Rise above Hate

“You can't hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree.”  Malcolm X

The author of the book The Hoopster is Alan Lawrence Sitomer

racism is one of the themes theme

 Racism is the theme because the author wants the reader to learn something if not all ready about racism and how it can hurt people.

 Specific support/quote-In the book The Hoopster Andre gets beat up by a white gang because he was black and was going to succeed in life.

When everything  was over and went to the hospital for some reason that beating made him want to write more stories because obviously that beat up did not faze him.   

Andre’s goal is to warn kids about the real world out there and still be brave enough to go for their dreams and don’t let anybody stop you. Andre hopes he sees a kid step into his office and remind him of himself but not go through the beat and still be successful.

Time

Over time people change in goods ways and bad. But in this case it’s good. When I was younger I heard that as you get older people get wiser and learn new things from experience or just read a book about it or someone told them. If the person did have to experience something to learn a lesson then I hope it was a good lesson and not one that will scar them  for life.

Ten years has passed and Andre is now an adult. He works for the cities news paper for kids telling them good advice on school going for your dreams and striving for good goals. He talks about his personal life but makes it funny so it won’t be a sob story because many kids do not find that interesting.  Kids are allowed to write back and ask to for Andre to write a story that they are interested in but makes it more interesting.

As you can see Andre is very happy with his life, he hasn’t gotten married yet but plans to et married and have children. He is still distraught about getting beat up because of his race but he tries to move pass that and get on with his life. He is doing good for himself and I don’t think he is going to fall back any time soon.

Happiness and Pain

“Life is like a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving”, said Walt Disney. In the book The Hoopster, by Alan Lawrence Sitomer, the author relates this idea to life in so many ways and shows how racism hurts other people.

In the book The Hoopster, somewhat it’s a sad story but then again it’s not because the main character Andre Anderson is surrounded by his best friend Shawn and his cousin Cedric. Those three love to play basketball. They are competitive when they play with each other, and usually they argue about who won and who cheated but at the end of every game it’s with laughter, jokes and Happiness. Andre is the best left handed player on the team; in fact he’s the best player on the team period. But Andre doesn’t just like basketball he has the dream of becoming a Journalist so he tries to secure a Job this summer working at a Magazine. I think for being a young teenager and knowing what he wants to be when he grows up is amazing, because there are grown-ups that still don’t even know what they would like to do for a living. It’s good that he has an idea of what he wants to be because it’s a chance that he might change his mind and want to be something else later in life.

Shawn, Andre's best friend thinks that Andre spends too much time on working, so Shawn introduces Andre to a Latino girl named Gwen, who is extremely sweet to Andre. When Andre stresses over anything Gwen is there to help Andre take his mind off things and lets him just relax. I think would be the perfect girl for Andre because she’s kind, respectful, encouraging and not a wild child. Andre is sometimes the total opposite, and I think opposites attract so their perfect for each other.

Andre’s boss wants Andre to write an Article on racism. While Andre finished the Article and was put on display the next night when Andre was walking home from a basketball practice Andre was violently attacked by a racist gang that doesn’t like black people and it was bad for Andre because he was black. Andre was sent to the hospital with his friends and family is left wondering whether or not he will recover from the attack.

Fortunately he recovered from the horrible attack but Andre was badly injured on his right arm. When Shawn came inside the emergency room and saw Andre in the bed Andre had said to Shawn “those people who beat me up are stupid they ruined my right arm but I’m left handed” Andre said with a chuckle Shawn tries to enjoy the joke but he can’t just laugh because he see’s Andre in this condition. But Shawn was just admiring how strong Andre is because he was in pain in a hospital bed and still had a smile on his face that’s brave.

As you can see the author relates to life in so many ways and shows how racism hurts other people. I admire Andre’s bravery because he seems like he could be a good role model for kids and I think he is going far in life especially because now he knows what it’s like to be on the edge of his life not know if he would live or die. And even after being attacked he had a big grin on his face.

Mr. Mason's Jar

I think what was inside that jar was a finger. I think the finger was so gross that it scared him for life. It was probably alive too because not any ordinary finger was going to scar him, It had to be the ultimate most revolting finger he ever saw. 

My Founding Fathers

Thank you for my freedom because I wouldn’t  be able to get this marvelous education without my founding fathers. I can’t really imagine what they had to go through just to this country the way it is now.  Freedom means a lot to me for many reasons like we have democracy and many countries don’t have the freedom of democracy, some are dictated countries or have the family presidents.

This country has everything its every needed and wanted. Some things that we have are things that we are blessed with, such as having the freedom of speech. If we the people don’t like something we have a fair chance of changing it. This is some of the greatness that this country has to offer.

As you can see there is many reasons that shows us how great this country is to have all of these things. Also how grateful I am to be here and it makes me proud of how far this country has gotten.  We did have some struggles in the past but somehow we overcame those struggles and became the great nation that we are today.

Blood and Basketball Cause/Effect Piece

Authors Note-  A young man is offered a chance to play college basketball but gets stopped up by his troublesome brother.
The book that I read recently was called Blood and basketball. It's about this troublesome kid who was invited to play with a college basketball team. As soon as he started playing college ball his brother was getting out of jail. While his brother is out of jail Him and his brother starts to get into a lot of mischief until he has to make a decision to leave his brother or stay with his future. And he does choose to leave his brother and stay with his career.


The main character, Dale, had a hard life growing up. Now he gets a chance to play with a college basketball team because they think that he is a great player, and could have a really bright future ahead of him. The problem is, with his brother getting released from jail he is becoming late for basketball practices and missing his curfews. Although it's a difficult problem, there is still a solution. Dale needs to do the right thing and tell his brother that he cant keep hanging out if he is going to keep getting him in trouble, continue messing with his future, and stop putting him in an awkward and difficult position to choose between fun and the right thing. Dale finally chooses the right thing and sets the record straight. I think that this falls into the category of Person vs Self because he is fight with himself to choose between fun with his brother or work for his future.

Air Jordans

The thing you get for the first of your life and you don’t know why you, you don’t know what it’s for you just know that it is yours now and that it’s new well new to you. 

The first pair of Air Jordan’s I got was for my eighth birthday.  My mom told me that she doesn’t want me to mess these up right away because they were so expensive. I wanted to wear my new shoes to school the next day but my mom said no because she thinks that I was going to get them dirty but I disagreed. I brought them to school the next day despite what my mother said so I was being very careful to not mess them up. Until recess came and I was running around and playing in them but when recess was over I saw that my new pair of shoes had dirt and mud all over it and I knew it was over for me.

So I try to clean it off during class but it just wasn’t coming off. The rest of the day I was just wondering how I was going to explain my messy shoes to my mom, But when I came home and I told her she said she already knew I brought  it to school

I was waiting for a punishment but she didn’t say anything she just kept watching T.V it was very awkward.

The next I find out that she bought me two pairs of Jordan’s she told me she got one pair of Jordan’s free but the other pair she got half off because she knew I was going to mess them up. I thought to myself like am I that predictable. But I guess nobody knows you like your mom.