Catherine+Journal

1/7/15 If August Pullman was a normal 10-year-old with a lot of friends, I would say that he was making a big deal about birthday parties. However, he does not have that many friends, and birthday parties seem to be one of the few social events that he is invited to. When I was nine and in the third grade, there was no rule in the handbook at my school that said that there were no birthday party invitations to be handed out at school. So a girl in my class handed out her birthday party invitations to practically every girl in the grade and 'lost mine' in the trashcan. For two weeks before the party and after, her party was all that anyone could talk about. I felt really bad because I had not gotten an invitation and everyone else had. Long story short, the party went really well, but eventually the topic died down for conversation.

1/9/15 August's mom is more worried than he is at this point because I think one of the reasons she enrolled him in school is because she thinks that he needs to make some friends that he can interact with all the time at school like a normal kid does. She wants him to have as normal a life as possible and because Tushman hand-picked these kids, she thinks that Auggie will not have to look too hard to find people who will be his friends.

1/12/15 I was surprised that August suddenly wanted to go to school, even after Julian had not been very nice to him. I know that if someone had done that to me, that wouldn't have exactly motivated me to go to school. If someone had been mean to me, and they were supposedly the nicest kid in the school, that would worry me that other kids would be meaner and that Julian was only the tip of the iceberg of meanness.

1/12/15 My feelings at the end of the chapter were mixed. Though I admired how Auggie wanted to go to school even after Julian was mean to him, I wasn't too happy about how Charlotte, Jack Will, and Julian behaved during the tour, especially Julian. His question about what happened to August's face was rude, not only because it was nosy, but because the way he said it wasn't very nice either. He practically insulted August's mom because she was not a real teacher, and then inferred that August had special needs or was stupid because he hadn't been in a real school before, and so might have not seen an eraser.

1/16/15 After reading Part One of this book, I felt horrified at what Jack Will had said. Yes, I thought Jack had been asked to hang out with August at the beginning of the school year, but after the first week of school I had thought that Jack chose to hang out with him. Having now read the last few chapters, I realize that Jack was probably bribed with good grades or something to hang with August. I think that Auggie will now realize how fake his world is around him. Maybe he will find out that Summer was being told to do the same thing, and so he will have to find new friends.

1/16/15 I wonder if August's mind could be changed by someone calling him outside of school to check if he was okay. I think that if August felt like he had some real friends, he would go back to school willingly. I probably wouldn't have gone back if someone hadn't called me or if I felt like that would have happened again. I think that he should tell someone, but that he shouldn't tell any adults. They would probably think that August is overreacting or that Jack didn't mean it and would probably make Jack apologize. However, the apology wouldn't be sincere and the adults would expect Jack and August to be best friends again, even though nothing had been fixed between them.

1/16/15 I've learned from reading Part One of this novel that not all friends are real when you first go to a new school. Just because people like to be around you when you're new, it doesn't mean that they are going to become your best friends. Being a new student last year, I learned that after I was no longer considered a new student, no one was clamoring to guide me around school, and so I had to find some real friends. The person who was told to hang out with me for a couple weeks no longer felt that they had to, and was not very nice in telling me that they were told to be my friend. I wish that teachers would not tell kids to be welcome buddies to new kids, because when the welcome buddies feel that they are off the hook, they don't always let the new person down nicely. I wonder if Jack Will said that on purpose in front of Auggie to get rid of him, or if he actually meant what he said.

1/26/15 When Via says that planets are falling out of alignment, she means that since August is now going to a new school, not as much stuff revolves around him now. However, I think she is sadly mistaken. One example is that her mom had asked Miranda's mom to pick her up from school so that she (August's and Via's mom) could go pick up August from school, like he was three years old and still needed to be babied. To me, this shows that nothing has changed in the way that August is still revolved around like he's the Sun.

1/26/15 What Via means that the secret Grans told her is comforting, because when she feels that August is loved more, she can remember that her grandmother had told her that she loved her a bit more than August. This secret is like a blanket because it's comforting. Since everything revolves around August and his facial issues, I imagine that it's very hard to not feel left out for Via. Her blanket is this comforting secret that she can hold onto when she is feeling lonely.

2/2/15 Summer left the party because she didn't want to talk to Julian. Even though he liked her, she had no feelings for him and especially didn't like him because of how mean he was to August. She probably felt that it was a betrayal to August to hang out with a person who is mean to him. I probably would have felt the same way if I had a friend who was being picked on and I had to choose between that friend and a boyfriend. I also would have left the party like Summer did, even if it meant getting asked about it later. I don't want to feel uncomfortable at a party with people I have no interest talking to, even if they are popular and I want to be popular like them.

2/9/15 From reading Melissa Albans' email to Mr. Tushman, I learned that she cares more about appearance than education. Her email, titled 'Jack Will,' was not about Jack Will, however, it was about August and why the school board should not permit him to go to Beecher Prep. She tried to mask her opinion by saying that August has special needs, but it was clear to me that she didn't care about the education of her child, she just cared about how good the kids would look in her son's yearbook or in pictures with Julian. This is a prime example of Julian's apple not falling far from his mom's tree. In Mr. Tushman's response to Mrs. Albans' email about her complaints and concerns regarding August, I felt that he was very professional. I learned that he is a good principal in the way that he deals with unhappy parents. He didn't get emotional, he didn't state opinions, and did not get angry, and was very pleasant in his email towards Julian's mom.

2/9/15 I probably would have taken a bit more time to forgive Jack, since his texts were not very well written and had several grammatical errors. To me, it seemed that he didn't really pay too much attention in how he apologized and it just looked sloppy. I also wish that it had been written in an email and been longer. Though I am glad that they made up, I wish that Jack hadn't taken so long to apologize or had not written his apology in a simple text.

2/9/15 In the sides of this Boy War, I see myself as a neutral, because August had not done anything to me and I normally don't get involved in fights over ridiculous issues like how a guy looks. I just don't see the purpose of this 'war' and I hope that it will end soon. It's not really my thing to fight over an issue that I'm not even involved in, so I would probably just ignore the Boy War until it was over.

2/19/15 I think August should not tell Mr. Tushman. Mr. Tushman probably would not take the notes seriously and just say something like "Now, it's not a good thing to write mean notes to one another, guys. Let's just hug and make up." Which would make me really embarrassed if I was August, solve pretty much nothing, and also give Julian another way to tease August. Another thing is that even if Mr. Tushman did take the notes seriously and Julian was suspended, Miles and Henry would probably bully Jack and August even more because they were the ones who got their leader suspended. Also, the Plague might start up again, people would ignore August even more, and August and Jack would be called 'snitches' because they told on Julian.

2/23/15 From reading the latest August Part, I leaned that even though your family can irritate you sometimes, there is nothing stronger than them. Your family will be there for you no matter what, as August's has been. He has parents who love him to death, a sister who feels guilty over feeling human about him, and they have stuck with him through his surgeries, his temper tantrums, and the drama about his face. Especially after reading Miranda's part, I realize how this relates to my family somewhat, because of how her mom and dad are divorced, like mine, and her mom is constantly stressed out while her dad has already moved on to someone else. Even though we are constantly fighting and getting on each other's nerves, we still love each other and care for each other. The old saying goes, "Blood is thicker than water," and after reading both Miranda's and August's parts, I know that I now appreciate my family and realize the meaning of this idiom even more than I did before.