The Devil in the White City

5 - Comments

- Burnham went to the meeting in the Rookery and had produced a heightened awareness of how little time remained and everything seemed to take longer than it should, and nothing went smoothly.

- On February 11, when fifty Italian immigrants employed by McArthur Brothers, a Chicago company, began digging a drainage dich. It was nothing, routine but the word spread, and five hundred union men stormed the park and drove the worker off.

- On a friday, six hundred men gathered at the park to protest Mcarthur's use of what they alleged were "imported" workers.

- There was conflict, too, among the fair's overseers and the national commission, made up of politicians and headed by director-general George Davis. He wanted financial control, the Exposition Company, run by Chicago's leading businessmen and headed by president Lyman Gage.

- The company had raised the money, and by god the company would spend it in whatever way it chose. The committees ruled everything.

4 - Question

- Why they called people who were allegad were Imported workers?
- Why did two thousand mens were beating McArthur workers?
- Was McAuthur was building another skyscrapers?
- What is so important of the Skyscrapers?

3 - Vocabulary

- Expenditures = The act or process of expending; outlay.
- treason = the offense of acting to overthrow one's government or to harm or kill its sovereign.
- Temperance = moderation or self-restraint in action, statement, etc.; self-control.

2 - Literary terms

- Simile = His presence was like oil on troubled water.
- Characterization = Her husband (Holmes) warm, and charming exterior were flowed

1 - Overview

- This part of the book is about thousands of people protesting and beating the imported workers and McAthur needed help.

The Devil in the White City

5 - Comments

- Soon after the meeting Olmsted composed a strategy for the transformation of Jackson Park. His ten- page memorandum captured the essence of all he had come to believe about the art of landscape architecture and how it should strive to conjure effects greater than the mere sum of petals and leaves.

- He concentrated on the fair's central lagoon, which his dredges soon would begin carving from the jackson Park shore. Also, the dredges would leave an island at the center of the lagoon, to be called, simply, the Wooded Island.

- The fair main buildings would rise along the lagoon's outer banks. Olmsted saw that the lagoon district as the most challenging portion of the fair.

- Olmsted hoped to provide visitors with a banquet of glimpses - the undersides of leaves sparkling with reflected lights, flashes of brilliaant color between fronds of tall grass waving in the breeze.

- Sedges and ferns graceful bulrush would probaly be planted on the banks of the Wooded island to conjure density and intricacy and to slightly screen, without hiding, flowers otherwise likely to be too obtrusive.

4 - Question

- What is so important with a lagoon?
- What is a Lagoon and what does it do that is important to the main building and Olmsted?
- What type of trasformation would Olmsted do to Jackson Park?
- Is Jackson park is a historical place?

3 - Vocabulary

Dredges = Any of various machines equipped with scooping or suction devices and used to deepen harbors and waterways and in underwater mining.
Lagoon = an area of shallow water separated from the sea by low sandy dunes.
Mingling = to become mixed, blended, or united.

2 - Literary Terms

- Simile = His presence was like oil on troubled water.
- Personification = Olmsted is a wild animal that is getting lost

1 - Overview

- this part of the book is about recontruction jackson park (transforming Jackson Park).

The Devil in the white city

5 – Comments
- On February 24, 1891 on Tuesday, Burnham, Olmsted, Hunt, and other architects gathered in the library on the top of the Rookery to present drawing of the fair’s main structures to the grounds and buildings committee.
- A new man had joined the group, Augustus St.Gaudens, one of America’s best known sculptors, whom Charles Mckim had invited to help evaluate the designs.
- One by one, the architects walked to the front of the room, unrolled their drawings, and displayed them upon the wall. Something had happened among the architects, and it became evident immediately, as though a new force had entered the room.
- The next structure presented was even bigger than the other one. All that space, moreover, was to be lit inside and out with electric lamps.
- Post proposed to top his building with a dome of 450 feet high, which would have made the building not only the biggest in the world but also the tallest.
4 – Question
- Why did they want to build a bigger building with a dome of 450 feet high?
- Why the architects are so important in Chicago?
- Back in the 1890’s do the architects get pay a lot?
- What would happen without architects in Chicago?
3 – Vocabulary
Gleamed = to emit a gleam; flash or glow
Brusque = Abrupt and curt in manner or speech; discourteously blunt. See Synonyms at gruff.
Promenade = A leisurely walk, especially one taken in a public place as a social activity.

