How it Went Down Response

I am reading How it Went Down for Grade 10 English. The book is about this kid who gets shot when he goes into a corner store and this white guy pulls up in his car and shoots him because he thought he was robbing the place. The kid dies but the story is from all different perspectives so you get to see how each person experienced the shooting and what they think happens.

I think that it reminds me a lot of the shootings that happen between the police and unarmed Black men, especially in Canada and the United States. These shootings are usually dismissed as justified even when the people being shot were unarmed. Some examples are:
Trayvon Martin
Eric Garner

Tamir Rice
Freddie Gray

Michael Brown

These cases lead to lots of outrage from some of the communities where these young men are being shot, especially amongst the Black community where they are much more likely to be killed than any other race. There seems to be some awareness of the issue and yet when people take social action, like when Colin Kaepernick started the Take a Knee campaign, there is criticism for them trying to make change.  I think that the growing awareness of the issue brought by groups like Black Lives Matter helps to bring attention but that it continues to be an issue in Canada and the United States and that more training and education for police officers is essential.

Uglies Book

I picked the Scott Westerfield book Uglies because the title looks good and the cover was sort of interesting. I like the characters at the start like Tally who is interesting. The plot is interesting because it is about these people who when they turn sixteen they get to go from these sort of camps for kids and to the city to become pretty and enjoy the fancy society that is going on. Tally ends up meeting this girl named Shay who doesn't want to go and get the procedure and so they run away and Tally has to decide if she wants to or not. There is a guy named Peris, too, and I think he and Tally will start dating. "His expression made his pretty face glow even more, and Tally leaped forward to wrap her arms around him. He still felt the same, at least, maybe a bit taller and thinner But he was warm and solid, and still Peris." page 19.
This reminds me of how sometimes parents want kids to go to university even though they might not want to which makes the kids have to choose what they want to do. I also think of that show where people get makeovers using plastic surgery.

Initial Impressions of The Marrow Thieves

When I began reading my literature circle novel, The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline, I knew that the basic premise involved a futuristic world in which Indigenous children were being taken to residential schools again in Canada. What I was not expecting was to immediately be engaged in a high stakes and terrifying post-apocalyptic story in which I cared so deeply about the characters.

Source.

The Marrow Thieves begins with Frenchie (Francis) and his brother Mitch hiding out in a treehouse to escape "the Recruiters," (4) agents from the Government of Canada responsible for finding and detaining children and taking them for bone marrow extraction to help cure a plague impacting non-Indigenous people across the world. Damage from climate change has decimated the earth and sent climate refugees scrambling to survive but, more insidiously, non-Indigenous people are no longer able to dream. 

Source.

Frenchie is obviously remorseful of what happens to his brother (who sacrifices himself), but I was struck by how cold, scared and vulnerable he is. For example, just before he is discovered by the rest of the group, it states:
"I was stumbling. Another night asleep in the open. This time I didn't have enough strength to rebuild the fire that had been rained out while I fitfully slept. My muscles ached, my belly rumbled, my hear hurt. I'd tripped over an aboveground root bent like an arthritic finger and picked up a limp...I fell asleep biting a piece of shoelace, leaning against the pine trunk, wishing Mom would find me" (12). 
What I found particularly heartbreaking about this is that he is suffering so immensely but he is a just a child who, ultimately, wants him mom to come and protect him even though it is obvious to the reader that she won't be returning.

Source.

This reminds me of other examples of children being taken from their parents, or separated as they flee from war or chaos, trying to survive. For example in the United States, numerous unaccompanied minors arrive across the American/Mexican border from South American countries where there is civil war, poverty and dangerous conditions. The government of the United States, under the direction of President Donald Trump, is placing these children in detention centres without basic access to medical care, food, or care. 

Source

I think many of these children must feel as lost, scared and desperate for their mothers as Frenchie is in the beginning of The Marrow Thieves.  It makes me think about how important my family is to me, and how lost I would have been as a child if I did not have my parents to care for me and make me feel safe. I am very fortunate as a person born in Canada to a family who was able to provide for me that I do not have to experience any of the horrible conditions and circumstances of these refugee children. I believe more people should donate money to organizations that help these children to get legal representation and that the government of the United States is responsible for their care and should be in trouble for not providing it.