STRONG Characters

STRONG, in all caps, characters are leaders that can be viewed as role models and influential people in literature. STRONG characters seek excellence, but not at the expense of others. They strive to be the best they can be, but understand their limitations. They display their generosity and teach others, but also realize when it’s their turn to follow instead of lead. They face their obstacles and succeed, or at least try, to defeat their fears and demons. STRONG characters are often liked, main characters in novels. However, any book character, much like any person, can be STRONG. Listed below are three STRONG female and male characters and what traits, skills, and values they possess.

Three STRONG Female Characters

• Evie, from Paranormalcy: Determined, thoughtful, and witty, Evie always does her job, containing paranormal creatures, in a timely manner. Assertive, but not harmful, she disarms her suspects, but always makes sure that they are properly treated and are set on the right track at the International Paranormal Containment Agency (IPCA). A good friend to her mermaid pal, Evie demonstrates a STRONG, powerful aura of stability and gratitude.

• Lanesha, from Ninth Ward: Young and independent, Lanesha must take lead over her elderly guardian, Mama Ya-Ya, her dog, Spot, and her friends, TaShon, Max, and Ginia, as the take cover in the heart of Hurricane Katrina: the poverty-stricken Ninth Ward of New Orleans. Lanesha has the ability to see ghosts, including her deceased mother. Despite be mocked for her ability, Lanesha remains kind, curious, and STRONG during such an uncertain time.

• Liesel, from The Book Thief: Facing a new foster family during a difficult time in the world’s history, WWII, Liesel must adapt to new surroundings and new ways of living. Hiding the majority of the time due to her religion, Judaism, Liesel teaches and occupies herself while living in conditions that would cause many to give up. STRONG till the end, Liesel’s story is one to be heard.

Three STRONG Male Characters

• Marcelo, from Marcelo in the Real World: Born with Asperger’s Syndrome (a form of autism), Marcelo is proud of his abilities. Enjoying taking care of animals and learning the Christian religion, Marcelo is not afraid to speak his mind. But when he’s forced to get a job in the mail room of his father’s law firm, Marcelo must enter a whole new world, where not everybody is kind or easy to understand. Marcelo must be STRONG to be prosperous.

• Doug, from Okay for Now: Between moving to a new house, attending a new school, and living with an abusive father, being STRONG is not easy for Doug. However, finding friends at the local library and solitude in drawing, Doug discovers how happiness and generosity can change people for the better.

• Brewster “Bruiser,” from Bruiser: An outcast, a loner. Teased, bullied. Brewster, better known to his classmates as “Bruiser,” is always silent, the bruises covering his body the only thing expressing that something’s wrong with him. When Brewster falls in love with a girl named Brontë and becomes best friends with her brother, Tennyson, he begins to feel like he is STRONG enough to reveal his dark secrets.

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Enclave: Life After Disaster

Dystopian, apocalyptic, post-apocalyptic. Whatever you want to call it, the genre of books about life after monumental and earth-shattering disasters is continuously growing. Enclave, by Ann Aguirre, the first in a new trilogy, has become an official member of this thriving genre.

In a world where you receive your job and your name at age fifteen, Deuce’s, the main character’s, society, known as the College Enclave, is very limited. The College Enclave, or just simply referred to as the Enclave, is an underground establishment that was built to be a safe house after some great disaster that left the rest of the world destroyed and desolate. Because they are living underground with limited resources, the majority of the people in the Enclave only live to be about twenty years old. Citizens of the Enclave live without ever seeing the sun or feeling the grass or experiencing the rain. Everyone in the Enclave stays in the Enclave, underground. Only occasionally do people leave the Enclave, and even then, they are forced out because they broke one of the Enclave’s rules. All people forced out of the Enclave must live Topside, where the world once existed.

Enclave, the book, begins on Deuce’s birthday, the day she scraped off her birth name, Girl15, and received her job, known as an assignment: to be a Huntress. In the Enclave there are three different assignments from which you can be selected from: the Breeders, the Builders, or the Hunters. Newly named Deuce was ecstatic on her birthday to discover that she had earned the title of Huntress, a status she had coveted for years. Hunters leave the Enclave, but without leaving the underground, to scavenge food from traps set up in the many different underground passageways. In addition to hauling back food to the Enclave, Hunters also have the nasty job of patrolling: killing any half human/half monster creatures that try to enter the Enclave. These creatures are known as “Freaks”, and they are hungry, carnivorous beasts that have been battling the Enclave for years.

Like all Hunters, Deuce was marked with six scars on her arms and received her hunting and patrolling partner, a boy named Fade. Fade had always been a mystery in the Enclave. He was the only member of the Enclave to not be born in the Enclave. He was found a few years before he was old enough to receive an assignment, and he claimed he had survived four years in the tunnels of the underground. Strong and quiet, Fade was always detached from the other Hunters and everyone else in the Enclave. Deuce, unsure what to think of him, was wary of him being her partner. But after a turn of events, a few shocking discoveries, and a vow of trust, Deuce realizes that it is the leaders of the Enclave, who tell lies about the outside world, that are not to be trusted. 

Without revealing the rest of the book, and some major spoilers, Deuce discovers from Fade more about the world outside of them and above them. Pulling key elements from other dystopian books such as The City of Ember (living underground), The Hunger Games (strong warrior female character), The Giver and Divergent (assignments/factions), and The Forest of Hands and Teeth (zombie-esque, man-eating creatures), Enclave makes for one powerful and gruesome novel. However, do not misunderstand me; Enclave does not copy these great works of fictions – it builds upon pre-established concepts and creates a world, a life, and a story of its own. Fast-paced, addicting, and gritty, Enclave is a must-read for anyone. 

