Make Sure You VOTE in the New York Primary!

This is a letter I had to write for Social Studies to our town newspaper. The goal was to convince people to vote in New York's primary on February 5th. GO VOTE!

Why don’t people vote? I’m only a kid, but already I can see reasons why people should vote for our country’s leader! We need to vote to make sure a leader gets chosen who is rightly suited for the job! The said leader must know how to keep America safe and how to run it properly. He or she must see not only what he wants for the country, but what us, the citizens, want, too. These things should be their goal!

Our president makes huge decisions for the United States! You should go out and vote in the New York State primary on February 5^th to make sure that a person gets picked to be the leader who will make the correct decisions! The decisions that the president of the country makes, believe it or not, can and will affect you! And if it for some reason doesn’t affect you, it will affect others-neighbors, spouse, children, friends, etc. You want them to be happy, right? Then you need to get out and vote, and make a difference in our country, and in the lives of others.

Besides, don’t even think about complaining about things in our government unless you voted, because otherwise you’re complaining about something that could be different.

If you vote, you have a chance of living a happier life because you know that you are in good hands. If you are able to vote, go do it, on February 5^th, and make a difference in you life and other’s. Let’s pull together and make a difference!

Militia Puts a Bold End to Shay's Rebellion

I wrote this for a Social Studies project about Shay's Rebellion. I was supposed to act like a reporter. Here it is:

The talk of the town yesterday afternoon was the end of the rebellion-Shays Rebellion. Daniel Shays, of Pelham, Massachusetts, started his own rebellion along with farmers from three other counties in Massachusetts last September (1786), in response to the American government raising the tax for farmers. Shays, a farmer himself, served in The Battle of Bunker Hill and the Battle of Saratoga. Farmers were still growing crops during the recent war, and the demand for their products was high because of it. In an effort to make as much money as possible, they bought more land, animals, seeds, etc., using loans. Now that the war is over, the Massachusetts government has raised their tax, to recover war debts. Farmer’s who can’t pay the tax are having land taken away. This has angered the farmers, including Shays, and they started a revolt. Armed with pitchforks and other farm tools they closed down courthouses in the western part of the state, thinking that if there were no courts they wouldn’t be taxed. The government threatened to kill anyone they captured who was a part of the revolt, but this didn’t faze the Americans. This made it worse. Last month, September, the rebels forced the state supreme court in the town of Springfield to shut down. Coming back a month later, they hoped to shut down a federal weapons warehouse. Yesterday afternoon, January 1787, troops held a battle with them, and Massachusetts State thinks this has put an end to it. We will see. They will continue to capture any rebels if they should find them, and hopefully this will put a stop to all this havoc. For now, Shays’ Rebellion seems to have come to a pause.

Book Review on Bread and Roses, Too, by Katherine Paterson

I recently (December) had the task of reading a book for English, and having to write an online book review for it, with a recommendation included. I read the book "Bread and Roses, Too" by Katherine Paterson. I really liked it. Since I have nothing to post otherwise, this will be it. I warned you that I might post boring book reviews! :-) Below is my review and my recommendation.

Katherine Paterson’s “Bread and Roses, Too” is a historical fiction book that takes place during an infamous strike during the year 1912, in Lawrence, Massachusetts. The main character, Rosa Serutti, is a young Italian girl who lives with her mother, older sister, Anna and younger brother, Ricci, in a cramped apartment, that is barely heated, and that they have to share with other people as well. Rosa’s mother and sister work in the one of the town’s factories, which is owned by a very wealthy man by the name of Billy Wood. Rosa’s father had died a few years before, which caused Rosa’s other family members to work in the mills. They make very little money, and they have hardly enough food to live. In the book, Mr. Wood suddenly lowers the amount of pay that the mill workers get, and this causes a strike. No one will work anymore. The strikers are even standing up to armed military boys, and Rosa is petrified to find that even her mother is striking. The author shows that Rosa is afraid for her mother and sister by writing:

She wanted to cry out a warning to Mamma, to Anna, to everyone. What are you doing here? They will kill you. You’re nothing to them! Nothing! But the screams were strangled in her tight throat.

In the midst of it, Rosa meets a boy named Jake Beale, who also worked in the mills to earn money for his father and himself. As he also striker, he chooses to live in the streets to avoid his cruel father, and he goes to drastic measures to survive. When Rosa is sent to Vermont to stay with another family away from the strike, Jake sneaks on the train and begs to go with her. She agrees, but half-heartedly, for she fears that the boy holds a terrible secret. The author does a great job with this book by leaving the reader at an edge, waiting to see what will happen, and makes you curious to hear more about this awful time in American history. This book is wonderful, and it captures you and keeps you reading it up to the end.

Recommendation:

I would most definitely recommend this book because I enjoy history and a little bit of adventure, or struggle, and this book really gives the reader adventure. The way the characters have to live fascinates me, and it I find it interesting to see how the world once was. It also makes me thankful for the good life that I live. Though the book is kind of gruesome at parts, it really engages you and makes you feel like you are really living through Rosa’s life. I just couldn’t put this book down. It came with me everywhere! This book is different in from other books partly because of where and when it takes place. I’m sure not many people know about the time in American when the strike happened, and because of that it makes the reader eager to read the book because they are curious. It does include some unpleasant content, and one bad word every now and then, so I think I would recommend this book for readers twelve years old and up. I think people who enjoy a little adventure, realistic fiction, and historical fiction will, without a doubt, enjoy this book. I certainly did!