Independent Reading - Blog Post One

Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin

Name: Alli

Date: January 27

Time: Two Hours

Pages: 1 - 159

Total Pages: 159

Question One: What does this book make you wonder about? Why?

Responce: The book that I am reading is called Elsewhere, by Gabrielle Zevin. In this book Liz, the main character, dies in a bicycle accident and finds herself in a parallel world known to its inhabitants as Elsewhere. Elsewhere is where a person goes when they die, so most of the residents are old. Liz, who was fifteen when she died, becomes cut off from her family and friends back on Earth and not allowed to make Contact with them. Now she must age backwards until she is a baby and can be sent back to Earth. But Liz will never turn sixteen, never get her driver's license, never go to prom or get married and will never be able to see her family again.

This book makes me wonder about what will happen after death. Elsewhere gives us a hint to what could happen, but there are still many possibilities. Unlike Liz, I wouldn't mind dying and coming to Elsewhere, as long as I wasn't young like her. It seems like a second life where there is no work or school and you could possibly see your family and friends again (if they die as well). This book also makes me wonder if I would act the same way Liz does in Elsewhere. Throughout the beginning of the novel Liz is depressed and does not interact with others. Although at some points Liz seems unreasonable, when I really think about it and out myself in her position, I realize I would have acted the same way.

Question Two: What advice would you give to a particular character?

Responce: Liz's grandmother, Betty, is also going through some difficult times with Liz. Becuase she is the only dead relative Liz has, Betty willingly toook Liz in to care and provide for her Betty trys to help Liz out of depression but does not succeed at first. If I were to give Betty some advise, I would tell her not to worry, but not to worry but to keep a close eye on Liz in case she were to do something recklees. I would tell her tell her to get Liz involved in other activities so that she does not become too focused and unhealthily obsesse with her past life. I would finally tell Betty that nothing is her fault and that she is doing the best that she can to help Liz.

The Book I Would Like to Read

Book: Elsewhere

Author: Gabrielle Zevin

Why I Would Like to Read This Book:

I would like to read this book because I have read a book by this author before and enjoyed it very much. I hope that I will enjoy Elsewhere just as much. I also want to read this book because when I read the summary of the book it caught my attention and wasn't like any other books I have read. My friend recommended it to me and said it was very good, too.

LOTF - Chapter Twelve

Lord of the Flies
Chapter 12 – Cry of the Hunters
“The End of Painted Faces”
Perspective: Ralph

The water dances and sparkles beneath my as I hang over the head of the naval officer’s ship. I cannot recall the last time I felt so at ease, though the other boys seem more shocked than relaxed, and some of them even seem disappointed. Whenever I pass by one of them, I feel their eyes boring holes in my back and it makes my heart speed up. I feel anxious being three feet away from someone who wanted to kill me.
At night I dream about the island. Once again I find myself hiding in the dense thicket by Castle Rock. A boulder crashes through the bushes from above, sending twigs and leaves flying everywhere. I cough as thick smoke burns my throat and I shove my way through the bushes. I catch a glimpse of painted faces as I sprint towards the shady trees and keep on running, branches whipping and scraping my arms and legs. My heart pumps and I feel like it is in my throat, choking me. I can even feel the piece of meat Sam gave me churn in my stomach. I hear an ululation close behind and the image of Roger with a spear pointed at both ends infiltrates my mind and find myself looking into his black eyes, blackness that spread until it blinds me and I see Piggy and Simon, mangled and dead.
I wake up in cold, hard sweat and check my surrounding to make sure that I am not on the dreadful island. I am so thankful for the naval officer I had knocked into, right as the group of savages came out of the island with spears gripped tight in their hands and prepared to run me through. I know he was disappointed, though. I saw the astonishment in his eyes when I told him about Simon and Piggy. I told him that I was the leader, and the first impression that he had about me was that I let two people die. I will never let myself forget about Piggy and Simon, the smartest and kindest people I knew.
Both Piggy and Simon died while we were on this island, and even after Sam and Eric were tortured to join Jack’s tribe they still risked themselves to warn me. This island was the most horrible thing I could wish upon anybody, and I hope that it will cease into nonexistence so that no one will ever have to live through the same thing that Piggy, Simon, Sam, Eric, and I did.

LOTF - Chapter Eleven

Lord of the Flies
Chapter 11 - Castle Rock

Question Answers

1. Piggy tells Ralph to blow the conch and later he tells the littluns at the meeting that his glasses were stolen.

2. Piggy says he will tell Jack to give back his glasses because "what's right is right". He also wants to bring the conch not only to show Jacks group what he doesn't have, but also as a talisman against them.

3. Ralph wants their appearance to be clean and neat like they were before the plane crash.

4. Roger is positioned to be the look-out so he challenges the boys when they approach Castle Rock.

5. Jack had been hunting and when he appeared he had a pig behind him.

6. Ralph calls Jack a thief, which then provokes the fight.

7. After the cessation in the fight, Jack tells the savages to tie them up.

8. Roger, who is on top of Castle Rock, is throwing rocks down at Piggy and, unlike before, he is purposefully trying to hit Piggy.



