Author Visit

Recently, Christina Baker Kline visited our school. Christina Baker Kline is the author of Orphan Train a book we just read in class. This book was about the transportation of orphans through the country during the 1920s. The elderly woman Vivian in the novel was apart of the Orphan Train system. As the novel goes on she releases secrets of her past and stories.

Molly is a 17 year old girl who is in a foster home. She recently got into trouble and to avoid going to juvie she had to do 50 hours of community service. She ended up cleaning Vivian's attic and helping her uncover old artifacts she had from traveling on the Orphan Trains.

Having Christina Baker Kline come to our school to teach about her book was an interesting experience. In some ways I learned more about the book than I knew before but most of her presentation was repetitive. Overall, I thought it was a good experience because I have never really been to an author visit before.

Genres

For the Genre project I presented Romance. I enjoy reading romance novels because they give me an escape from reality. I normally get into a book and start to vicariously live through the female character of the story. There are so many sub-genres for romance, examples are historical romance, contemporary, and fantasy. My personal favorite is contemporary romance. Contemporary romance takes place after the World Wars and is normally ficiton based with a happy resolution. Contemporary romance is the biggest of subgenres which includes my two personal favorite of The Lucky One and The Fault In Our Stars written by Nicholas Sparks and John Green.

Nicholas Sparks is a key writer in the romance genre. He has written so many love stories that so many people have fallen in love with. Many that have also become award winning movies. Nicholas Sparks has the sappy-love filled books that people like me love to read.

The Lucky One is about a guy who is in the army who finds a picture of a woman who he claims becomes his good luck charm. At the end of his service in the war he walks across the country to find this woman. He finds her and finds his way into her life.  It obviously took a lot longer for things to come together but they evntually come together and everything works out.


The Fault in Our Stars is a young love story. This book is by John Green who is a phenominal author in not only the romance genre. This story was about two teenagers who both had cancer one who was in remission while the other still terminally ill. The teenagers had met in a "group" meeting for kids with cancer or for kids who just needed support. At first the two characters Hazel Grace Lancaster and AUgustus Waters became friends and then they eventaully had fallen in love and helped each other through a lot of ups and downs. Un fortunately in the end things took a turn for the worse for one of them and the rest is up to you to find out. I strongly suggest reading this amazing book.