Readings By Annie Dillard and Jean Brandt

An American Childhood by Annie Dillard did a great job of telling her story of the snowball incident. In the first part of the story I thought she was going to just talk about her always playing with the boys and having tom boy like qualities. It kind of suprised me when she started talking about throwing snowballs at the cars. I liked how her baseball arm was played in to the snowball throwing incident with the car. I thought it was a good transititon to her actual story that she described. She was really descriptive with her story. I like how she explained the backyards like mazes and labrynths. She also was very descriptive about the man how was chasing her and Mikey. I couln't believe that a man who was obviously rich and high up in his career would leave his car door open just to chase some kids who threw a snowball at his car. He is crazy to run around with them and catch them just to say "you stupid kids." Who does that. He must love his car too much or he just must love to run and ruin kids fun.

In Calling Home by Jean Brandt, the author does a great job of telling her feeling through out the whole story. She really explains how she feels when she stole the pin and when she was about to call home. I don't know why or how a thirteen year old would have the guts to steel a pin that was only 75 cents. Why don't you just wait in line and pay for the stupid pin? She just stole it because she was lazy. I guess the crime wasn't that bad though because it was only 75 cents. Some people steal bigger things that cost way more money than a stupid pin. I was really surprised in the story when the owner of the store actually called the police. Usually someone who saw a thirteen year old steal something would just be like "put whatever you took back and never do it again." I also couldn't believe the police actually arrested her. I feel like they didn't even know what she stole or even cared to ask her. Usually police have bigger and better things to worry about, so arresting a thirteen year old girl is a little unrealistic. She was an innocent lazy kid who just didn't feel like standing in line. She shouldn't have been put in jail for it.