2 – Literary Term
- Simile = Olmsted looked gray, expect for his eyes which gleamed beneath his bald skull like marbles of lapis.
- They are like super people.
1 – Overview
This part of the story is about the architects building a great building.

The Devil in the White City

5 - Comments
- Holmes dreamed and sketched the feature of his building becoming more elaborated and satisfying but, it was only a dream phase. Holmes could imagined the pleasure that would fill his days when the buildings was finished and flesh-and-blood women moved among its features and as always, the thought aroused him.
- He was thinking that constructing a building won’t be easy, that it would be a challenge. He devised/ created a strategy that he believed it would not only allay suspicions but, also reduce the cost of construction. He placed newspaper advertisements for carpenters and laborers, and soon workers with teams of horses would begin excavating the land.
- Holmes became/ cast himself as a demanding contractor and as soon workers came to him for their wages, he berated them for doing shoddy work and refused to pay them, even when the workers were doing perfect work. He didn’t like giving money away to anybody. Everybody quit, or he fired them so anyways, the worker would have to find another job anyways. He fired the workers, gets new people to fill in for them and treat them the same way he treated the others. This process was going slow but for a good cost said “ Holmes”.
- A bricklayer named George Bowman found the experience of working for Holmes somewhat chilling. George bowman told Holmes to throw a brick to his brother-in-law and they don’t get well with each other. George told him that when that “incidents” happen, that he would give Holmes fifty dollars.
- Three men did meet Holmes’s standard of trustworthiness and each worker for him throughout the period of construction and continued to associate with him after the building was completed.
4 - Question
- Why didn’t Holmes pay the workers what they earned? Why was Holmes was building/ construction a building?
- Why was Holmes was thinking of hitting a man with a brick that George told him to? do? Would he do it for money and agreed with George?
- Would Holmes pay every worker there money that they earn or not?
- If Holmes don’t pay what the workers needed the amount to get pay, would they destroy the building?
3 - Vocabulary
- wholly = In a whole or complete manner; entirely; completely; perfectly.
- chute = an inclined channel, as a trough, tube, or shaft, for conveying water, grain, coal, etc., to a lower level.
- embedded = To enclose snugly or firmly
2 - Literary terms
- Simile = His presence was like oil on troubled water.
- Personification = Olmsted is a wild animal that is getting lost
1 - Overview
- this part of the story is about when Holmes is construction a building of his own with worker he don’t want to pay.

