Book Review Assignment

I promised myself that I wouldn’t write about this book. But really, no book from my childhood stands out more in my memory than Harry Potter, so why not? The reason I wasn’t sure about writing about this book was because of its popularity, but it really was a big part of my childhood and it remains to be one of my favorite books. To be honest, the first time I read Harry Potter it was because my parents had paid me to read it; and I’m glad they did. This was the book that got me to start reading more, which really helped me later on. What’s interesting about the series is that each book gets increasingly more mature, meaning that kids are introduced to a slightly more advanced vocabulary. This is very helpful academically and it makes adolescents become more comfortable reading longer books with bigger words. On top of that, Harry Potter is extremely imaginative and entertaining. It is a reminder to kids that reading can actually be fun. I feel a little embarrassed writing about a book that's already really well known, but I actually have a lot a friends only a few years younger than me who refuse these books simply because they are intimidated by the length of the books. I think that if they had read them, then the more advanced books that they have to read in high school wouldn't be nearly as intimidating. That's why I feel like Harry Potter is an important book for today's adolescents; it can spark their interest and alert them to a world of interesting books.

Cognitive Dissonance

This is my cognitive dissonance assignmment, I'm sorry it's so late. I started writing a fairly short story about a naive man named Faolan, who is living in an extremely fairytale-like world. The idea I used for Faolan's character was that he wanted something extremely badly, but he couldn't have it. For example, he is in love with a girl who tells him that she will return his feelings only if he does something impossible, like catching the moon, for her. Rather than realising that this means she doesn't love him, like anybody else might, he begins to lie to himself, pretending to himself that she really does love him and is only testing him, as well as telling himself that she would never have asked him to do something impossible. In the end, as he finally realises both that catching the moon is impossible and that she never loved him. This might have torn his heart apart, but he lies to himself once again, convincing himself that he was the one who never loved her, and that he had only tried to do something as foolish as catching the moon out of pity for her, because she asked him. I think the cognitive dissonance can be recognized in the way Faolan constantly lies to himself in order to avoid dissappointment. I wrote a brief character profile because I never actually got to finish this story.

Name: Faolan
Age: 21
Gender: Male
Being: Non-human (Wizard)
Appearance: He is pretty tall, with light brown hair and forest green eyes.
Family: He is an only child, and he hardly ever sees his parents.
Personality: He is naive, and not too bright. He is the type who works hard when he first starts a project, but tends to give up in the end. He often avoids conflict. Despite this, he can be a nice person.

Here's what I have written so far:
Faolan stood at the edge of the cliff, feeling hopeless. It wasn’t high enough. He sat down with a thump on the hard ground and stared up at the sky, his normally darn green eyes reflecting the silvery light of the full moon, which waited above him in the night sky, taunting him. He gave a sigh of frustration as he leaned back and tried to think about how to do the impossible. She must have known it would be impossible, so why did she ask him to do it? Perhaps she didn’t—no. Faolan refused to allow the thought to enter his brain. He felt a blast of bitterly cold wind sting his face and closed his eyes and scrunched up his face, while he sat there shivering. It probably would have been wise to bring a jacket, he thought to himself. But, he refused to leave until he thought of a solution, so he lay down in the grass and the dirt and tried to come up with an idea. But nothing would come to him. Instead, memories came flooding to his mind, and he watched them again as they played against the inside of his closed eyelids; memories of the girl who had given him this stupid task.