Heaven Is For Real

Author Background: 

The author of, Heaven Is For Real, is Todd Burpo. 

"Todd Burpo is the pastor of Crossroads Wesleyan Church in Imperial, Nebraska where his sermons are broadcast locally every Sunday via the local radio station. He volunteers at Chase County Public Schools as wrestling coach for Junior high school students, as well as serving as a member of the school board. In emergencies Todd can be found working shoulder-to-shoulder with the Imperial Volunteer Fire Department as a fire fighter. He is also the chaplain for the Nebraska State Volunteer Firefighter's Association. To support his family, Todd also operates a company called Overhead Door Specialists. Todd graduated from Oklahoma Wesleyan University in 1991" 

Todd Burpo Article  

Todd Burpo is a very successful man. Along with this he has a very unique family. He later in his life writes a book about his son's trip to heaven (Heaven Is For Real) and in this book it describes his son's experience, the family's experience and the affect that all of this had on the people around them.  

My Thoughts:

Even though I have not read this book yet I have heard great reviews and I am very interested in the topic. I do also have an understanding of what happens in the book because of my research on it. I am very excited to read this and hopefully it is as good as I am expecting. 

  

Review of Lovely Bones

Summary: 
              *SPOILER ALERT* 
   Murdered by her next door neighbor Mr. Walker at the age of 12, Susie Salmon finds herself in a beautiful land, not quite Heaven, where she can observe and comment on the lives of her family and friends. Her body is never discovered and her parents suffer an unimaginable pain. The strain is far too much and her mother leaves. Her father continues to investigate and over many years maintains contact with the police officer in charge of the investigation. Susie also gets to watch Walker and learns of his long list of victims. She also sees him prepare for his next victim, her younger sister Lindsey. To find out what happens next read Lovely Bones. 
Rating:
   I rate this book a 8. This book shows great word placement/ diction and this also helps the reader understand if the chapter is taking place in the in-between or on Earth. I also enjoy the descriptions in the book. The setting of the in-between is a somewhat fantasy place that would take a lot of detail to get the reader to be able to picture this place in their mind but Alice does a great job of filling peoples minds with a sense of joyful bitterness about this place and creates an everlasting image that allows you to visually picture the scene. The only thing I didn't really enjoy about this book was that Alice dragged on some non-important events that could be described in a couple of chapters.  

Review: 
"Mesmerizing" - New York Times Book Review

"Don't start The Lovely Bones unless you can finish it. The book begins with more horror than you could imagine, but closes with more beauty than you could hope for" -Christian Science Monitor

"Savagely beautiful" - San Francisco Chronicle

"Haunting." - Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Lovely Bones: Quotes with Importance

"She was standing in my path that night when my soul shrieked out of Earth. I could not help but graze her. Once released from life, having lost it in such violence, I couldn't calculate my steps... In violence it is the getting away that you concentrate on." (Sebold 41).     This quote describes the moment when Susie is leaving Earth, her soul has left her body. When this happens she sees a girl named Ruth and when she sees this girl she touches her, making Ruth have a dream about what has happened to Susie. The next day she tells her mom what she sees and Ruth describes what seems to be so real. Her mother doesn't think anything of this and told Ruth to leave it alone. I think that Ruth has some importance to Susie that hasn't been told yet.
     This has importance within Susie's death, I was wondering, why Ruth?  Why did Susie's soul encounter this girl before she made her way up into the in-between? I am now starting to think that Ruth might be helpful in the investigations of Susie. I can start to conclude that Ruth met Susie in this way for a very specific reason. I predict that Ruth helps find Susie's murderer and helps the police complete the investigation so that Susie can finally rest in peace.

Lovely Bones : The Investigation

In my book the girl Susie Salmon gets murdered. As they look for Susie they find multiple clues leading them to believe she is dead. I also believe that each of these pieces of evidence is a symbol.
     The first symbol I came across was a piece of evidence, her elbow. The elbow gave her family devastation but hope. The elbow symbolizes the pieces of Susie that will never return, It also makes sense that the elbow would stand for the smallest part of Susie, the elbow shows the amount of HOPE Susie had in her life, she didn't have very much. There are many ways that the author of the story hints this to us. The author states various flashbacks that happens during Susie's life, all of them showing her insecurities and her biggest insecurity was her lack of hope.
     The second symbol I found was also another piece of evidence, her book. As the police go further and further into the investigation they find more and more evidence making it ore apparent that Susie is dead. The book that the police found in the corn field was "To Kill A Mocking Bird" . Not only does the title show symbolism but even why she had the book in the first place. In the story it says that in order to receive this book you must have completed the other books on the class list. Since Susie has possession of this book it shows that she was very smart. Also this smartness lead to curiosity.
     In conclusion the two symbols I chose, if put together are what resulted in Susie's murder. The reason Susie went into the cabin with this man is because she was curious and she didn't follow her mothers instructions and let the man manipulate her into staying with him in the cabin. Also since Susie was not hopeful she didn't try to live even if she could have she just gave up her fight to early.

