Argument essay on child soldiers.

Many children, right now,all over Africa and different parts of the world are child soldiers. Many children are terrorized brainwashed and kidnapped into becoming child soldiers... But as soon as they kill someone they become perpetrators.

Child soldiers are kidnapped, brainwashed, and terrorized into becoming child soldiers. Not only that but most of them have no choice. In some countries hunger and poverty drives parents to sell their children into service. In the article Children at War by P.W Singer a boy says, " They killed my father and my mother in front of my eyes. I was ten years old." if someone killed my parents I would be mentally scarred for life.

Child soldiers are being used as combatants in the frontlines of war. These boys are literally getting sick from killing people. A boy from the same article says, " I got so sick I thought I was going to die." child soldiers have been used in every continent except Antarctica and yes that includes america. Girls are recruited too.  But most girls are singled out for sexual abuse, including rape. They have a hard time coming back into society. Boys are handling explosives and are suicide bombers, and are involved in terrorism.

"What do I like? I like the gun." says Awil, a child soldier quoted from Chilren at war. This is what kids are saying at such a young age. "The initial use of drugs makes you more powerful." says Ishmael Beah who is a former child soldier. This is what kids know as normal. They are perpetrators, they do drugs, they smoke and they kill people. The kids soon known nothing except for how to be bad.

But even for the child soldiers there is hope. Even though they are brainwashed and kidnapped there is hope. Many child soldiers come in contact with American soldiers. The child soldiers are taken and put in Camp Iguana which is a wing in Guatanamo Bay. The kids there watch DVDs and they learn math and English. Therefore there still is hope for the child soldier

Don't judge a book by its cover

Well I would like to start off by saying I like video games. I tend to play them on my spare time if I am not doing other things that actually have purpose. Not saying that video games are useless, they actually are a great form of entertainment and they help with eye-hand-coordination. I thought this book here would be a read.

But it turns out I was wrong.

I thought this book was going to be about cool video games with new technology and how it would be better in the future and awesome things.

The introduction to this book was amazing, It was all about cool things like when first video games came out to what they are now and all sorts of fun stuff.

But then it got boring.

It got boring almost immediately after the introduction. Right afterwords there were statistics. Numbers. The first few were cool statistics were ineteresting and then it crashes. They give me all sorts of days and years and percentages and sales. I skipped around a few pages looking for something that's interesting, and I found something. I learned that the Xbox Kinect was originally its own product that recognized voices and bodies.

I will not lose all hope because I am sure I can find or read something good in a book about video games. I sure am learning things which is good, so if you like stats and video gamesthis is your kind of book.

None of this would have happened if I did not judge this book by its cover. Playful on the outside and  boring on the inside.

The Twisted Book with a twisted moral

In the marvelous book, "The 4th of July" by James Patterson, there are no parts of the book that are boring. From the gruesome deaths to the dialogue to the killer himself. This book was an excellent book about how people aren't always who they seem to be. The short chapters of this book vary from a page to 3 pages, keeping you on the edge of your seat. But the thing about this book, is that they don't give you any clues to who is killing the people through out the book until the end.

What shocked me even more was the fact that the killer was the nicest person ever who worked in The Man in The Moon garage. His name was Keith and even the head of San Francisco Police Department was neglecting that he could be the murderer of dozens of people and several families. But the twist was he was going to kill Lindsay next.

He stalks people before he kills them, and he kills people for no reason! He just chooses them at random and kills them!

He was so nice to Lindsay who is the protagonist, he sold her a beautiful car, asked her on a date and everything! But if it weren't for Lindsays dog, Martha, she would probably be dead because her dog was protecting her from him while he was stalking Lindsay, that's when things got serious. She was going to arrest the guy but when she got close up to him and she put the cuffs on him she realized that he had been carrying a hunting knife...which is what he used to kill his victims. But she was even more shocked that it was Keith.

I like James Patterson's 4th of July because it was mysterious and action packed and twisted! An excellent mystery, and one of my favorite books!

Catching Fire

Within the past few days I have started the book "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins. Catching Fire is the sequel to "The Hunger Games" which is now a major motion picture. I'm not too far into the book because I started it a few days ago, but I think a few things might happen inside of the book. The things that might happen in the book are stated below.

One thing that might happen of course is that she might get into the hunger games again. Now I don't know if this happens but it would probably be a slight chance due to the fact that she has already been accepted into the hunger games already. It would be a little unrealistic even for a science fiction novel.

This book could have the possibility of it being about Katniss being popular and she gets attention and no one looks at her the same way that they looked at her before.  Also when I say attention I mean good and bad. Good because she is a survivor. Bad because while she was a good survivor she was a good killer who killed kids with friends and family members.

The possibilities are kind of endless so when I get farther into the book I could infero just a little bit better. The few things I can infer about "Catching Fire" are stated above.

Am I Blue?

        The short story "Am I Blue?" by Bruce Coville was very touching. From the fact that someone was even killed because he was different. This story is about a boy who is bullied because people think he is gay. But  one day after he was being bullied he was visited by a fairy godfather.

        Melvin, who is the fairy godfather of Vincent, the boy who is being bullied, was killed because he was gay... or because people thought he was gay. They thought that they should "teach him a lesson" but they killed him. Melvin goes to heaven and comes back as a fairy godfather instead of a guardian angel, which he was supposed to be. Vincent, who does not know if he is gay or not was chosen by Melvin because he works with similar issues like the one that Vincent has. They are also similar because he both bullied for the same reason. But that all changed when they turned all the gay people in the world, blue.

        Vincent doesn't want people to know that he is gay. He is not proud of it by the way he is acting, but he doesn't know if he is gay to begin with. But all those insicurities go away Melvin makes Vince see people who are homosexual, blue. There were different shades of blue depending on how gay you are. If you more gay you were the bluer you were.

        The interesting part of the story was toward the end, once Vince decided what he wanted one of his wishes to be. His wish was to turn everyone from coast to coast blue, that is of course depending whether or not they were homosexual. It was even more interesting when he found out that the boy that was bullying him, was gay himself.

        I think the moral of this story is to not be afraid to be different. And if you are different, you are not the only one. It is not whether people see you but it is how you see yourself. I also think that another moral may be don't be afraid of what other people think about you. The story was kind of touching even though it was fictional.