"The Red Pony" Summary

The Red Pony

By John Steinbeck

The Red Pony is about a boy named Jody Tiflin (10), who is involved in four different stories (The Gift, The Great Mountains, The Promise and The Leader of the People).

The Gift:

Jody becomes a gift from his dad Carl Tiflin, a red pony. The pony, called Gabilan, by him is very important to him and he cleans it every morning. Shortly before he would get to ride it, the horse catches a bad cold. He and Billy Buck (a helper on the farm) tried to heal it. But one night the horse ran away, and Jody found the dead horse in the corps the next day. He and his dad are having an argue, because Jody promised his dad to take care of it, but Billy defended Jody.

The Great Mountains:

Jody is hanging out on the ranch, being bored, when suddenly he saw an old Mexican, named Gitano coming from the great mountains. Gitano claimed that he was born on the farm and said that he is going to life there until he dies. Carl only allows him to stay for one night. That night Jody went to Gitano, and saw him with a sword. He asked him if he knows something about the great mountains. Gitano said:” yes but very little”. The next morning he was gone, a neighbour saw him holding the sword riding towards the great mountains.

The Promise:

Carl and Billy decide that Jody should raise his own colt. Jody agrees, but is worried that Billy will make mistakes again just like with Gabilan. That made Billy sad. They picked Nellie as the mother of the colt. Finally the birth happens. But something goes wrong, Nellie gets sick, Jody doesn’t know what to do. Billy discovers a mistake with the birth, and is forced to kill Nellie to get the colt alive.

The Leader of the People:

Jody’s Grandfather told the family that he was going to visit. Jodys parents are annoyed about it, because grandfather always tells stories about him crossing The Great Plains. Jody goes to greet his Grandfather. This dinner the stories started, but Carl managed to shut his mouth, but the next morning, Grandfather woke up late and Carl argued about the stories again, as he walked to get breakfast, he heard everything. Later he and Jody talked about how he felt, he said:” It’s not about me crossing the Plains, it’s about leading them”, Jody said that he will be like him and leading people.

"A Samurai Never Fears Death" Summary

A Samurai Never Fears Death Summary

By Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler

Seikei (16), was adopted from the well-known grandmaster Ooka, when he still was a boy. Now that things started to settle, he finds out that he will get to return to his original family, in the name of Ooka. He of course is happy to see his parents and siblings again, but it turns out to be a nightmare. He finds himself, in a string of murders. His sister fell in love with a student of puppet-mastery, who is accused of murder, and his brother being involved with a gang using, their fathers tea-shop for smuggling-goods. He needs to make a decision between his new and old family, and find the real murderer.

I personally found this book quite thrilling, but I expected more action, for a book with the words “Samurai” and “Death” in the title. It was not a bad choice reading this book, and I will probably read on of the earlier books of the series.

Free Writing 13

...Friedrich junior thought his sister had the poster just because of the good-looking guy, but he had also heard the word Nazi. Mainly the nearly adults in school spoke about it and laughed about the Jews, Russians, British, Americans and French people. Friedrich’s life was a bit boring, but that all he was complained about. His mother told him that his life lives a dream compared to others. He didn’t understand that, because the fuehrer had a really nice Mercedes 770K car and huge office. It looked so good, compared to the 12 square-meter office of his father. One day his father got an office somewhere else. But Friedrich senior told his son that it was only 45 minutes away, somewhere in the countryside of the Nazi-Germany. This wasn’t true. It was actually somewhere in France, and his father had to fight and tell his soldiers what to do on the frontlines. He said that he wouldn’t come back every night again like before, because of his new job, because he was doing something very important for the Fatherland. Life was very confused for Friedrich junior at that time, because he felt like no one was telling him the truth about what was happening. Then one day when he was bored, he explored the unknown myths about their cellar, because he wasn’t allowed to go down there...