                                                                       

Setting in LOVELY BONES

The story takes place in two common but uncommon places, the in-between and Earth. Both of theses places have special meanings to them but also are there to give the story two perspectives. When having to very different settings it is usually hard to keep track of where you are in the book and what is happening, but since this books settings are taken place in two majorly different places it is a lot easier to keep track of where you are in the book.

The in-between in this story is pretty surreal. In the picture above it shows Salmon in the in-between before she goes to heaven, the only reason she stays in the in-between is so she can see her family catch her murderer. So far nothing major has happened in the in-between but I predict that she can connect with her family in a way while she is up there and she will help her family solve the murder of Salmon and she can finally rest in peace.

The setting that takes place on Earth holds a lot of major events also. This is where Salmon got murdered and where (prediction) her killer will get caught. The setting of this town that Salmon lives in is very rural but yet suburban community. Her neighbors are close but other neighborhoods are farther away and as you can see in the photo her neighbors also have big back yards, big enough that they can farm in them. Even though the in-between seems like a really cool and well developed setting I still think that the setting that takes place on the Earth in the rural but suburban neighborhood will be my favorite.  

New Book- Lovely Bones

     I just finished Paper Towns and the next book I am going to read is Lovely Bones by: Alice Sebold. I haven't gotten a chance to actually start reading this book but I have heard many things about it, viewed many ratings and reviews on this book and I am very excited to actually start reading this book! This book also is very dark and deep so I would only recommend this to people who are 13 and older. Since I really don't know anything else about the book I would like to share my thoughts on what i think the book will contain and more info about the author.
     I think that this book will be very good, yes I believe that there also will be some boring parts to it but other than that I think I will enjoy it a lot. It is about this girl who is 14 (my age) and she gets murdered and instead of going straight into heaven she is stuck in the in between, she wants to help her family figure out who murdered her. In this mysterious yet intensifying story to help Salmon rest in peace knowing that her killer was punished for what he did.
     The author Alice Sebold is the author of Lovely Bones. Alice has also written more books such as; The Almost Moon and Lucky. Alice writes a lot of her books about murder and tragedy. Some compare her to Steven King, the author of Children of the Corn and other extremely haunting stories. The reason she writes about stuff like this is because she writes about what she has experienced not necessarily the murder but everything else that came with it. Actually the book Lucky is about her experience in college. If you want to read more about Alice Sebold click on the link below:
                                                                                               The biography of Alice Sebold

Paper Towns: my personal review

I am just coming to the end of Paper Towns and I wan't to share my thoughts about the book. 

     Rating: My rating of Paper Towns on a 1-10 scale would have to be a 7. There were some good and some bad to the book. I really enjoyed how the author showed us Q's and Margo's friendship by their actions and it wasn't described by the narrator or it wasn't described by their words either. What I didn't like about the book was that in the end *SPOILER ALERT* Margo and Q realize that there relationship will never be more than just friends. This kinda disappointed me because I was really hoping that they would end up with something special.

      Who Would Enjoy This Book: I would  recommend this book to anyone who is interested in mystery and young-adult fiction. Basically any age would be suited to read this book. My range for age would be 12-adult. I think this book would be good for people 12-adult because Paper Towns isn't to sophisticated but its also not an easy read. There are many symbols hidden in this book but also the author foreshadows a lot about the plot and theme. 

     Reviews: “Green’s prose is astounding — from hilarious, hyper-intellectual trash talk and shtick, to complex philosophizing, to devastating observation and truths. He nails it–exactly how a thing feels, looks, affects–page after page.”

-Johanna Lewis, School Library Journal, starred review

“A suspenseful mystery, a compelling central metaphor, and one of those road trips that every senior hopes he or she will have round out this exploration of the kind of relationship that can’t help but teach us a little bit about ourselves.”

-Bulletin for the Center of Children’s Books, starred review

“A powerfully great read.”

-VOYA