Copy and paste your notes here.

For the next reading assignment, you should do a different job and record all of your future prep work here for a homework grade.

*Connector

·         This book reminds me of the summer reading book we read in the 8^th grade (don’t remember the name, and this one is so far much better.) But in both books, they/she are really the only people left. The world is a very empty place and they/she must constantly be on alert for danger.

·         This also reminds me a lot of war of the worlds (the movie, I’ve never read the book). In that something horrible has happened to mankind and this small family must stick together because they are all that they have, and move somewhere safe.

·         In this book there are constant reminders of the man’s past, a woman he loved and his childhood. This doesn’t really seem to happen in a lot of the books I read, but it happens a lot to me and to everyone. You see something that instantly takes you back in time, and you feel nostalgic for a while as you remember whatever moment it was you were reminded of.

·         “A forest fire was making its way along the tinder-box ridges above them.” This quote reminded me a lot of all the forest fires that happen in Southern California. I might pay more attention to this than other people because I have family in southern California.

·         “It didn’t snow again but the snow in the road was six inches deep…” This reminded me of that huge snow storm we had last winter. And how much snow we got and how cold it was.

Literary Luminary – pages 40 to 79

·         Pg 43 – “Why are they the state roads? Because they used to belong to the states. What used to be called the states. But there’s not anymore states? No. What happened to them” – this quote just shows how little the boy knows about how the world used to be

·         Pg 47 – “In the night a storm broke in the mountains above them and came cannonading downcountry cracking and booming…” – there seems to be a lot of storms

·         Pg 49 – “I don’t know. Who is anybody?” – This quote stood out to me. It’s just a really deep question.

·         Pg 49-50 – “He was as burntlooking as the country, his clothing scorched and black. One of his eyes was burnt shut. . . He’s been struck by lightning.” – Them coming upon a man who has been struck by lightning seems a little random. I just wonder if it doesn’t have something to do with whatever catastrophic event has happened.

·         Pg 51 – “A picture of his wife…sat holding the photograph. Then he laid it down in the road also and then he stood and they went on.” – This is just a really sad quote that stood out to me. Him trying to move on from his wife’s death

·         Pg 52-53 – “The clocks stopped at 1:17. A long shear of light and then a series of low concussions. . . He went into the bathroom and threw the lightswitch but the power was already gone. A dull rose glow in the windowglass. He dropped to one knee and raised the lever to stop the tub. . . cradling her belly in one hand. . . Why are you taking a bath? I’m not.” – this quote sheds some light on what has happened and it shows that the boy was born after the catastrophic event.

·         Pg 55 – “We’re survivors he told her across the flame of the lamp. . . What in God’s name are you talking about? We’re not survivors. We’re the walking dead in a horror film.” – this shows the conflicting views on the situation the man and his wife had.

·         Pg 56-57 – “I should have done it a long time ago. When there were three bullets in the gun instead of two. I was stupid. . . Sooner or later they will catch us and they will kill us. They will rape me. They’ll rape him. They are going to rape us and kill us and eat us and you won’t face it. . . As for me my only hope is for eternal nothingness and I hope it with all my heart.” – These quotes shows what happened to his wife. She killed herself.

·         Pg 57 – “My heart was ripped out of me the night he was born.” – his wife is saying that she didn’t want her son to be born into such a horrible world. She hated the fact that she allowed him to be born.

·         Pg 59 – “They sat at the window and ate in their robes by candlelight a midnight supper and watched distant cities burn.”

·         Pg 60 – “They came shuffling through the ash casting their hooded heads from side to side. . . Coughing.” – this shows that whatever is wrong with the man (the coughing up blood) is happening to other people too.

·         Pg 63 – “Eyes collard in cups of grime and deeply sunk. Like an animal inside a skull looking out the eyeholes.” – I think this is a very good description of the man they meet

·         Pg 68 – “A single round left in the revolver. You will not face the truth. You will not.” – I wonder what this means. Does it mean that he thinks, in the back of his mind, that his wife was right? Would the boy be better off if he were dead?

·         Pg 69 – “The unseen sun cast no shadow.” – I guess that means that there is no sun, or at least it is covered by clouds.

·         Pg 75 – “This was the first human being other than the boy that he’d spoken to in more than a year.” – So his wife must have died about a year ago.

·         Pg 77 – “Are we still the good guys.” – this just stood out to me

·         Pg 77 – “Or perhaps the last music on earth called up from out of the ashes of its ruin.” – this one stood out too.

·         Pg 79 – “If it’s a commune they’ll have barricades. But it may just be refugees.” – So I guess more people alive than I originally thought.

 Excellent work, Katie. You are working hard in your group to figure things out in this book. :) Mrs. Clark Evans

Discussion Director – pgs 80-100

·         Can someone summarize what has happened in the pages we read?

·         Do you feel like this reading answered some of the question we’ve had

o   i.e. what happened to cause all this destruction, did the wife really kill herself, what happened to the third bullet….

·         Do you think that this reading brought up some new questions?

·         What surprised you the most about this reading?

·         It seems like the dog is significant in some way. Why do you think that is?

·         First the man’s wife loses hope of surviving and now is son is starting to do the same. And yet, the man is determined to live. What do you think this says about his character?

·         When they are in that town, the man knows that there are other people there watching them. How come, if they have been avoiding all other people, do you think they aren’t avoiding these people?

·         Do you think that there was actually a little boy there or was the man’s son hallucinating?

·         Why do you think the boy cared so much about that dog?

·         Why do you think the four marchers they saw were wearing red scarves?

Connector – pages 150-200

·         This reading really only reminded me of lost. When they find that underground shelter is like in lost when they find the hatch. And that inside the hatch everything is almost like what their lives used to be with all the food and the beds and shelter, while the outside is this whole new foreign world.

Literary Luminary

·         Pg 201 – “boy: Can we drink the water? Man – We don’t have a choice. Boy – It won’t make us sick. Man – I don’t think so. It could be dry.” – this quote shows that some of the water is in fact drinkable

·         Pg 201 – “He got a cloth from the cart and a plastic jar and came back and wrapped the cloth over the mouth of the jar and sank it in the water and watched it fill.” – The man knows weird survival things like this.

·         Pg 205 – “boy – But we won’t stay in the house will we?” – the boy is always afraid of going into houses.

·         Pg 209 – “They ate slowly out of bone china bowls, sitting at opposite sides of the table with a single candle burning between them.” – This is just a weird picture to me. They go from eating outside in the dirt to this.

·         Pg 213 – “He hoped it would be brighter where for all he knew the world grew darker daily.” – so maybe the world’s condition is only getting worse?

·         Pg 213 – “Like a man waking in a grave.”

·         Pg 213 – “Many had died in a cholera epidemic and they’d been buried in haste…” – shows what happened to some of the people in the world.

·         Pg215 – “He had the names of towns and rivers by heart and he measured their progress daily.” – the boy still has hope that things will be better in the south.

·         pg 218 – “Running naked and leaping and screaming into the slow roll of the surf… He walked down to meet him