Independent Reading Book Blog

Vikram Iyer Fiction Blog 2 Language Arts                  I decided to do a character diary on Irene Redfield, who is the main character in my book, Passing. The background information is that she is American and she lives in Harlem, New York, and she is part African American, but small enough that she can “pass” for a white woman, and not be treated differently. This takes place in the 1920s, during the Harlem Renaissance. She has an old friend named Clare Kendry, who she met after a long time at a restaurant. She at first did not really like her, because she has a husband who is very racist towards African American people, and Clare Kendry herself is part African American, it is just that she also passes as a white woman to her husband. After three years, Clare writes a letter to Irene, who does not want to respond because of her recollection of her mean husband, but eventually, Clare is so insis...

Vikram Iyer Fiction Mini Blog 1 Language Arts                 While I was reading this book I thought that it was not that hard to read many pages of it, because it had mostly easy words that I knew. I was a little bit surprised by this because this was made in the 1920s, and usually old books have hard words or words that are not used as often now. When I was reading the book in my bed I would always get cold because the fan was pointed toward my bed, so then I would get up and read in my chair and then I would be warmer. There was one time when I did not understand a word in the book, so then I looked it up and I understood it. Overall, the book was not very hard to read, and I enjoyed it.

Vikram Iyer Fiction Blog Language Arts I chose to retell a moment from a different point of view. The point of view in the book is 3 rd person, and the moments is when Irene goes to see Clare at a tea party, but then Clare’s husband shows up and ruins the whole party for Irene because he was racist. She and Clare are very old friends from 12 years ago, and Clare also invites another old friend, Gertrude. The background is that Clare, Irene and Gertrude are all part African American, but they are able to “pass” as white people because they have lighter skin. So Clare is married to a white man named Jack, and he really hates African Americans. Clare is playing a very risky game, because if Jack found out that she was part African American, he would do some really terrible things to her, and they even have a child together. I chose to retell this moment from Clare’s point of view, because it is very hard to tell what is going on inside her mind in the story, and she definitely...

My book is “The Meaning of Human Existence” by Edward O. Wilson, and I decided to redesign the cover of the book. As seen in the picture above, the cover for the original book is quite simple, and I thought that I could incorporate some of the author’s important points into the cover. The original book cover has the title of the book, and in the background, there is just a foggy forest. And there is a little oval in between the title and the author and it also shows the same foggy forest. I don’t really know what this has to do with the book, because he does not directly address forests or fogginess in his book, and this does not seem to relate with some of the main points in his book. This is why I decided to redesign the cover, and to try and have the cover indicate a little bit what the book is about. First I have the main part of the cover inside a white circle with black all around it. I wanted this to be like looking at Earth and at human existence through a microscope...

Research on the Author: The author of my book is Edward O. Wilson. He is 90 years old and he is American. He is a biologist, naturalist, and writer. He is also the world’s leading expert on the study of ants. He is the father of sociobiology and the father of biodiversity, so he is a very reliable author for the subject of human existence. He was a professor at Harvard University for around 40 years, so he also has teaching experience, and he knows how to explain his concepts well. He has won 19 different awards including two Pulitzer Prizes. In general, his experience of science and evolution is clearly shown through his writing, and he is one of the best people in the world to learn about this topic of human existence and evolution. I am happy that I chose his book, because I can look into his great mind and learn some new concepts.

When I was reading this book, I found it to be somewhat hard to read, and it had some words that I did not understand. I tried to use context clues to understand the meaning of some of the words, and I if I could not figure out the meaning then, I just searched it up on Google. I also took breaks from reading the book because it was also hard to understand it because it had lots of science words that I didn't know. There were some parts, though, that I found pretty interesting, and I didn't take any breaks because I was not having that hard of a time reading those parts. I also realized that I get kind of thirsty when I read this book, so I kept a glass of water next to me when I read.