Imagine being stuck on an abandoned island, well that’s my life! I have been stuck here for, I don’t even know how long. All I remember was I was on a boat with my family, and we were having a great time. When a huge storm hit our boat, it managed to flip over the boat. I was able to come up for air, but there was no sign of my family. After that all I could remember was waking up on a deserted island. I have been here ever since. Don’t get me wrong I love it here, but I miss my family and friends. It’s a tropical paradise, the waves are beautiful and great for swimming. My dad taught me and my brother how to make a hut out of tree branches and hay. I always eat fruit from the trees, I have it every day for breakfast. On a regular day, I will wake up to the sunrise, after I cut up some fruit for breakfast. I change into my bathing suit, and run to the water to go swimming and surfing, I learned to make a makeshift surfboard. After an hour or so, I relaxed watching to waves and listening to the animals noises. I get up to go spear hunting fish, for lunch and dinner. When it starts to get dark outside, it start a fire to cook the fish while watching the sunset. After the I get done eating, I go my little hut and get ready to sleep. Like I said I love my life, but I don’t want to live here forever. I have never seen any boat sailing by the island, I just hope that someday I can have a normal life somewhere.

“I don’t think so.” I heard a voice from afar say. I was in a subterranean tunnel underground with my friends, we had just found the missing treasure dating back to the 1800s. That was buried by Sir Samson McCoy, he was the son to a wealthy man who owned tons of land in Charlestown, Saint Kitts and Nevis. After his father died, he got the money from his father inheritance. He lived in a luxury countryside house with his wife and two children. The money he inherited was stolen from many homes. Samson was charged with a death sentence, he set sail to Cuba. While he was traveling, there was a massive storm heading towards Charlestown. His ship sank in the Caribbean Sea. Nobody has been able to find it.

I was perplexed, I’ve heard that voice before but I couldn’t think where. I heard footsteps. But they weren’t coming towards me, they were heading in other direction. I slowly turned around and saw nobody there, they had left me. I started to start coughing over and over again, I looked to see the room fumigated. I couldn’t breathe, I fell to the floor. I laid there helplessly. I felt lightheaded. The voice was about to say something, but an alarm went off. I woke up. It was all a dream, nothing happened.

In January, I read the book The Three Mothers by Anna Malakai Tubbs. The Three Mothers is a biography about the mothers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcom X, and James Baldwin shaped a nation. And about what it was like raising their children in that time period, and about their childhood and the remarkable women who raised them. They also talked about the important lessons they taught their kids as they grew up, and all the tragedies, trials, and tribulations they faced throughout their lives.

I really enjoyed this book because it’s a biography about the three mother’s lives, I love books about historical figures or historical events that changed the world. It kept me interested throughout the entire time from all the information about the mother’s lives. Some of my favorite parts were not in the paragraphs. There are these quotes on the different chapter pages, they had quotes from Audre Lorde, Margaret Sanger, Jessie Redmon Fauset, and many more extraordinary people.

My favorite character from the book was Alberta Williams King, because she was an empowering and intelligent woman. No matter what happened to Alberta, she powered through it and became a role model for her family and for many people in the world. Even though she was not treated the same as other people she was black and a woman, that didn’t let her stop her. She had three children, she founded the Ebenezer choir and worked as a church organist from 1932 to 1972. Alberta was an empowering role model, a quote to prove this statement is, “Alberta and Michael Sr. knew the importance of teaching their children about these realities despite the privileges they were able to enjoy. They were still a Black family in danger of white supremacist violence. It did not matter how educated they were, nor did it matter how nice their home was, they too faced some of the ugliest forms of racism. Alberta and Micheal had to their children how to stand up to injustice both in words and in practice. They also understood how essential it was to make sure their children knew their worth in a world where they would be pushed to question it.” (pg. 99)

This isn’t my favorite quote from the book, but it is one that shows what it was like to live in that time period. “When the country is suffering from the effects of war, economic loss, health crises, or social upheaval, the most disadvantaged groups experience the most misfortune. They are the first to lose jobs, the first to be forgotten, and the first to be unable to feed their young.” (pg. 83)

