GINS Task #7: Empathy Free Write

Hey! Today's post is again a part of the GINS (Global Issues Novel Study) that I have been participating in for school. To find more information on this, click the initial post I have linked to above. This post was a free write exploring empathy through the main character's mind. I have written a piece from the perspective of Jacob in my novel, War Brothers by Sharon E. McKay. Enjoy! (:

  "Terror pulsed through me. Gunshots rang through the air, vibrating through my body as I felt my arms being tugged roughly behind me. Screams and shouts added to the cacophony, drowning out the beating of my frantic heart. I tried to find Tony in the crowd, but he was no where to be seen. The cold butt of a gun in the small of my back prompted me forward. 

    "Move," the holder of the gun told me in a rough voice. I didn't dare disobey. 

    Many of my classmates and myself were being guided in a scraggly line out of the school and onto the grass. Our shoes and any extra clothing was taken from us, so by a few hours, my feet were aching and drenched in blood. There were many rules, the biggest being never talk, and never stop. 

    We walked for days. I no longer knew if we were in Uganda or not. I thought about my father, and the maid, back home, waiting for my return. Surely the news of Kony's kidnap on our school would've reached them by now. I tried to remember the last words I had said to my father, but I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure of much anymore, just the deep anger and uncertainty and the terrible loneliness that had taken root in the pit of my stomach. 

    So much had changed in a short few days. A few days ago, I never would've imagined that I, with an important father such as mine that attended a prestigious school, would be kidnapped and forced to fight for the Lord's Resistance Army. Never would I have thought that such terrible acts would be committed by human beings, just the same as me. 

    Never would I have thought I might never return home."

Hope you enjoyed! Have a lovely day.

Shatter Me Read-a-Long

Hello! How was your weekend? Mine was far too short. Anyways, today I am posting to say that Brianna and I are going to be doing a read-a-long with each other once a month! Yay! Last month we read Burn for Burn by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian. This month, it's Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi! We are both super excited for this read. And I adore the cover. I will be reading this while away for the Family Day weekend but the drive is long so I figure I will get some reading in! Here's our schedule!

February 13: page 112 / Chapter 18
February 14: page 225 / Chapter 33
February 16: page 338 / The End

We will also be doing a joint post about our thoughts at the end of the month. Have a lovely long weekend!

Check out Brianna's blog, For the Love of Books, at booknook24674.blogspot.ca. Seriously, go. 

January Wrap-Up and February TBR + Epic Recs

Hey! I apologize in advance for not posting those Burn for Burn posts with Brianna... the plans kinda fell through, but we still had a great time reading the book and writing the one post we did do (check it out here). On with the wrap-up!

January Wrap-Up
 My vision for January was very ambitious, but I guess I never realized how busy I would end up being throughout this month. I didn't get through nearly as many of my top-priority books as I would've liked, but oh well. I did however have a chance to re-read four Harry Potter books, and every book I read/re-read this month was five stars but one. I am going to list each of the book along with a description of my thoughts in just three words and my rating.

1. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling*: ***** (five stars) - Just so spectacular.
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K.Rowling*: ***** (five stars) - Snape, not okay.
3. Burn for Burn by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian: ***** (five stars) - Entertainment + revenge.
4. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K.Rowling*: ***** (five stars) - I hate Umbridge.
5. Winterling by Sarah Prineas: ** */* (two and a half stars) - Good idea, disappointing.
6. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling*: ***** (five stars) - Thrilling and hilarious. 

*Re-read

February TBR
My top-priority shelf idea is really working out for me, so I'm going to continue to use that. Now that's it's February though, it's time for me to redesign that shelf. Also, throughout the month I have the freedom to take books off that shelf that I have now read or that I don't intend to read soon anymore. However, I can't add any books to that shelf until the next month, so that I can see how much I condensed it. I love the look of this shelf for February - all these books sound fantastic!

Now onto Epic Recs! So I have some explaining to do. My epic rec for last month was Taken by Erin Bowman, however, halfway or so through the month I realized Taken would not be available to me this month. My back-up was The Darkest Minds by Alexandra Bracken. Now, the problem was that I really didn't want to read anything sad and apparently the ending is pretty heart-breaking, which was not what I needed, so I didn't read it right away. Once I was in an okay frame of mind again however, I chose to finish Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Winterling so that I wouldn't have three books on the go. Anyways, I am reading it right away so it pretty much counts as January. 

I actually have two books for Epic Recs this month. One of them is super short, and the other is a graphic novel, so Brianna and I figured together it would be one epic rec. These books are Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach, and Page by Paige by Laura Lee Gulledge. My epic rec for Brianna is Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo. I'm super excited!

What are you reading this month? Let me know in the comments below, or link to your TBR so I can check it out. Have a lovely day!

