Steve Jobs- Pros and Cons

      The book Steve Jobs The Man Who Thought Different is a biography about Steve Jobs, the inventor of Apple. This book tells the readers the ups and downs of Steve Jobs' life. I have just recently started reading this book, but so far I'm really enjoying it. It's interesting for me to learn about the guy who invented the amazing products that I use on a daily basis. In the beginning of the book the author Karen Blumenthal talks about the way Steve Jobs works well in the business world of electronics and how he does not.

      Steve Jobs is a pretty stubborn man. When his ideas are not considered and he doesn't get the way he wants he will start to cry. I'm no business women, but I have to say that is a pretty immature move. In the book Blumenthal discusses Steve's early years in school. He was no angel then either. Steve would be the trouble maker who never followed any given instructions. I wonder why Steve never wanted to follow directions. I guess that the title of this book really works, he didn't only think different but he did everything differently as well.He rebelled against the societal rules of school and of the business world. I think that the author included these bad details about Steve Jobs to tell the readers that even the most successful of people have their flaws.

      Blumenthal doesn't only discuss Steve Jobs' flaws, but she also discusses the positive things about Steve Jobs. First of all, he is an amazing inventor. Since he was a young boy he has always been ahead intellectually. In fact, he skipped a grade during elementary school. When Steve was younger he developed an interest in building. His father (who he was adopted by) always showed him how to take things apart and put them back together. Many of these thing were car parts, but as Steve grew older he became more interested in electronic building. Since Steve was so intellectually advanced he was very good at the difficult work of developing electronics. I think that the author talked a lot about Steve Jobs success to really emphasize on the fact that he made this really great effect on our society.

      So, after reading a small amount of this book, I already know that Steve Jobs, a very successful man, has his own pros and cons. He is not good at following instructions, but his outcome of doing things his way has brought us many devices that make daily life just a little bit easier. If I had to choose the way that the whole world looks at Steve Jobs, I would make them look up to him as an amazing visionary of our times. Even if he is a little bit misbehaved, I mean who isn't.

Non-fiction: Ashlyn Blocker, The Girl Who Feels No Pain

This article is about how this girl Ashlyn Blocker feels no pain. In the article the author, Justin Heckert, Explains Ashlyn's home life. He tells us that Ashlyn is a normal girl, who goes to a normal school, and lives in a normal house but there is something different about her, she literally can not feel pain.

The author wants me to know that Ashlyn has a very rare disease. He also wants me to know that a disease that sounds like your some kind of super hero, can actually be very harmful. He does this by saying how rare her disease is and how she can't feel a punch in the face, and how she can't feel boiling water, and how she could walk on hot rocks like it is grass. To show how harmful this disease can actually be, he gave examples about how even though she cannot feel the pain it is still damaging her body. Heckert told us about how when Ashlyn was little her parents had to keep an eye out just in case Ashlyn touched something hot or sharp. If Ashlyn got a burn she wouldn't feel it, but she would still be exposed to infection. Ashlyn parents also had to watch her when she was sleeping because she could grind her teeth or bite her tongue off and not even realize it.

I think that the author wants me to feel empathetic towards Ashlyn. I think he wants me to feel this way because Ashlyn's situation is so interesting that if I really put myself in her position it would make the story more intriguing. I also think that the author wants me to feel like her situation is really foreign. I mean I know that it is a rare disease, but I think Heckert is trying to make it sound even more out of this world to make his readers want to know more.

I found Ashlyn's story really intriguing. I think that I mainly found it intriguing because I personally like to hear about crazy diseases like this. I also think that the way the author wrote this article made me even more interested in it. I think that more authors should use the same kind of tactics Heckert used to write his article in an interesting way, but maybe those tactics could be used on an article where someone is raising awareness about an issue because it will intrigue the readers more so that they can do something to help solve the issue.

With Their Eyes- Whose perspective is missing?

This book "With Their Eyes" is about the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The book is made up of many memoirs about the 9/11 attack in the view of Stuyvesant students and faculty. The perspective missing in this book are the perspectives of all the people who helped "put out the fire". When I say the people who helped put out the fire I mean all the people who helped with the recovery after the attack.

I think it's great to have the perspective of the faculty and students at Stuyvesant since they were so close and really experienced the attack, but I think this book should have also tapped into the experience of the people helping "put out the fire" after the attacks. This would have been a good perspective to show in the book because it would educate the readers more about what really happened to the community after, instead of just hearing the actual events of the attack and how high schoolers felt about it.

I think that the author, Annie Thoms didn't include the perspective of the people cleaning up after the attack because she wanted to really focus on how the community was effected during the attack and how it changed them. Personally, I think that it would have been good to include the other perspective because it would really dig deeper into how the community had a hard time rebuilding after the 9/11 attacks.