Strong Body Paragraph
Piggy's Murder

In Chapter 11 Piggy was brutally murdered, and I believe that Roger is to blame for his death. William Golding says that, "The intention of a charge was forming among them". When this was happening below, Roger was above them with the rock in his possession and he chose to release the boulder because he felt left out from the group. After that William Golding says that, "Roger, with a sense of delirious abandonment, leaned all of his weight on the lever." The lever triggered the boulder to fall and hit Piggy. This proves that Roger decided to release the rock onto Piggy, therefore killing him. Although Jack says that he himself meant to do that, Roger was really the one who compromised to lean on the lever which set the rock in motion and hit Piggy. To conclude my point about who really cause the murder of Piggy, I say, once again, that it was Roger's fault. Roger truculently decided to release the rock witch killed Piggy. He was controlled by savagery but he also was acting on pure human nature because the rock was also triggered because Roger felt left out from the group.

LOTF - Chapter Ten

Lord of the Flies
Chapter 10 - The Shell and the Glasses
"The Afterthought"
Perspective: Simon

I remember. They came upon me with lust in their cold, impervious eyes. Their gaze was saturated with repulsion and hatred. Fingers reached, teeth grinded. A chant hummed in the background. Then Ralph’s and Piggy’s faces in the mob. I shouted to them, they needed to know about the dead man. But then, the fall. The pain came and enveloped my body and I thought that there could be no worse pain than the one that paralyzed me. But I was wrong. There was still the boys, determined to kill the beast. They threw themselves on me and all I could do was lay on the damp, grainy sand and let them tea me apart.


I never gave much consideration to how I would die, but when I did picture my death, it was in a train crash, or by the means of a fatal disease. Being tortured and killed by people I knew, and might even consider friends, never came to mind. Now I watch what happens on the island. I hover above the deceiving place in all it’s picturesque beauty like a bird and see everything and anything, but no one seems to see me.

I heard Ralph and Piggy talking about the night I died, and for a moment I felt revulsion in the pit of my stomach towards them. They were covered in translucent, purple bruises – evidence that they participated in the savagery of Jack’s wild dance. They were cautious of admitting that they partook in the bloody event, and insisted that they left early to Sam and Eric, who as well seemed to have convinced themselves that they held no part in it.

Jack was the opposite. He had adjusted himself to being chief and acted like a king, ordering other boys around and sitting apart from the rest of the boys he had recruited in a cave near Castle Rock. He is a very different leader than Ralph. Ralph never beat up littluns, but a littlun called Wilfred lay on the cold, hard, rock floor, whimpering.
He held a meeting like the ones Ralph had held many times before, but it was on much darker topics. Unlike Ralph, Piggy, Sam, and Eric, Jack openly admitted that he took part in what he thought was injuring the beast, but was really my murder. He told the boys there that the beast was in disguise, so he must not have been completely blinded as to not recognize me. Even though Jack believed that he hurt the beast that was disguised as me, if I had killed anything that even slightly looked like a human being, I would be entirely guilt ridden. It shows how much Jack and all the other boys are controlled by the repulsive, theological beast: mankind’s essential illness. It lies in everyone, waiting for a chance to unleash its full potential. It has been in the minds of some of these boys to long, I am afraid that they will never be purged in these conditions.

Jack also planned to steal the coveted fire from Ralph’s tribe. I witnessed three boys creep up to the site of Ralph’s tribe on bare feet. Their faces were painted charcoal black to blend in with the threatening feeling of the night. They realized straight away that there was no fire by the absence of the flickering embers. They proceeded to the shelters, trying to make as little noise as possible, but occasionally a crack of a twig or the crunch of the sand slipped through. I heard a rustling inside one of the shelters as someone woke up. They whispered something to each other so softly that I could not hear and one of them called out, “ Piggy, Piggy. Piggy, come outside. I want you, Piggy.” There was more noise inside the shelter and the three boys advanced to it. “Piggy, where are you, Piggy?” There was thrashing inside the shelter and the boys crept into it. Sounds of attack drifted from the shelter and there was more thrashing noises. Eventually, the three boys from Jacks tribe ran out, uninjured. Something that one of the boys was holding glinted in the moonlight and I looked closer. He was clutching Piggy’s glasses. I literally groaned, but then Ralph and Sam and Eric came out, dragging Piggy out behind them. My breath stuck in my throat. Was he…? But they started talking their illumination made me realize two things: Piggy was not dead and they had been beating themselves up. I groaned.

If only I could have stayed on the island and told Ralph and Piggy about the dead man, everything could be different. I could have helped extinguish the beast from their souls and I could have helped Jack’s tribe realize there was no beast, so they wouldn’t kill anyone. There are so many things I could have done to help them that it makes me barmy. If only…