Free Writing 12

...His father didn’t like that school, because there were only two good teachers. “The rest is stupid”, his father told him. Friedrich was also able to keep his old friends. Their house was really big and nicely cleaned. The young boy often thought why so many cleaning women cleaned the whole day, also if it really wasn’t necessary. And they never talked. Once his dad told him that they weren’t worth anything and that they were the enemies of the Fatherland. But he didn’t understand. They seemed to be the same or better than his father, because they also had the arm-bands like his father and all the soldiers, except theirs were white instead of red. And both had symbols on them, so technically they could have been better than all of the people in their house. His mother Barbara seemed a bit different to him in the past. Once he heard her saying things to herself, about times being much better before and that all these NAZI things are just madness. She seemed very disappointed with her husband, and she wasn’t doing things that much anymore. All she did was cooking with the help of the “enemies”, what didn’t make sense in the young boy’s eyes. His sister was a bit weird. She was studying all day about the Fatherland and her loyalty to the things her dad did. She had a poster of a blond good-looking soldier doing the special handshake, and the word NAZI was coming out of his mouth...

Free Writing 11

In the year 1943 Friedrich Steiner (a little polite seven year old kid) lived with his family in Steinbrechergasse, Berlin. He had a sister three year older named Anna, a 45 year old mother named Barbara, and the main person of their family, his father. He was 42 year old, named also Friedrich (it is a long tradition in their family) and worked for the German SS-army. He had been promoted to a storm-officer. That means that the fuehrer had visited their house already and personally wished him luck for his new career. Friedrich junior had no idea who the fuehrer is. His father told him that he should be really polite and do the “best special handshake” with him (raising his arm straight in the air). But he was close laughing when he first saw the fuehrer, because he had a really strange moustache and haircut. For him it seemed like this was the most important day in his dad’s life. Everything had to be perfect and this wasn’t the first time that his boss was having dinner in the house. On those days, things had to be good, but not like that evening. For Friedrich junior this whole new life was not a big change, because he could stay at the same house in Berlin, and go to the same public school (the Beethoven-Gymnasium) in Berlin...

Free Writing 10

Free Writing 9 continued

Josh is really tall, he is about 195cm big and he is 24 years old. He is thin and sportive. He has really short blond hair with two stripes in it. He has a lot and big muscles. He mostly wears hockey dresses, also in his free time. He says he likes them because they are not to tight and he hates tight clothes. He is pretty well-known as the sunglass-guy because he always wears sunglasses. He says because of the light but nobody thinks like this. Of course he does because of girls. One of the best things about Josh is that he is one of the best dads I have ever seen. Yes I know he is only 24 but he has a 4 years old son. His girlfriend left him one year after the boy named Simon was born. Nearly every weekend he and Simon are doing something together. I mean he is only 4 years old but he is able to go to hockey, soccer and football games. They both just enjoy their lives as they should. Josh not only told me, he showed me to never give up in live and that’s the way I do it today. I don’t think of everything I just do it and actually I am quite sure that I got my job because of him. Because I got fired 10 times in a row without even having a job for a year. But I didn’t give up I stayed looking for a job and finally found one. Now I am artist drawing for a company which makes video games. Josh won’t be able speak with his mum anymore but at least he still can make her proud.

Free Writing 9

The best friend of my neighbour, named Josh has always been nice and especially sportive in hockey. So one day he was at my place with my and my neighbour and his dad called him which he actually never did before because of something which he didn’t want to tell us. So Josh had to go home and he kind of was really mad at his dad, because we had fun and didn’t want to leave. The next day my mom told me that Joshs mom died. So hockey was the last thing he had (because he didn’t like his dad). He kept playing hockey every day and got very got at it. Today he is a professional hockey-player. He plays goalie for the Toronto Maple Leaves. That is something what I really like about him because a lot of people don’t want to be goalie because they are afraid of the hockey puks. And the best thing about that is: that he follow his dreams till he actually reached them and he didn’t give up. His thinking behind that was first, that he just did this because of his mum and in the end he did it because of money and fun.