Lauren Miller, M.A.

Touching Spirit Bear is a novel written by Ben Mikaelsen. The main character in this book is a young boy named Cole Matthews. Cole has a lot of anger issues, and he often uses violence to deal with...

Educated is a memoir written by Tara Westover. In this memoir, Westover describes her childhood growing up in a rural town in Idaho with her family. Her parents, Gene (her father) and Faye (her...

Virginia Woolf was an English author born in 1882. She was one of the first writers to use the narrative technique known as stream of consciousness. Woolf is quoted often in today's world. One of...

Gathering Blue is the second novel in The Giver Quartet written by Lois Lowry. This novel is about a girl named Kira. Kira has a deformed leg. In order to avoid being sent to the fields to die,...

Holes is a novel written by Louis Sachar. This novel is about a young man named Stanley Yelnats and his experience at a place called Camp Green Lake, which is a detention facility where boys are...

Wonder is a 2012 novel written by R.J. Palacio. This novel is a bout a boy named August Pullman, or Auggie. Auggie is not a typical ten year old. He has never been to a real school and was born...

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is a novel written by Sherman Alexie. This story is about a young boy named Arnold Spirit, Jr. Arnold goes by Junior for short and is a teenage...

Turtles All the Way Down is a young adult novel written by John Green. This novel is about a girl named Aza Holmes, and it describes her struggle with OCD or obsessive-compulsive disorder. The...

Irony is a literary device that can be verbal or situational. Verbal irony occurs when words contradict meaning. Situational irony occurs when a situation ends up differently than anticipated....

Wonder, written by R.J. Palacio, is a novel about a young boy named August "Auggie" Pullman. Auggie is not a normal ten-year-old child. He was born with a facial deformity and struggles with his...

The Slave Dancer is a novel written by Paula Fox. In this novel, a young boy named Jessie is kidnapped and spends time traveling to West Africa on a slave ship. In order to write a realistic...

John McNab is a character in the novel Maniac Magee, written by Jerry Spinelli. John McNab is a great baseball player and first meets the infamous Jeffrey Lionel "Maniac" Magee on the baseball...

Both Plato and Francis Bacon had thoughts about human knowledge and the ways it can be distorted. Both believed that human knowledge is distorted in some way by one's perception. Plato stated that...

The Art of Racing in the Rain is a novel written by Garth Stein. This novel is told from the point of view of Enzo, a dog. Enzo describes his life living with his owner Denny. In chapter 2 of this...

Okay for Now is the sequel to Gary Schmidt's book The Wednesday Wars. Doug Swieteck is a minor character in The Wednesday Wars and is the main character in Okay for Now. Doug is a young boy, only...

In literature, a theme is the central topic or message of a novel. The novel The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern has many themes. Some of these themes include magic, the power of love, and...

The novel Whale Talk written by Chris Crutcher is a novel about a young boy named T.J. In this novel, T.J. is an adopted boy who lives in Cutter, Washington. There are two major themes in this...

Nick Carraway is the narrator in the novel The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. In the first chapter of the novel, Nick shares advice that was given to him by his father. Nick's father...

It is significant that Death visits Max Vandenburg for many reasons. One reason is that Death is responsible for collecting stories of courageous humans. Death wants to prove to readers that human...

The Westing Game is a novel written by Ellen Raskin. In this novel, tenants move into a new apartment building called Sunset Towers that is owned by the Westing Estate. Soon after moving in, one of...

In literature, a dynamic character is a character who changes throughout the course of the story. The opposite of this is a static character. Kenny Watson, a character in the novel The Watsons Go...

My Side of the Mountain is a novel written by Jean Craighead George. This novel is about a young boy named Sam Gribley who runs away to his great-grandfather's farm. Sam lives in New York with his...

A symbol is a device in literature that is representative of something other than itself. There are many symbols in the novel The Witch of Blackbird Pond, written by Elizabeth George Speare. One...

Garth Stein's The Art of Racing in the Rain is a 2008 novel that was adapted as a film in 2019. This story is told from the point of view of a dog named Enzo. Enzo describes his life with his...

