Non Fiction Post April

i just read a pretty interesting article on gymnastics. It is about a girl who is my age, 14 years old, and the only thing she wants is to be in the Olympics. She's not that far from it and she is an amazing gymnast. She has been training for this her entire life.

The girls name is Lara G and she is not like most teenage girls. She has to wake up at 5am everyday to go to the gym. And not only does she do ballet but she also does gymnastics. This article is basically just what her life is about.

In the article Lara talks about how she even stopped for six whole months when she was nine years old.  She quit, she gave up. But at the same time she still always played around with doing splits and cartwheels and other simple gymnastics moves. After a while she realized that she wasn't going to just quit. Gymnastics was her entire life. Sure she didn't exactly get to be a normal girl but this was her dream.

I havent done gymnastics for that long, and a girl my age who is already thinking about the Olympics seems pretty insane to me. But she is really inspiring. She shows people that if you really have a dream and something you want so badly, just go for it. You should never give up.

i am currently reading The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. It is a really fantastic book and it is set in the 1960's. It tells the story of a fourteen year old girl named Lily Owens. I am not that far into the book but so far its mostly about how Lily's mom died when she was four years old. Her and her dad have a tough relationship and the mom's death has been extremely rough on the whole family.

Lily has a lot of questions with things like growing up and things that she can only ask her mom. That is where her “step in mother” Rosaleen comes in. This story sets place where there were slaves and black people were treated awful and Rosaleen was black. But she is like a mother to Lily.

I think the author chose to write in first person of Lily’s perspective for a reason. The author chose to leave out other really important people in the story for a reason. Someone’s perspective who is missing is the dad’s. the author makes it seem like the dad is a really bad guy but the dad is also hurting a lot from the Mom’s death just like Lily. The dad is really harsh on Lily and I think they author didn’t put him in the story because it shows how hard Lily’s life is. If the readers knew also how the dad felt they wouldn’t feel as bad for Lily and I think the author wants people to feel bad for her. 

Perfect by Natasha Friend

Over the break i read a really great book called "Perfect" by Natasha Friend. Natasha Friend was also the author of the book "Lush" which was also a really great book and i did a post on.
Perfect is about a girl named Isabelle and she has an eating disorder called bulimia which is a very serious disorder. You throw up on purpose to be skinnier.
Isabelle is only thirteen years old and already she has been through so much. Her dad died and everything turned upside down for her. She started throwing up and it wasn't even supposed to mean something the first time. She was in the bathroom and it just happened. But then she starts doing it more and more and it becomes an addiction and a huge problem.
Isabelles mom makes her go to therapy and everything to make her better but it doesn't exactly work.

Bulimia is really scary and it can damage your body and it can be so bad as it can kill you. Throwing up all the time is not safe and it has side effects like your teeth yellowing.
I think that Isabelle really just needed her dad. she was hurting and she just got all caught up with being skinny and once you are in such a dark place like that we all know that it is extremely hard to get out. When Isabelle was in therapy she met a friend named Ashley that had the same problem and they even ended up doing it together. A lot of people think its stupid and of course you can control yourself but thats not the case at all, it is a serious eating disorder.
When people are bulimic sometimes what they do is eat a lot, like  an abnormal amount of food and then throw it all up.

One line that really stands out for me is, “When you believe in something, stand up for it, even if everyone is sitting.” i think that this line really means a lot like isabelle needs to believe in herself so she can stop throwing up even if she has to do it alone.