It’s comedic and a little weird. He forgets everything,  where he lives even. “In addition to my constant blundering, and losing things, I’m forgetful.”

In A Dark Brown Dog they say the dog is apologetic. The connotation for apologetic could be positive, but the dog didn’t do anything so why would it need to apologize? The little boy hit the dog and the dog is apologetic. In The Day I Got Lost, Shlemiel calls himself forgetful quite a bit. Forgetful is kind of neutral because it’s not a bad thing, but it’s not great. If I was that forgetful, I might make the word a little more drastic. How forgetful he his could be on the negative side.

Because A Dark Brown Dog is in third person it makes the story a little more interesting to read. You get perspectives on each character and how they are feeling. You also get to see how the dog is feeling! The story would be confusing if I only knew the little boys perspective, or the dogs perspective. In The Day I Got Lost the story is told in first person. I really enjoyed it being in first person because I get to see why Shlemiel always loses things, what’s his story? If it was told by someone else, they might say, oh he is weird and he always loses things. I get to understand Shlemiel more as a person.

Both of these stories are written in different perspectives, have different tones, and have different endings, but they are both similar  in ways. They are both stories about a person’s best friend.

Response to Poetry

" We Breathed You In " by Patti Tana is about the 9/11 tragedy. Patti Tana is saying literally we breath in the ashes of the burning people. She's saying everyone who passed away or burned in the ashes is now apart of her, apart of everyone. The author's purpose was to explain to all of the people that passed, that we will always love them and they will always hold a place in all of us. The tone of this poem was not as somber as other poems, this one was a little bit happier. She was saying, even though your gone, your still alive in us. I know this because Patti says, " my tongue your tongue my body your body. " We will never forget.