Blog 2

Ideas.
In reading the book The Sledding Hill I really couldn’t decide whether I thought it was bad or good. There were parts that I liked and others that I didn’t like. All in all though it wasn’t one of the best books I’ve read but it’s not one of the worst. I thought it was more in the middle. The main characters and the issue of banning a book were my favorite things about the book. The fact that Chris Crutcher included him in the book and that he advertised for another book that he wrote also. I also didn’t like how the book ended.
I really liked the main characters Eddie and Billy and I felt that I could connect to both of them in different ways. Eddie likes to talk a lot and his mind wanders a lot and I do that too. Eddie also doesn’t care if he gets in trouble as long as he makes his point and in school I don’t care either. Eddie helps in fighting for the right of reading what ever he wants. For me reading is a really important thing in today’s society because they are filled with tons of information and let your brain wander on possibilities. Billy likes to help out his friends and won’t ever let them hang, especially Eddie. I don’t ever try to not help out my friends, I like to help them. Also, I really like the issue about power between adults and kids and about how books are banned in school. I would have been one of the kids fighting to keep the book in the school library. Even if I hadn’t read the book I still think it’s important for kids to have to opinion of reading all kinds of books even if the books are filled with harsh topics.
I didn’t like the fact that Crutcher included him in the story. It was annoying to read about and I really didn’t care about him. If I did I would just really the about author in the back. I didn’t like that he advertised for another one of his books in The Sledding Hill. I know that it was the book he was talking about being banned but I don’t get why he couldn’t have just picked a different more classic book that’s older that everybody would know what it was. If it was a better well known book I think that it would have been easier to be able to connect with one side because either you agree that it should be banned or not because you either liked the book or not. The last thing I didn’t like was the end. I know that’s it’s not very probable that a dead kid sent the story to Chris Crutcher. I’m getting ahead of myself, well Billy, the dead kid, decides to “send” the story about Eddie to Chris Crutcher’s agent and Chris is really surprised when his agent sends back and tell him how good the story is (Crutcher 229-230).