Main Character in Sing Down the Moon

 I'm about halfway into this book, and I have to say I'm really loving the main character Bright Morning. Being a 14-year old girl Bright Morning has a lot to handle. She has the stress of chores, the pressure from her parents and her older sister, as well as competing with the other kids her age. She's a teen so I bet that a lot of us here are able to relate with her to an extent. However it's not that easy to compare our life with hers and still assume she lives like us. Because she doesn't. Her life is tied to her village. And for this girl, she falls into some major trouble which turns her life into a one she never imagined living. 

Now, we all have bad days but what happened to her reflects a major problem in society that continues to happen everyday all around the world-kidnapping. So Bright Morning does get kidnapped but her experience during that low point in her life is what was able to truly bring out her character. When she goes to her new master's house the first piece of her character that rises is her determination and stubbornness to get out of the place where she felt like she was locked in. Let me tell you it wasn't hard to characterize her because the author very explicity stated how she was. Bright Morning essentially makes a promise to herself saying, "I will never stir the beans nor will I ever smile when I am in this house," (O'Dell 35). This shows her willingness and determination to resist the force upon her. In this type of situation, I feel like it is particularly important to have a strong mental state so that a person is able to stay strong and use all their energy towards finding a way to get out. And or course that quote also shows how stubborn Bright Morning is when she says that she will"never stir the beans". Now normally people think it is a bad quality to have if you are stubborn but for this character her stubbornness was vital for her to conquer her mind and control it so that she doesn't give into the demands of her slavers.

So I truly appreciate her and what she did for herself when she was landed in this mess and believe that it is important for everyone to be determined and passionate in the thing they believe so that they can go through it. And as for Bright Morning her willingness to get out of this experience was a great part of her personality.

Article talking about famous American kidnapping cases

Just when I thought it started to climb

Two girls stand all alone. The wind taps them around and everything seems to shake, as if a warning is being given. An icy, dark, empty alley where even death doesn't come haunts their eyes. They hear shoes rattle, their pulses quicken and slowly turn around, their eyes focusing on the very thing they fear.... the last thing they'll ever see is those two hands....

That's what I think when someone says suspense. Now of course I'm a lot more creative than that but for blogging purposes let’s keep things simple.
Simple.

That’s exactly what the author does to the plot of this book. He keeps its WAY TOO simple. And as I pound away on the keyboard getting a feeling that I am loosening the keys, all I think of is the plot and how much better it could have been. Seriously, I am really starting to wonder how this was an "award-winning" book because I personally don't see the book screaming "hey look at me! I got an award and you losers are stuck with nothing." Just no. And my anger worsens because the plot is such a real creative thought. And it encompasses real world problems so it’s supposed to be great- supposed to be. Clearly I beg to differ. And I think some others do to.

Now don't get me wrong because I don't judge a book by its cover and initially I didn't. And I love everything else about the book including the setting and the supporting characters. What killed me inside was the development of the problem and reaction of the main character. So basically the main character [Bright Morning] is with her friend Running Bird and sees some Spaniards coming near them. Before they can flee, the three men surround them and demand that they come with them to be taken as female slaves, who will then be sold to work in a rich home. See. That's such a great thought the author had and it relates to the past and present times of our society. The conversation between the men and the two girls is the men simply saying, "'We will not harm you. You will like the place you are going. Do not try to flee'"(O'Dell 26). First off, when a person is going to kidnap somebody that’s not all what they should be saying- especially in a book. That was it. That was all the Spaniard said to the girls. Easy to decipher? Yeah. At all effective? NO.

On top of that the reaction of the girls directly after that dialogue goes a little like, "We went south along the mesa" (O'Dell 26). Now, reading this you're probably wondering "what? that's not a reaction. What is she writing about?" And you're right. That wasn't a reaction. Because that was all I could find of a reaction. Literally, the major turning point in the book was finished in about a paragraph. Two girls just got kidnapped and the author provided no reaction of the girls at all. There was nothing explaining the feelings of the girls nor did he provide any description of what was going on. Now that made my blood boil.


The idea was really creative but the fact that the author didn't expand on that scene really made me want to stop reading the book because there could have been so much to indulge in at that part, which could have brought up the book to a whole another level. Plus, all the other events- even those that weren't that important- were described in much length and detail allowing the reader to get a grasp on the emotions of the character and really why those decisions were taken by the character. Yet I'm still going to continue reading the book hoping that other important scenes aren't as short as this one.

