Connections

__Helen's Connections__ Section 1: In The Face on the Milk Carton, the author writes that "Janie's body is able to function without her." This is similar to [|New Moon], written by [|Stephanie Meyer]. Bella, the main character, feels lost when Edward suddenly leaves. She speaks when someone asks her direct questions, and try to avoid human contacts. Just like Bella, Janie is too busy thinking about her parents, kidnapping, and everything happening around her. She loses herself into deep into her thought.  Section 2:  Connections I have with Janie, the main character on The Face on the Milk Carton, is when I discovered something that my parents kept as a secret. I got frustrated because I didn’t understand why my parents were trying to hide truths away from me. For an instance, when my grandpa was in the hospital, my mom never told me anything about it. I understood after few days when she flew back to Korea that my grandpa was ill. Possibly, the reason my mom tried hide the fact from me was to comfort me that it was nothing to worry about. Or perhaps she didn’t want me to feel the hardship she was going through. But on the other hand, I can handle facts if it’s needed. I can understand her, and she wouldn’t have to go through many troubles by herself. Janie, just like me, wants to know the truth. She wants to know if she was kidnapped, but she’s afraid when she ask them, her parents might lie to her. Her anger gets blamed on her parents because she thinks her parents kidnapped her and she never had any idea of it until she saw herself on the milk carton. Truth getting discovered by themselves is extremely hard to handle because the fact itself seems like it’s harmless in the beginning, but the fact that it was kept as a secret is hard to bear because the problem makes me feel that I’m responsible, and that I have the right to know about problems that involves me in it. Because soon after, it causes bigger problems, just like whats happening to Janie right now. Everything is insecure and it’s falling apart. The truth is getting discovered about her parents and herself. Section 3: The Face on the Milk Carton can be connected to __[|A Summer to Die]__ by [|Lois Lowry]. Janie discovers that she have lost siblings, but she is not excited to meet them. On the other hand, Meg, the main character in the A Summer to Die, loses her sister, Molly, because Molly has a leukemia and is going to die. Both Janie and Meg is miserable, but in a outright different way. Janie wants her life to be just like it was, Janie herself. Meg wants Molly to live and be her sister, not be in the hospital everyday. I think books can connect because people wants their life to be just like before, because going through hard times are just hard. Section 4: In this section, I understand that Reeve feel pressured under his parents. There are many global issues about parents pressuring their children and how parents effects the student's behavior. Reeve feels like he is a failure, and he feels stressed. Some people say that a little pressure on students help them to achieve better in school, but too much pressure can be a problem. But on the other hand, I also understand that parents want to help their children as much as possible, so that they pressure their children to do their best. But sometimes there are collision between students and parents. So I can see that it depends on the aspect between parents and students, so I conclude that students are encouraged to do their best in order to impress their parents, and parents are encouraged to try not to pressure their students so that students can be stress-free. Section 5: Reeve promises Janie that he would not tell anyone about her kidnapped issues. But soon Reeve admits that he did tell Lizzie, her sister. Janie explodes with rage and breaks up with him. This is common in reality, where someone tells a secret when they are not suppose to. But I can agree with Reeve because he was getting pressured and he had his business to worry about AND hers. But on the other hand, Janie would have exploded if she did not tell anyone. So I think the problem is understanding each other, because both seems like they can't handle the truth secretly. It was wise of Reeve to tell Lizzie because she was a lawyer so she can understand the case better. Furthermore, Janie dislikes Lizzie. So I think both of them have to understand each other, and see their point of the view.

