The Heroes of Olympus: Book Four: The House of Hades (Pre ReadingAnalysis)

    Pre- Reading Analysis

      I choose this book because of my interest in Greek and Roman mythology. Also I have read every book this author wrote. In order to completely comprehend this book there are a couple of books that have to read including: "The Lightning Theif","The Sea of Monsters", "The Titans Curse", "The Battle of Labyrinth", "The Last Olympian", "The Lost Hero", "The Son of Neptune", and "The Mark of Athena." These books are in order. Each book refers to the previous books in order to reintroduce an idea. 

  

     Back Ground:

     First you have to know the the main characters.

              Percy: Greek demigod and the son of Poseidon (The God of the Sea). Being the son of Poseidon gives him the ability to control water. With this power he kills many monsters to protect himself and is friends. Annabeth is his girlfriend. 

              Annabeth: Greek demigod and the daughter of Athena (The Goddess of Wisdom). Annabeth always has a plan for their missions.

              Hazel: Roman demigod who is the daughter of Hades (Lord of the Underworld). Hazel has the ability to generate jewels and other valuables, but if someone uses it for personal benefit, it harms them.

              Nico: Nico is a Greek demigod who is the son of Hades(Lord of the Underworld.) He can communicate with the ghosts.

            

              Piper: Roman demigod and daughter of Aphrodite (the Goddess of love.) She is good with charm speaking.

             Jason: a roman demigod and the son of Jupiter (The god of the sky)

He has the power to control winds.

What happened in the last book: In The Mark of Athena the Roman demigods were about to prepare for war against Greek demigods. The two groups hated each other for an extremely long time. The dispute was because the Romans thought that the Greek stole their statue of Athena, a huge statue standing 40 feet tall. Then 7 people left from the Greek and Roman demigod camps to full fill the prophecy. The 7 being: Percy, Annabeth, Leo, Frank, Piper, Jason, Nico. Annabeth had to go retrieve the statue to bring peace between the Greek and the Romans. Percy and the other had to go save Nico, who was held in hostage by the Giants.Finally when Percy and the other saved Nico, they went to get Annabeth. Everything went good until the Spider held on to Annabeth bringing her down Tarturus. Percy immediately dove for her and both of them wound up in the underworld. 

     Prediction: I think that in this book Percy and Annabeth will meet the other 5 on Argo II and will escape from the wretched circumstances in Tarturus. I also think that the Greeks and the Romans will reunite ending the long period of hatred between the 2 groups. The prophecy said that the Greek, and the Romans have to come together if they had a chance to defeat the Gaea and her forces. Also the gods have to pitch in because to kill a giant it requires both a god and a demigod. 

       

A long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah (Summer Reading)

In the book A long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah, two of the central themes/ideas that correlate are the importance of forgiving oneself and the negativity/ ineffectiveness of revenge. The book talks a lot about how Ishmael was mad at himself during rehab for killing so many people. Also the book showed that one cant move on until he/she forgives themselves. One supporting quote for this is

“‘None of this is your fault,’ she would always say sternly at the end of every conversation. Even though I heard that phrase from every staff member- frankly I had always hated it –I began that day to believe it. It was the genuine tone in Esther’s voice that made the phrase finally begin to sink into my mind and heart. That didn’t make me immune to the guilt I felt for what I had done. Nonetheless it lightened up my burdensome memories and gave me strength to think about things.”(Beah 165)

From this we can understand that is that while he was angry at himself he couldn't accomplish much but after that day when he absolved himself he to the strength back to think again.

Also the book talks about how he got so interested in killing people in the name of revenge, but close to the end of the book he realized that if he kills one man his family will come and fight to causing more people to fight in the name revenge, but that will get them nowhere. This is because more and more people will join the fight. A supporting quote is

“I joined the army to avenge the deaths of my family and to survive, but, I've come to learn that if I am going to take revenge, in that process I will kill another person whose family will want revenge; then revenge and revenge will never come to an end…”(Beah 199)

This quote shows us how the negativity/ ineffectiveness of revenge is a central idea developed in the book. We can conclude that Ishmael was fighting to avenge the deaths of his close ones but inadvertently turned himself into a mass murderer.

These were two important ideas throughout the book. READ IT!!




A Long Way Gone Article

This article talks about the struggles that child soldiers go through in Africa and why African wars are devastating. Then they give the example of this book an how it really helps paint a vivid description of the struggles they go through. Then the article goes on and talks about Ishmael and how he was able to escape war.