GINS Task #6: Global Charter

Today I have a post relating to my Global Issues Novel Study. As to explore further into our current study of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms, along with a few others, we created a charter to apply to our entire globe. Because we all read different novels, we were all able to contribute our different ideas spurred by the issues happening in the country we were reading about. Below you can see our document that we came up with.

My novel, War Brothers by Sharon E. McKay, takes place in Uganda. Many of the laws in our charter were inspired by the situations that have occurred there. In the Canadian charter, we also have equality rights, which state that we are all equal. However, they say that we will not be discriminated based on age, gender, religion, ethnic origin, or mental/physical disability, but they don't mention discrimination based on sexuality. In Uganda, they passed an Anti-Homosexuality Act, and to prevent this type of behaviour, we included sexuality in our equality rights. Another specification we made that is not in the Canadian charter is the fact that you have the right to peacefully challenge the laws in the charter without being accused of treason, unlike that of the Ugandan constitution. Though we were inspired by several things in the Canadian charter, because we felt like they were fundamental rights that are critical to a fair and just country, we also added our own rights, particularly in the Government Obligation Rights. We created this section because we found that in many of the countries from our novels, the government was not upholding their end of the bargain. Even if certain laws are in place, the government does not always follow them. One major law we included in this section was the fact that the government cannot turn a blind eye to it's citizens, and also the fact that the government cannot use violence against the citizen's. We also included mandatory health care, because though that is usually a government choice, so many people in Uganda have died of AIDS that we thought it prudent to include it.

Along the way, my group and I had little to no disagreements. We all agreed on the rights that should be included, except for one misunderstanding. We were discussing collective rights, language education rights in particular, and we misinterpreted something Brianna said as to mean every country should have a school with every language someone's first language is. However, this was a miscommunication and in truth she meant a school in which a large group of people in the province, state, or region needed schooling in that language.

After doing this activity, I also consulted The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a global document created by the UN. There were several things listed we had considered, but there were also some things I had never even thought about. For example, marriage. Below is the exact Article 16 from the Universal Declaration:  "(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality, or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at it's dissolution. 
(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses. 
(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State."

Thanks for reading this post! Have a lovely day. 

Burn for Burn Post One!

Hey! For Brianna and I's Burn for Burn Read-a-Long, we decided we'd do a joint-post for each segment we read. For the first section (page 80 / Chapter 7), to have been completed yesterday, we chose to explore characters. From our first impressions of the characters, we have used a creator on dolldivine (the Lord of the Rings one) to express how we think their physical appearance looks like, and from that you can infer things about their personality. The character creator we are using is very in-depth for facial expressions, which is why we chose it, but is very limited in the sense of modern clothing. For this reason, I'll provide some things I might've added if I could. The only rule we have is don't use the cover! To see Brianna's post, you can click here so you can compare and contrast our two ideas of the characters.

Mary. Unknowingly like Brianna, I also created Mary in the moment she saw Reese. This moment really stood out to me because it is the first time we really see and understand how Mary feels and see her in our minds. I tried to create the look of discomfort and uncertainty, and that moment when you're just about to cry but haven't yet. I actually really liked the way her hair turned out, the colour was spot-on and I loved the wind-blown, curly look to her hair. It seemed to fit the way the book described and also the image I had in my head.

What I would add/change:

• Cardigan: I always just picture Mary wearing a white cardigan *shrugs*
• Pants: If it were summertime (which it is in the book), I would change the white jeans to white jean short-shorts instead.
• Shoes: Change the shoes, they look kind of old fashioned. I would personally picture her in those strappy sandals or flats. 

Lillia. I had a vision in my head for how I wanted Lillia to look, and I wasn't sure I could achieve that with this creator. However, I think I did alright. I really love the way her hair turned out because I picture it being straight, but her always having to curl it and wave it and style it because she's friends with Rennie and therefore expected to look excellent 24/7. With her outfit, I tried to create her white cashmere sweater. I was also happy with the expression I achieved for her face, I can't put a finger on it, but it seemed so her.

What I would add/change:

• Eyeliner: In the book, she talks about putting winged eyeliner on asian eyes. I think it would be so cool if I could add that.
• Pants: I picture her much more with a short black or white skirt, but it didn't have that option, so I chose basic jeans instead.
• Shoes: Though the high heels also seem to fit for her, I would rather choose espadrilles because in the book it mentions she wears them. I always espadrilles as red, black, or white, so it would be one of those colours. 

Kat. I love Kat!! She's easily my favourite character so far. For her, I really wanted a kind of tough look to her, because she's not afraid of getting right in there and stating her mind. I created her face with harder lines than either Mary or Lillia (like her eyebrows and eyes). Her hardened expression shows that she's not exactly forgiving, but she also has an air of mischievousness in her expression which reminds me of her fire when she stood up to Rennie. Again for Kat, I really like the hair! I picture it dark brown and relaxed: not exactly wavy, not exactly straight. I see her as a person who honestly doesn't really care.