In his book Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell describes the reasons that some people are more successful than others. Of course, there are many reasons that a person may be...

Christopher Boone is the main character in the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. Christopher is also the narrator of this story. Readers learn a lot about...

This story is about a girl named Janie Johnson who one day discovers her picture on a milk carton as a missing person. One observation is that the concept of putting the pictures of missing persons...

The main characters in the novel A Dog's Purpose, written by W. Bruce Cameron, are the dog (multiple names), Ethan, Hannah, Todd, Maya, and Jakob. The dog is first introduced as a nameless mutt....

Al Capone Does My Shirts, written by Gennifer Choldenko, is a great piece of children's literature. In this novel, a group of children living on the island of Alcatraz become determined to meet Al...

Among the Hidden, written by Margaret Peterson Haddix, is considered a science fiction novel. Science fiction is often about futuristic technology, societies, space travel, or life on other...

There are many conflicts in the novel Simon Vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda. One conflict is that Simon is gay but is not out to his family or friends. This conflict gets more complicated when Simon...

There are many symbols in the novel The Bridge of Clay written by Markus Zusak. Five specific symbols are: the bridge, the names of the pets, the clothespin, the piano, and Clay's book written by...

The novel Walk Two Moons written by Sharon Creech has a theme of being concerned with one's own problems yet expecting others to pay attention to those problems. Many characters exemplify this...

To Kill a Mockingbird written by Harper Lee has many themes. One major theme that is expressed in the title is that individuals have a responsibility to protect the innocent. Atticus Finch tells...

In literature, the setting is where and when a story takes place. Walk Two Moons, a novel by Sharon Creech, essentially has two settings. One setting is in Salamanca "Sal" Tree Hiddle's home in...

Max Vandenburg and Liesel Meminger are characters in The Book Thief, a novel written by Markus Zusak. Max and Liesel have many similarities that help nurture their friendship. Both Max and Liesel...

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a memoir full of symbolism. Walls shares one of her earliest memories with readers, a time when she was a three-year-old cooking hot dogs by herself on a...

Wonder, written by R.J. Palacio, is a story about a fantastic young boy named August “Auggie” Pullman. Auggie was born with a severe facial deformity and had to undergo several surgical procedures....

Sharon Creech's novel Walk Two Moons is a story about a young girl named Salamanca "Sal" Tree Hiddle. Sal is taking a road trip with her grandparents to Idaho to visit her mother's final resting...

Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird has many famous quotes. One of Atticus Finch's most famous quotes is: You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—until...

In the novel The Alchemist, written by Paulo Coelho, a young boy named Santiago goes on a journey to find his own personal legend. Throughout the novel, Coelho implies that the journey itself is...

There are many types of conflict in the novel The Giver (written by Lois Lowry). There are examples of both internal conflict, which is conflict taking place within one's own mind, as well as...

Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl showcases the time Anne spent in hiding during World War II as a young Jewish girl. Anne and the rest of the Frank family joined the Van Pels family as well...

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a novel written by Rebecca Sloot about Henrietta Lacks and her immortal cells that have helped scientists for many years. Henrietta Lacks suffered from...

There are many differences between the book My Sister's Keeper, written by Jodi Picoult, and the movie adaptation of this novel. In the book version, the main character named Anna Fitzgerald is...

Mark Haddon's novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is about a young boy named Christopher John Francis Boone. This story takes place in England and begins with Christopher...

The main character in Elie Wiesel's novel Night is a young boy named Eliezer. This story is about Eliezer's experiences during World War II. Throughout the story, Wiesel presents evidence that...

Number the Stars is a novel written by Lois Lowry about a young girl named Annemarie Johansen and her experiences during World War II. Annemarie lives with her family in Copenhagen, Denmark. During...

Kathryn Stockett's novel The Help is about a young lady named Skeeter and her attempt to help solve the issue of racial conflict in her town. In order to do this, Skeeter enlists the help of...

Paulo Coelho's novel The Alchemist is a story about a young man named Santiago and his quest to find his personal legend. Throughout the story, Santiago meets many people who help him along his...