It’s the time of thanks, but thanks can happen anytime of the year. Small favors to large ones can be appreciated. Well I must tell the 3 at the top of my list. I am thankful for the things like how I can walk to school on my own. How if I forget something, I can run back home. If am late, I can run to school. Something I may take for granted on my daily journey from school to home and from home to school everyday. Realizing that I should be grateful that I live in a home close to the place I go to learn and that others are not so fortunate. I am thankful for the area I live, the shops, the plants, the environment. From the fact of living in a growing zone 10, allowing plants to grow almost all year. I am fortunate for the area I live, glad to not be in the middle of nowhere in a desert. Living in a place where I can be a consumer to my hearts content. I am grateful for my parents and what they do for me. The little things my mom does like letting me have a bite of the food she’s eating, to my dad who seems to have unlimited answers to my questions. There are so many more things I am grateful for that I am pretty sure my screen would explode, I am also sure that there are even better things in my life I should be grateful for but don’t remember. One things for sure, if you feel down in the dumps think about the people around you, the leaves, the air, and remember to love the life you have.

It turns out the bottle I have been keeping had a genie in it! What? It lets me have three wishes? Why I would wish to pass on my wishes to a random person because things in life happen for a reason and logically something happening out of the blue would cause a butterfly effect to other aspects of my life.

If I was required to wish by that no-good genie I would wish I had my two front teeth and that I had just got a scratch instead of losing them (plus me. Oh yeah, but I still feel just a bit little jelly, just a microscopic bit, so minuscule you couldn’t see it of kids with their two front teeth.

My second wish is for me to one night every ten years die and have full consciousness and wake up normally in the morning. Though it may seem oddly specific, It acts as a way to remind me what it feels like the be dead and how grateful I should be to be alive. As well as acting as a reminder to be in bed before twelve as I would not want to go into that state while working on something at a desk. When I eventually do say buh-bye to the world I won’t be shocked or scared as I had been prepared for what it would feel like.

My third wish is one I had since the 5th grade. This wish would be to take a group of flat-earthers and bring them to earths outer atmosphere for them to see, on a fancy spaceship of course. This wish would have two outcomes. One, they see the earth is in fact an oval and there view on the world they live on is changed. Two, I see that the earth is in fact flat and I deserve a collective slap. Also no way in the world am going to give Jeff Bezos two hundred thousand dollars (already sucked my pockets dry) to go to space.

In the month of October, I read the heartwrenching novel Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz. Prisoner B-3087 is a historical fiction told from the perspective of a Jew in Poland named Yanek Greuner during World War II. He was the average 10-year-old boy in Poland living with his parents as a single child in their small apartment. He had not a worry in the world playing ball in the streets with friends and going to school. Then the Nazis occupied his town, Krakow. This includes the struggle between fighting to survive no matter what and wanting to just give up and die. Going through 10 different concentration camps Yanek becomes numb to everything around him, dead bodies, screams, starvation, but still manages to hold onto a little piece of human feeling.

I believe this book is a wonderful read for those who want the feeling of always being on edge. The main character never really talks though the story, but the author described the characters thoughts, surroundings, and pain with words that work together in perfect harmony. This book perfectly illustrates the atrocities committed by the Nazis and personally changed my view on the second world war. I think anybody who reads this book will come out changed looking at every aspect of their life, the sky, their home, and where they live with gratefulness in their mind. This is a must for anyone who enjoys good historical fiction and is also based on the life events of Jack and Ruth Greuner survivors of the Holocaust.

My favorite character is of course having to be Yanek himself. He had to persist through demoralizing moments never knowing if his next step or last bite of food would be his last. Yanek has conflicts with himself fighting between doing what is right and what would keep him alive. Without his fight to survive, the novel would not be as captivating. Although to survive Yanek had to hide all feeling and emotion from the Nazis to survive, he still manages to display that he is a thoughful person. In chapter 17, after the camp prisoners gives a boy who turned 13 years old his bar mitzvah, Yanek stated, “I went up to the boy and pressed the wooden horse into his hands, the only present I could give him.” Despite the fact Yanek was in this situation where the only duty in life was to survive, Yanek did this little thing for this boy. This really shows that he is still thoughtful person on the inside even if he tried to hide all emotion.

My favorite quote in the book has to be the first lines, the main character states, “If I had known what the next six years of my life were going to be like, I would have eaten more. I wouldn’t have complained about brushing my teeth, or taking a bath, or going to bed at eight o’clock every night” (1.) This simple quote not only starts off the novel beautifully capturing the readers attention. It also makes the reader think about all the little things and iconvienices in their life, not knowing what the character would have gone through that we be so bad to make that statement. This line sets the basis for the book. As all the events that unfold throughout the story make the quote makes sense.