__Jazz's Connections__ Section 1: In this section, Janie's parents would not let her date and are really strict about it. The author writes, "Her parents didn't even let her go to the shopping mall alone. They'd never let her date. Alone with a boy? Hah. Not likely." I think Janie's parents just want the best for her and don't want her to be be distracted or upset over boys. They might be strict, but they have good reasons to be so. I can connect to that personally as my parents feel the same way about dating. They would say "No way" if I asked whether I could go out with someone for the same reasons as Janie's parents. Another personal connection I made was that Janie also feels some peer pressure to be cool and do what everyone else is doing. She feels like she wants to be more mature like her friends. I think this applies to almost everyone and I can say that it applies to me. Sometimes I wish I could just be more grown-up and do what everyone else is doing. I think this happens to many people because humans are naturally insecure and it makes us feel good when we are well liked and fit in with the crowd. Section 2: A personal connection I can make to this section is how Janie's parents disagree, debate for a while, then meet in the middle. It says in the book, "Progressive mother, conservative father. Janie waited for the debate to commence, and for them to meet in the middle." This happens with my parents and even between me and my friends. My dad is often the progressive one and my mother is normally conservative. For example when I asked whether I could have a phone my dad said it was fine and my mum said definitely not. They argued for a little while until they came to the agreement that I could have one but if I used it too much it would be taken away. This can also happen with friends. Back in Australia, I wanted to do sports during lunchtimes while one of my friends wanted to go to the library. We had a disagreement before we came to a compromise. For half of lunch we could go the library and for the other half we could play sports. Section 3: A world connection I can make to The Face on the Milk Carton, is how Hannah, Mr and Mrs Johnson's daughter, got sucked into the[| Hare Krishna] cult. It was said that Hannah had become brainwashed by the cult and that the leader chose who Hannah had to marry, which probably meant that when the leader said something, it had to be done. Followers of cults in the world today normally revere their leader like a god. The kind of people cults normally attract are people vulnerable to suggestion and people who want a protected and disciplined life with a set of rules and answers. People like that often get sucked into cults and seem to not have a mind of their own anymore. In The Face on the Milk Carton, the author writes that Hannah was very similar to the kind of people who tend to follow cults, saying, "All Hannah wanted was a life with a set of rules and answers, she was like a toddler, she simply obeyed her leader. She had always worried over right and wrong, the inequities of life. The cult had all the answers to her questions. When we visited her, she was dulled, and only spoke when spoken to." Section 4: In this section, when Janie cuts school with Reeve, Reeve tells her how he's always been the underachiever in his family and how his older sisters and brother got all the praise from his parents. While Reeve is just getting by in school, his siblings are in top universities, succeeding in their studies. I can make a media connection to how Reeve was always overshadowed by his super smart brothers and sisters. In the TV show [|The Suite Life of Zack and Cody], Cody is an amazing student, getting straight As in all his subjects and constantly getting awards in school. Zack, his brother, hates school and gets mostly Ds and Fs. Zack sometimes thinks that Cody gets most of their mum's attention and praise, and feels líke he's a failure in his mum's eyes. Both Zack and Reeve feel overshadowed by their brilliant siblings. Section 5: A literary connection I can make to this section is when Reeve tells his sister, Lizzie, Janie's secret after he promised he wouldn't tell anyone. Janie becomes absolutely furious when Reeve tells her what he did, and starts screaming and yelling at Reeve. Janie doesn't even like Lizzie, (Reeve's sister) so that fuels her anger even more. A similar scene occurs in [|Wild Honey], written by[| Terri Farley]. The main character, Sam, saves an injured wild horse but wants to keep it a secret, because when the palomino mare's injuries heal, Sam wants to let the mare return to freedom. Since Sam's knows her family wouldn't keep the mare a secret, Sam asks a neighbor, Mrs Allen, to keep the mare until she heals and makes Mrs Allen promise not to tell anyone about the mare. When a retired police officer, who Sam soon comes to dislike, comes to town searching for his lost horse, a palomino mare, Mrs Allen, compelled by her conscience, shows him the wild horse, which turns out to be his. Sam is very angry at Mrs Allen for breaking her promise because Sam wanted the mare to remain wild. Sam yells at Mrs Allen for not keeping her word. Even though the plots in these books are completely different, the two scenes from above are very similar. Both Reeve and Mrs Allen did the right thing in not keeping their secrets. Section 6: A personal connection I can make this section is how Janie feels school goes really slowly because she's upset over breaking up with Reeve. The author writes, ''English ended. History poked along. Passing peroid following passing period.'' I can connect to this because when I'm nervous or upset over something, it feels like school goes on endlessly. For example, if I have a fight with one of my friends, school seems to never finish because I can't make my mind concentrate on schoolwork. Since my mind isn't focusing, the school day seems to drag on and on because I feel like I'm doing nothing.

__Tina's Connections__ Section 1: I have a text to world connection, in America there has been a lot of kidnappings in this time. I have seen some milk cartons that have pictures of people who have been kidnapped on the milk carton, not very often but I have seen them and it relates to the book because Janie found her picture on the milk carton and it says that she is missing. On the milk cartons that I have seen I saw people that were also missing.

Janie has found out that her parents aren't her real parents but she has seen flash backs that said that another lady has token her. Some times i have seen people take me in my dreams and I have seen dreams that I have been kidnapped. Janie had also had dreams about when she was kidnapped and when she woke up she felt like screaming and was very scared, when I have my dreams about me getting kidnapped I had also woken up very nervous. Janie has been living a wonderful life with her parents and then when she finds out that she has other parents it reminded me of a show that I watched called [|Kyle XY] he was lost in the woods and got amnesia then a family took him in he spent a couple of months living with the new family. Then suddenly new parents came to him and started crying for joy and saying that they had found there son. He was totally comfortable with his new family then when another family comes he does not want to go. Like Janie she has found out that she has two parents and that her new parents want to meet with her and she does not want to stay with then she wants to stay with her old family, That is also like the boy in the show, he does not want to go to his new family because the family that he lives with took great care of him and is used to the old family.