Chris Shanahan

Christopher Shanahan
How Angel Peterson Got His Name
Gary Paulson
Fiction
Just Right


     I just finished my book.  It was a great book and it had lots of cool stories.  One Story that was really   good was called the Miracle of Flight.  It was about a boy named Emil and his Friends.  Emil who also was daredevil kinda like Angel Peterson bought a big sheet type thing.  He wanted to see if he could hang glide.  At first he had to go to the store and buy the sheet for eleven dollars.  That was a lot of money back then.  Once they were in a field big enough to get off the ground they decided they need another person.  If they only had one person holding it on take off it probably would have dislocated there arms.  So they put Wayne on so he could weigh it down a little.  When they were on the ground a gust of wind hit the kite and the kite flew up.  After about four seconds Wayne let go but Emil stayed on.  Emil kept his hands on it and he started to get the hang of it so he started steering it.  He was steering for about seven minutes then he saw a massive hay bail so he dropped off and landed on the side of it.  It was not firm anyways and he landed right into the pig pen.  Emil broke the fence and landed in pig poop.  Mrs. Carlson came out and made the boys fix the fence they broke.  The boys were all exited that Emil just did that.  Mrs. Carlson went inside and made the boys sandwiches and got them milk.  The boys said thank you and sorry.  They said Emil smelled like poop for the next month.  Even though he took many showers.

2.  This book was so good because it could say something and then it would back it up with detail.  It had so much detail in every part but in some parts it had to much detail.  It gave detail about anything it said.  Also it was kind of confusing because it switches story's every chapter.  There are many main characters in this book but there are there is only one that is always talking and that is Emil. The theme of this book is helping me progress because in the beginning there was many themes.  But then After a little while this one stood out more than the other ones.

3.  I think the theme to this book is fear of failure.  I think that is the theme because Emil wants to do this stunt but he doesn't want to fail.  If he fails his friends would probably laugh and he would be very mad himself.  I noticed this theme when he was about to take off he looked at his friends a little uneasily and then the wind just took him.  He did not want to fail his friends you could see.  This theme only applies to the character because there is not really a plot to this book.  You could see it show up in the character a lot.

4.  My favorite character is Emil because he is very courageous and does things most people could never do.  Back then most people never heard of hand gliding.  So when Emil did it, it was a pretty big deal because Emil was a kid..  Emil had to find a lot of inner strength to do that.  He also was gliding for about seven minutes.  You would have to be very strong to do that.  Emil barely prepared for this he just told himself a million times I can do it.

5.  My least favorite character is Allen because he was cheering Emil on.  I don't think anyone would cheer on Emil to go fly one hundred feet in the air and be going very fast.  At any moment Emil could have been very high and let go and died.  Allen wanted Emil to do this.  I would think its cool if I were Emil's Friend but I would have been smart and told him not to do this.  In the future Emil could have fallen of and died.  How would Allen feel then?  I would guess he would feel horrible.  That is why my least favorite character is Allen

6.  As I was reading I thought the last story was going to be the best.  But my favorite one was the first story How Angel Peterson Got His Name.  So I was wrong in my prediction and I thought in one story there was going to be one about jumping off a building with a parachute or something.  I think that would have been my favorite story.