There is also another quote that’s not my favorite but has a lot of meaning, It takes place the same year Alberta’s dad died. Nine black boys were falsely accused of raping two white women on a train less than 150 miles away from Atlanta in Scottsboro, Alabama. The boys were denied a fair trial when Black people were systematically excluded from jury rolls. It wasn’t until 2013 that all the boys were posthumously pardoned by the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles. This boys were accused of this crime in 1931 and it wasn’t until 2013 they were granted posthumously pardoned, that took 82 years for them to figure out that they were innocent. The quote is, “The nine young men spent years in and out of prison and were never able to recover from the pain of the torture they endured. One died at age thirty-nine, another killed himself, another was shot in the head by a prison guard, another was denied treatment for a disease he had been originally taking the train out of town to treat, another turned to drinking. Few of the nine were able to live stable lives following the tyrannical ordeal.” (pg. 111) They could of stopped of all of these things from happening to these boys, but because they had a different skin color. They weren’t given the same things that other people could have. The nine boys could have grown up into great role models to their children or their community, but because of the things they went through only four out of the nine boys were able to recover, they still probably had trauma from what happened. It makes you think what could’ve happened to them, if these events didn’t happened.

In December, I read the book Two Degrees by Alan Gratz. Two degrees is a historical fiction book about Akita, Owen, George, and Natalie who are all affected by climate change. Akira was riding her horse in California, when a wildfire starts and grows at a rapid speed. Owen and his best friend George, live by the snowy Canadian tundra where they are always seeing polar bears. When on their way to George’s family’s ice fishing cabin they come face to face with a protective mama bear, they have to overcome their differences and figure out how to survive. Natalie lives in Miami where a massive hurricane comes through her city while she’s at home. Where the hurricane crashes into her house and she has to escape to survive, but she has nowhere to hide or family to protect her.

I really enjoyed this book because it kept me entertained throughout the entire book with all the challenges the characters faced. I also loved all the action in the book and how it is about historical fiction. I love how Alan Gratz wrote about the dangers of climate change, and how it can affect people, animals, and the environment.

Akira was my favorite character, because she is independent and courageous. Even though she was in a forest fire with her horses and her dad, she still cared about the horses safety and strangers she just met. Sue, a girl she just met. Akira noticed one of her arms was limp and was clearly hurt, she stopped to make a sling for Sue’s arm. Remembering everything her father taught her, and when they came to a house after escaping the fire for a little bit of time. Akira saw Dodger, her horse was trapped on top of a pool plastic cover. Instead of leaving Dodger behind, she decided to go rescue Dodger from the quickly approaching wildfire. Also when they were found by a truck driver named Vicki, Akira made sure Sue was safe. Akira was hesitant if she should go with the Vicki and Sue or ride with Dodger, but she stuck with her gut feeling to stay with Dodger to make sure he was going to be alright. Even though the Vicki and Sue were telling her to get in the truck and let Dodger find his way out of the fire like the first time she found him on the plastic cover. Akira was a courageous character and I can prove it with this quote, “It was surprisingly hard to leave Sue too. But Akira couldn’t abandon her horse. ‘I left Dodger once before,’ Akira said, ‘and I promised I’d never do it again.’ Vicki tried to talk her out of it, but Akira’s mind was made up.” (pg. 187)

My favorite quote from the book is when Akira and Sue are about to separate because Sue is in the pickup truck with Vicki and Akira is with Dodger, and even though they just met. They have started to become friends or even best friends, in a situation where there is a dangerous forest fire is come towards them. Sue gives Akira her number and says, “‘So we can see each other again, come hail or high water,’ Sue told her. Akira laughed. She’d thought before that Sue might be somebody who could become a real friend, and she was sure of it now.” (pg. 187) This is my favorite quote because it shows that no matter what is happening to you or around you, there will always be someone there for you. Who could have the potential to become a best friend.