**This was my review on this part of the book: Reviews on Goodreads that give more opinons on this book

  

Sing Down the Moon

So I just started a new fiction book called Sing Down the Moon by Scott O'Dell and it's definitely a new concept and I have to say I'm not bored with it yet so it seems like I'll really like it hopefully.  I have only read the first few chapters and I have a hunch that something big is gonna happen and its gonna come at me like I'd never expect it. And because I don't like surprises I have myself prepared for the plot. So far this book talks about a young girl that experiences a typical day in her village and what she has been doing during the summer. She's like your normal teenage girl in the west, a person who has chores to do, loves hanging around with her friends, and of course... has a crush on another boy. Yep... authors can just never forget the romance.

So at the part where I left of, is where the girl named Bright Morning has seen a couple of Spaniards- people she had been taught to stay away from at a very young age. When she sees them, she describes them like, "I saw their shadows before I saw the men..... they were dressed in deerskin, with tall hats and silver spurs,riding horses that had heavy silver bits. They were the Spaniards,"(O'Dell 25). From previous sentences in the book the reader were able to tell that the Spaniards were not the people to trust because they would always take advantage of people living in the villages and exploit them. And at this part in the novel Bright Morning was alone in the field quite far from her home so I have a feeling that the Spaniards are going to kidnap her and take her away. I think this because she was alone far away from her home, with nothing to defend herself with, and the Spaniards have always hated her village and her people from the start. So my predication is that she will be kidnapped and taken away and to get her back, the people will have to pay up something as ransom.

Thoughts on Character

So I just finished reading A Separate Country and boy, did it take me a while. Honestly the only reason why I finished it was because over break I had a 10 hour car ride. And what else can you do besides read cramped up in a car for that long? Let me know if you have any ideas.

Anyways, so throughout this book I found a particular character quite interesting which would be Anne Marie Hood- General Hood's wife. The main reason why I like her so much because the reader could see a change in her as the story progressed. In the beginning, as a teen, she is a very open minded person who is always ready to risk her life for an adventure. For example, one time she treks into the forest and befriends two homeless boys who live like cavemen. Seriously, where do you find girls like that these days? Nevertheless, you could say she is a symbol of noncomformity because she demonsrates that in the early stages of this book. However to her society she is considered as young and immature. And she ends up doing the very thing her mother didn't want her to do- she falls in love. To her family the problem was that she fell in love with a man who experienced countless amounts of failures in his his lifetime as a General. What I especially loved about her was the fact that she didn't care what others thought and only focused on her goals and aspirations. In fact when she met Hood she describes him much differently than other did as they saw him. She says, "I was. But God, his eyes! They were not the blue you see in the eyes of men. They were wet and deep and clear, the blue of the sky reflected in a clear creek. There were clouds in them too. I should be forgiven for looking him in the eye, though it was not proper or demure" (72). She even says that it wasn't proper for ladies to look men directly in the eye and the fact that she did that shows she wasn't afraid of being a little different. however she didn't care about what others thought about Hood- she only cared for what he meant for her. In that sense Anne marie seems like a great role model in the fact that she is so real and should represent the young girls of today's generation who aren't afraid of stepping out.

After her marriage with Hood the audience sees some major changes in her. Mainly because she had so many kids that through all the experiences with them she is growing out of her previous old self. She becomes a lot more involved in her own work minding the little things she used to go after. This may be because there eventually became financial problems in their family. The once rich family who lived their life in comfort went through a phase of difficulties years into their wedded life. Some changes you notice in her are her mental changes. She is a lot more quiet and controlled whereas before she was much open and "out there." Overall she becomes a little dull in her life- she loses all that fun she used to posses when she was younger. Unfortunately nearing the end of the book, she loses her life to yellow fever which at that time was a ranging epidemic. Overall, as I look back to her character I realize that she reflected every person who has acted like Anne somewhere throughout their lives. I think at some point in a person's life they are going to be dull struggling or they are going to step out of their comfort zone and make a difference.

Anyways, I enjoyed this character throughly and hope I find more qualities Anne Marie had in other characters of other books I read.


Link to an article talking about why people change in their life