Blog One

This book was very good in so many ways, but in so many other ways it was very different in the ways that it told stories. First of all, it was different because I couldn't really connect with the characters because one of Eddie's best friend died because Sheetrock fell on top of him. I have never really had a best friend die but I have moved away from my best friends once. It is kind of the same thing but not a lot, I still lost my best friend, the one that I hung out with the most. I still can talk to her but only on the phone and that is basically like talking to a ghost because she is not there talking face to face with me. I only get to see her like maybe once a year, sometimes not even, we usually send letters through cards that our parents get. Billy can come back if he wants and be right beside Eddie if he is in real trouble. This story was also good because it had a great lesson to teach kids with. To stand up for yourself and never give up. Eddie went and talked to the people at the church not to come but they did so he had to speak again at the school board meeting to tell that banning Warren Peece was a stupid idea. He also helped other people stick up for themselves because Montana West spoke in front of the whole school board to tell them how foolish it was to ban the book Warren Peece.
In chapter 1, Eddie's dad dies in a horrible freak accident. He was fixing a car and the tire exploded right in front of him and his face gets blown off and blood is everywhere. The other horrible thing that happened was Billy Bartholomew was mad that his dad wasn't there because he had to run an errand. This is the worst month for Eddie because of these things that happen and he is the first to find these two people dead. He is totally devastated because now he has to live with his mom and they don't get along as much as him and his dad were.
In chapter 2, Billy just realizes that he is dead says that he is twenty-one grams. He also says that he is going to stay around and help Eddie through this tough time in his life. He doesn't exactly know how to make Eddie know that he is there since he doesn't have a voice box, is invisible, and only weighs twenty-one grams, it's going to be a little tough but he thinks he will be able to make it work. Eddie's mind has a really hard time keeping on track and not wondering off. Eddie's 'Question Man inside him, the Man Who Seeks the Truth no Matter the Consequence(Crutcher 24). In this part of the book, it also goes back to a time when Billy and Eddie were eight and they were in Sunday School and talking about Jonah in the Old Testament when Jonah gets stuck inside of a whale and gets spit up two or three days later. Eddie's mind wonders off and thinks that; if there were a real human inside a real whale it would be seriously dark and you'd be working your way through all kinds of slime if you were looking for a way out, which you most certainly would be (Crutcher 25). In this chapter, Eddie also decides to become a mute because his talking is always some sort of problem and he is tired of it.
In chapter 3, Eddie's mom leaves for church and Eddie decides that he is going to stay home becuase he doesn't really feel like going this time. After his mom leaves he kind of wishes that he went with her because it is raining really hard and it is lightning and thundering outside and he is getting a little scared that he is all alone inside the house. He sits down in the basement and watches TV. Eddie gets scared kind of easily. There is nothing on and he flips through the channels and finally he finds something that is scary, it is about a haunted house. Now while this might be, given his current emotional state, a good time to see if he can find Lassie on the Animal Channel, he can't pry his gaze from the screen(Crutcher 39). It comes to the most intense part of the show and tight when that happens, CRACK! a bolt of lightning hits really close to his house. He screams, his hearts is beating so hard that it might as well come out of his chest, the lights go out in the house. A mouse runs over his feet and he jumps up and runs out the door in the freezing rain barefoot, his feet are so cold that he doesn't feel them getting all torn up by the sharp rocks on the road.
In chapter 15, Eddie joins the group Youth For Christ and he is going to speak in front of the church and they think that he is going to tell them to go to the school board meeting and be for the banning of Warren Peece. It turns out that he is going to actually tell them that the banning is bogus. He tells them how he made friends in the book and how it would be awfully rude of them to take that away from him. He also tell them about homosexuality and that it showed him to be brave in tough situations and not get scared or freaked out. When he tells the church this Reverend Tarter gets mad and tells people to cave him in so they can catch him and ask him why he said those things that he said. When he tries to escape, he sees a glass window with the Virgin Mary on it, below that window was a ledge he climbs up the ledge and looked down over the congregation and tells them about Jesus and what he would do, and tells them that he might be Jesus because when Jesus was born, he didn't know he was Jesus, he is saying that he could be the next Jesus.

As you can see this book is kind of hard to relate to when it comes to the main part of the story, he is against banning a book, I would do it but its not the number one of my life long list of things to do before I die. I haven't really gone up in front of a lot of people and spoke my mind, to be honest, I hate standing up in front of people and speaking my mind. Although I am getting better at it. Overall this book was okay, I mean it had a great lesson to be learned in it.

Blog Two

If there was a second book of The Sledding Hill, there would be different characters except for Eddie, he moved to the state that the story takes place in. He had to move because of his mom's work, he was totally bummed because he finally got Montana West to hang out with him. They would all be one year older than they were in the other book. It would basically be the same kind of problem except that the main character would be the age that Eddie was when he took on the school board, they would both be the main characters. Another difference would be that it wouldn't be about banning a book in the school district, it would be about a history film that had some great historical reference but it was rated PG-13 because of its bad language and had some drug and alcohol use in it. One of the parents would find out and want it banned because they don't want their son/daughter to watch that kind of stuff and think that it is okay because a movie star did it and it seemed like it was okay. They would go to the school board meeting and tell the school board that the movie is very educational and that they could just skip over those bad parts and then everyone would be happy. That was their plan, but the school board wouldn't think of it the same way. The kids email the writer of the movie and ask them to come down and talk to the school board and say why the movie is such a great historical reference and that he was just trying to be realistic. You can't write a historical movie and not have some bad language and some drug and alcohol abuse because that is what would actually happen back then.