What I would add/change:

• Pants: Frayed and faded denim cut-offs are what I picture for Kat. If I could do that, I definitely would.
• Shoes: I picture her in either unlaced, folded-over cuffed combat boots, or a casual pair of black flip-flops.

That's all for now! On Sunday you can expect another joint-post from the two of us. I am absolutely loving this book so far, I definitely recommend it. Hope you enjoyed this, have a lovely day!

Burn for Burn Read-a-Long

Hello! Today Brianna @ For the Love of Books and I started our Burn for Burn read-a-long. We are both reading this book from January 8 (yesterday) to January 16. To compensate for our differing schedules, we have allowed two days to read the assigned amount of pages. If we have more time and want to read more, we can read our other books we're planning on reading. Feel free to join us! Without further ado... our schedule.

Jan 8 - 9: page 80 / Chapter 7
Jan 10 - 11: page 177 / Chapter 18
Jan 12 - 13: page 252 / Chapter 28 
Jan 14 - 15: page 348 / Chapter 40
Jan 16: page 356 / The End 

We will also be posting after every section that we read. We will be doing joint-posts that you can take part in if you like. It'll be loads of fun!

Thanks for reading, have a lovely day!

GINS: Task #5

Hello! Today I am going to be making a post for our Global Issues Novel Study (GINS) which began back in October. I am posting today about the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in connection to the events in my novel, War Brothers by Sharon E. McKay, and the country it takes place in. My novel takes place in Uganda, so that's how I will be phrasing the questions.

Credits to this website for this image. 

Is there a similar document to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Uganda?
The Ugandan government has a constitution which lays out the basis of their government. I found it very interesting that there was a large focus on not speaking against the constitution, because that would be considered treason.

What rights and freedoms are guaranteed in the document?
In the Chapter 4 - Human Rights section of the Ugandan Constitution, it is clear that Ugandan's have very detailed and similar rights to those that we do. They have several sections similar to our equality rights which give rights to women, children, those with disabilities, as well as the section titled "equality and freedom from discrimination". There was also a section that said the citizens are able to vote in elections, but it doesn't say how often. They also included the fact that people's property and homes cannot be searched without consent, and each person has right to a public hearing after arrest. I didn't see anything resembling our mobility rights. The Constitution also says that "no person shall be subjected to any form of torture, cruel or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." What I found particularly interesting is that this document was last revised in 1982, yet many of the rights given to the citizens are not being followed by the government. Just this December, the government passed the Anti-Homosexuality Bill which prevents the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgender) from being what they are. Furthermore, the police forces and government treats them unfairly and they are even subjected to physical abuse from their own government! As for the section I quote earlier about not being subjected to torture, well, according to the Amnesty International survey in 2011, this is not the case. Directly from the site...

"Dozens of people in the north-eastern Karamoja region were reported to have been killed during the year in disputed circumstances by government soldiers engaged in security and disarmament operations. Army personnel were also accused of committing torture and other ill-treatment in the course of these operations. The government did not institute credible investigations into alleged human rights violations and no one was brought to justice. In October, the Uganda Human Rights Commission reported that torture and ill-treatment by the police, other law-enforcement officials and the military remained widespread."

How might the issue in your novel be different if the Canadian Charter were applied?
The major issue at hand in my novel is Joseph Kony's LRA (Lord's Resistance Army). It is established throughout the novel that Kony is the "bad guy" (for lack of a better term), and the government are the "good guys" who are trying to catch Kony. This is right in a sense, but there are many crimes that go against their charter which the police force or government of Uganda has committed. The thing is, Uganda has a constitution which outlines almost all the rights we have in Canada, and more, and when I read it I found it to be very fair and respectful to the citizens. However, if the government doesn't follow it than what use is it? Therefore, I feel that if the Canadian Charter were applied, it would be the same situation as what is going on now. The problem is, even though rights and freedoms are in place in the Ugandan Constitution, the government does not respect or follow them, so why would the Canadian Charter be any different? Both the Canadian and Ugandan charter's prohibit the kind of behaviour the LRA is showing, so I don't think the difference would affect it. The one thing I noticed is that because the Ugandan constitution does not have mobility rights, people who are afraid and in danger would not be able to leave the country. As it says in the Mobility Rights of the Canadian charter, 6. (1) Every citizen of Canada has the right to enter, remain in, and leave Canada. I couldn't find anything that expressed that Ugandan citizen could do the same. Therefore, more children and women could be held kidnapped by the LRA, more causalities would occur, and more people would be traumatized because they may not be able to leave the country when the LRA was at large.

Resources Consulted
Amnesty International
CNN News Article (Anti-Homosexuality Bill)
Ugandan Constitution (Chapter 4, Human Rights and Freedoms)
Ugandan International Crimes Division