Rating: 4.75 out of 5 stars

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Z for Zachariah: Alone in a Lonely World

Yesterday, I finished reading Z for Zachariah, by Robert C. O’Brien. Published in 1974, during the Cold War, this book takes place during the aftermath of a huge nuclear war that killed thousands of Americans. Told in a diary format, the narrator of this horrifying, yet inspiring, book is sixteen year old Ann Burden. Ann lives in a valley that was unaffected by the war and the tremendous amounts of radiation it gave off. All towns and cities near the valley are brown, wilted, and lifeless. The valley, however, remained intact and alive. Ann is the only person left alive in the valley and, so she thinks, the only person left alive in the whole world. Following the war, Ann’s family, who also survived the war, traveled to a nearby town, with the Kleins, the only other residents in the valley. Ann did not go with her family; she stayed home to tend to the farm. After days, weeks, of waiting, Ann’s family did not return. Ann had to face the difficult truth that when her family and friends traveled outside of the valley, they must have died from the radiation. She had to face the fact that, except for the chickens and cows on the farm, she was all alone. Even the family dog, Faro, ran away, desperately searching for the rest of his family. Ann came to realize that she was probably the only person left alive, living in the only place left alive. Her family always said that the valley had its own weather. Ann came to assume the same went for immunity to radiation, too.

The book begins about a year after the nuclear war that wiped out the country and changed Ann’s life forever. Ann has become a very independent person since she started living by herself; she works in the garden, takes care of the animals, cooks meals for herself, and is resourceful for the future. There is no electricity or gasoline, but she makes the best of things. She goes fishing, creates fires to keep warm, and visits the small store that the Kleins owned when something is needed. However, one day Ann’s routine life is turned upside down. She notices smoke rising in the distance, outside the valley where no one lives. Even stranger, this column of smoke is in a different place every day, as if someone is moving, walking towards the valley and creating a fire when needed. As if someone else is alive. Scared, Ann takes refuge in a hidden cave near her house. She hopes the mysterious person does not see the green of the valley. She has been living alone for a year, and has no idea if this person is a friend or enemy. Unfortunately for Ann, the stranger, a man, finds the valley. He arrives wearing an all green plastic suit, with a gas mask on his face, pulling a big wagon, also covered in green tarp, behind him. Still in hiding, Ann watches as the man rejoices in his new found discovery. She watches him use a Geiger counter, used to measure the amount of ionizing radiation, and how he takes off his suit when he realizes he has found an area unaffected by the war. He, having not been around life for a long time, eagerly jumps into one of two streams in the valley. However, unbeknownst to him, the one stream that he is in contains the only radiation in the valley. The radiation never spread to the rest of the valley, and, thankfully, there is a second stream for a water supply.

Ann, not being able to stand by anymore, comes out hiding and nurses the poor man while he is dreadfully ill. The man, John R. Loomis, whom Ann calls Mr. Loomis, appears to be kind and have good intentions. He tells her that he was once a scientist that specialized in radiation and creating plastics that withstand it, such as the green tarp he was wearing. Ann helps take care of him by making him meals, moving him into her house, and just being there for him. She is so excited to have another person with her, having thought everyone else was dead and that she would be forever alone. She does everything to make sure he lives, and he survives. However, Ann views Mr. Loomis differently after she overhears him talking in his sleep during a nightmare. A different side of Mr. Loomis is revealed when he becomes better, a side that makes Ann think different about having someone else live with her.

Ann realizes that Mr. Loomis is a manipulative controlling man that wants her to be his salve in this new and different world. He takes over every aspect of the valley. Ann, terrified, runs away and lives in her cave again. Mr. Loomis is determined to get her back and to make her be his servant. Even when the family dog miraculously arrives, alive, he takes him in as a weapon against Ann. Ann wishes she still lived by herself, and that Mr. Loomis never came to the valley.

This is an exhilarating book, and the fact that it is written as Ann’s diary makes it so much more personal and heart-wrenching. The reader is taken on the rollercoaster ride of emotions and problems that Ann had to face, and ultimately the results that came with them. This is a fantastic book about how different a world would be with only two people that have two very different ideas.

Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars

Silent Spring: A Book That Changed America

I recently had to read a book, Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, for my Science class. When my teacher first gave me the book, I was unsure whether I was going to enjoy it. I was afraid that it would be too boring, because it is a nonfiction book about an insecticide, DDT. And don’t forget it was published in 1962-almost fifty years ago! What I didn’t know was that this book would change my thoughts of nature completely. What I didn’t know was that this book inspired the U.S. government to outlaw the use of DDT, a dangerous insecticide. What I didn’t know was that I would truly enjoy this book.

Silent Spring talks about every organism that was affected by DDT. It talks about the fish in the rivers, bleeding to death, about the birds in the sky, their wings paralyzed leaving them flightless. It talks about cattle, geese, honeybees, dogs, pigs, and the worst, humans. Yes, DDT, an insecticide that’s meant to kill only insects, affects humans, too. DDT had left thousands of humans with nerve damage, blood clots, blurred vision, and kidney and liver failure.

Ten years following the release of Silent Spring, the U.S. Congress banned the use of DDT. Without Rachel Carson’s writing and extensive research, DDT would probably still be used today. Since finishing this book, I have a great respect for Rachel Carson, and a new way of looking at insecticides.

"To a large extent, the physical form and the habits of the earth's vegetation and its animal life have been molded by the environment. Considering the whole span of earthly time, the opposite effect, in which life actually modifies its surroundings, has been relatively slight. Only within the moment of time represented by the present century has one species-man-acquired significant power to alter the nature of his world."

- Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

Rating: 4.2 out of 5 stars