Blog Three

A day in the life of Eddie Proffit,

Dear Journal,

Today I didn't go to church with mom because I just wanted to stay home and relax and personally, I didn't want to see that Tarter guy, I seem him like at least three times in one day. How dumb is that? He keeps bugging me to get baptized...what if I don't wanna?? Well my mom left and a few minutes later I realize that I would rather be with her than all alone in a house when it is raining really hard and thundering outside. Dang, why did I have to be so dumb? I thought it was gonna be fun all alone and time to catch up on my thinking but man is that boring and it didn't take me very long to get caught up but oh well. I turn on the TV to see if anything good is on, dang! nothing! So I flipped the channel to Discovery Channel there has got to be something interesting on that channel. On this show they had discovered a real haunted house, I tried my hardest to turn the channel, cuz I get scared really easily, but something was keeping me from doing so. The police never solved her murder, and now she has come back to haunt the place, doesn't it seem like that always happens? So anyway, the current occupants come across a stain on the wall but it is an outline of the victim. The stain is brownish red and if whoever sees it summons to touch it-like why would they? I wonder, but they do-it feels wet (Crutcher 37). So I keep watching and the daughter is up for a late night snack, a peanut butter sandwich, the shadowy figure starts to grow behind her, and the music starts to build. The daughter gets finished making her sandwich and the figure is really close to her when CRACK!! A lightning bolt hits really close to the house and I get up and start kickboxing because I think that some one's fingers are really close to my neck. I'm glad no one was home cuz that would have been EMBARRASSING!! Soon, a mouse crawls over my foot and I jump up and run out the back door and run for my dear life, as I am running down the street my feet are so cold that I don't even know that they are getting cut because of the sharp rocks on the road. Man, what a night!!

Sincerely,

Eddie Proffit

Research

Homosexual: a person sexually attracted to people of one's own sex. The homosexuals during the Holocaust were treated like they were only there to annoy you. These homosexuals were the outcasts of all the concentration camps in Germany. During the twelve years of Nazi rule, almost 50,000 gays were convicted of the crime homosexuality. Most of these gays were sent to the concentration camps, at least 500,000 homosexuals were killed in the Holocaust. Many of the German believed that homosexuality is a horrible crime to commit. After the people were proved that they were gay, they automatically meant that they were to be sent to concentration camps. When they got to the concentration camps the homosexuals could only talk to themselves, had to sleep with the lights on and they had to keep their hands above the covers at all times. Also, the Germans thought that torturing these homosexuals should be a professional sport. The director of one of the concentration camps, Flossenburg always ordered the gays to be flogged, and when they were in the most pain of their lives, the director was having himself a nice little laugh. The gays were treated horribly, they had to shovel snow with their bare hands, they were also used as living targets at the firing range so the other people who were training could get the actual experience of killing a real person. They also had the absolute dirtiest job of all time.

Summary

The Sledding Hill by Chris Crutcher was okay. It was hard to into at first, but then in the middle, towards the end, it got more intense and interesting.

This story is about a kid named Eddie Proffit. This year alone, his dad dies when he forgets to take the air out of the tire before the car is set on the ground, and the tire explodes in his face and he dies. Eddie is devastated because now he only has his mother to talk to which he really doesn't want to because she doesn't understand him like his father did. He i also frustrated with his mother because she keeps letting Reverend Tarter into the house. Reverend always comes up to his room and tries to convince him to get baptized at the church. Also, his friend Billy Bartholomew died of a freak accident like Eddie's father. Billy was mad so he kicked a couple of sheets of sheetrock that were lying loosely against the wall. He turns away and just as he did that, a couple of sheetrock falls and clips the back of his head, which breaks his spine. Billy just dies right then and there. Eddie is the first to find these two of his favorite people in the world dead. I mean, what would you do when you find two of your most loved people in the world dead? Would you run and tell someone or let someone else find them and just keep it to yourself? Billy and Eddie were really close, they were inseparable. They always got into trouble together. So when Billy died, Eddie stopped talking for a while, because it reminded him of all the great times they had together when he did talk. In school, Eddie takes English and they read this book called Warren Peece. The school board hears about this and wants the book banned because of its bad language and bad reference about homosexual people. Eddie really likes this book because he found friends in the characters, and he doesn't want to lose those like he lost his father and best friend, so he decides to fight against the banning of the book. Eddie joins this group called 'Youth for Christ' who are for the banning of the book. Eddie joins this group so he can speak to the church and tell the people not to ban the book. He invites Chris Crutcher himself to be at the school board meeting to speak about the greatness of the book.

The characters in the book are two normal teenage boys, they everything together, they run together, the go to each others houses, they eat lunch together, etc... Eddie grows up a lot in this book, he goes from being all quiet and not talking and being shy to telling people that he might be Jesus. He is really proud of himself for standing up for everyone and making sure the book isn't banned. The other person that is really proud of him is Billy Bartholomew who was with him every step of the way.