ISP Blog Post 1- Lullabies For Little Criminals

Based on the small amount that I have read of my book, Lullabies of little criminals, I find it quite interesting so far. I have to admit that I don’t usually enjoy the books that I have to read for class because I can’t really relate to the stories or understand them properly. However this novel really interests me due to the setting and especially the characters. I may not be able to directly relate to the drug factor and lack of mother figure that seem to be prominent points in this novel I can still sympathize with the characters dealing with these circumstances. I have formed a mental image of Baby and her father, Jules. Baby’s appearance in my mind has been altered due to the fact that there is an illustration of her on the front cover of the novel, nevertheless I still picture as a sweet looking thin brunette who appears happy and neatly presented. Her father on the other hand seems to be less appealing and trashy. He has scabs on his arms due to his heroin addiction but I still like him as a character so far despite his flaws as a father. Considering Baby and her father have been separated twice already due to her father’s addiction I don’t believe they will ever be able to fully stay together. Unfortunately I don’t think Jules is ever going to be able to stop doing drugs and I think that is going to have serious consequences for his and Baby’s futures. I am interested to see how Baby handles her life situations whether she stays with her father or not. I enjoy Baby’s character. She seems strong despite the hardships she has faced in her short life. She needs to learn to separate her life from her fathers to a point though. When he leaves to get drugs she should listen to him and stay at home where she is safe from drug dealers and a scene that is unfit for a 12 year old. She was also struck by a car while chasing after her father due to another one of his careless mistakes. I believe that this book’s target audience is fairly broad. Although I think it is better suited for young adults. It isn’t a children’s book. My values and worldviews affect the way I read this book to a point. I understand drug addictions are hard to overcome but I still believe that a parent should do whatever they can to create the best life for their children. In this case Jules needs to stop doing drugs and better provide for Baby. I hope that later on in this novel Baby and Jules can live together once again. I hope Jules gets sober and stays that way so Baby can have a much more positive role model in her life. I am looking forward to reading more of this novel so I can see what happens to these two characters and see them hopefully overcome their many hardships. 

Essay writing: Strengths and weaknesses.

When writing essays I believe one of my biggest weaknesses would be comma spices. I have trouble understanding when and when not to use a comma in a sentence. Another one of my largest weaknesses is creating a proper thesis. When writing I have trouble simply presenting the basis for my argument therefore I don’t have a clear thesis.  I either write a statement that isn’t the true argument I should be focusing on or I make my argument too broad. I would really like to improve on these weaknesses by correcting my comma splices to inevitably have better sentence structure and to have a proper thesis so I can have a great basis for my essays. A strength that I have while writing essays is the ability to use strong adjectives. I prefer to write with larger and more descriptive words in order to keep the text interesting and not too bland. A goal I have based on this lesson is definitely to learn how to write a proper thesis and be able to back it up. I want to be able to do this because if I don’t have a good thesis my entire essay will suffer due to the fact that I have nothing to base my points off of. I hope to be able to write stronger and better essays in the future due to these lessons.