The Devil in the White City

5 - Comments
- In Minneapolis, there had been only silence and the inevitable clumsy petitions of potato-fingered men looking for someone, anyone/anybody to share the agony of their days. Holmes lived in Eaglewood that is not the heart of Chicago, was at first a disappointment, but here is too that was a vibrancy far as she experience at home.
- They (Holmes and Myrta) went to settled in a apartment in the second floor and by spring in the year 1888, Myrta was pregnant.
- She help her husband with the pharmacy and she just love when Holmes is working and helping the customers. She admired her husband Holmes that she admired too of the charm with which he managed each transaction and how he won the business even of elderly customers loyal. Myrta came to see that underneath her husband’s warm and charming exterior there flowed a deep current of ambition.
- Myrta insisted of Holmes having more wealth, but his ambition never impaired his character and never distracted him from his role as husband and eventually father. She swore that she would have a gentle heart and that Holmes would adored children’s and animals. Holmes was a lover of pets and always had a dog or cat and usually a horse and he would play around with them. He never drink nor smoke and also did not gambled.
- Holmes begins to act like a dutiful husband. Her parents were cool at first but then Holmes courted their approval with moist-eyed declarations of regret and displays adoration for his wife and child.
4 - Question
- Why does Holmes act like a dutiful husband?
- Does Myrta knows about the past of Holmes and that Holmes is not his real name?
- Are the parent of Myrta happy with Holmes? Are they suspicious of Holmes?
- Why did Myrta increased the possessiveness? Was she jealous of Holmes when he was looking into a woman?
3 - Vocabulary
- vibrancy = moving to and fro rapidly; vibrating
- Transaction = Something transacted, especially a business agreement or exchange.
- exterior = situated or being outside; pertaining to or connected with what is outside: the exterior territories of a country.
2 - Literary Terms
- Simile = His presence was like oil on troubled water.
- Characterization = Her husband (Holmes) warm, and charming exterior were flowed a deep current of ambition.
1 - Overview
- this part of the book is about when Myrta is describing how good Holmes really is.

The Devil in the White City

5 - Comments
- Holmes’s sales of tonics and lotions increased by the end of 1886, and the pharmacy was running smoothly plus profitably. He thought that he would tuned to a woman that he had met earlier in the year during his brief in Minneapolis, Myrta Z. Belknap.
- What elevated her above mere beauty was the aura of vulnerability and need that surrounded her. She became an immediate obsession, that her imagination and her needs to lock his brain.
- The city toughened them quickly, however the best way to catch them would be at the start of their ascent toward freedom. In transit from small places, when they were anonymous, lost, their presence recorded nowhere. Everyday, he saw them stepping from trains and grip-cars and also hansom cabs, that inevitably frowning at some piece of paper that was supposed to tell them where they belonged.
- The city’s madams understood this and were known to meet inbound trains with promises of warmth and friendship, saving the important news for later. Holmes adored Chicago, adored in particular how the smoke and din could envelop a woman and leave no hint that she ever had existed, save perhaps a blade-thin track of perfume amid the stench of dung, anthracite, and putrefaction.
- When he left the store that first day, as motes of dust filled the space he left behind, her own life seemed drab beyond endurance. A clock ticked. Something had to change. When his first letter arrived, she asked sweetly if he might court her, that she felt as if a coarse blanket had been lifted from her life.
4 - Question
- Why did Holmes said that Chicago was the most feared and magnetic of cities?
- Does Holmes like/love Myrta Z. Belknap? Do they live together?
- Is the pharmacy of Chicago that Holmes own is a famous pharmacy and why did he created a pharmacy?
- What does Myrta Z. Belknap want to do with Holmes?
3 - Vocabulary
- Anthracite = a mineral coal containing little of the volatile hydrocarbons and burning almost without flame; hard coal.
- putrefaction = the act or process of putrefying; the anaerobic decomposition of organic matter by bacteria and fungi that results in obnoxiously odorous products; rotting.
- clerked = A person who works in an office performing such tasks as keeping records, attending to correspondence, or filing.
2 - Literary Terms
- Characterization = She was a young and blond, with blue eyes and a lush figure. Holmes was a handsome, warm, and obviously wealthy.
- Simile = …. conduct that applied in their safe little hometowns, like Alva, Clinton, and Percy, might actually still apply once they had left behind…
1 - Overview
- Holmes was in a trip in Minneapolis and about a woman name Myrta Z. Belknap, that I think he loves her and she loves him.

The devil in the White City

5 - Comments
- One day on August 12, day Tuesday, four days after Olmsted and Codman arrived in Chicago, he filed a report with the exposition directors, who then, he chagrin made the report public and he also had the intention of the report for a professional audience for Jackson Park.
- Olmsted lectured the different factions needed to recognize that for the exposition to succeed everyone had to work together, no matter which location the directors selected.
- All Chicago can afford to take nothing less than the very best site that can be found for the fair, regardless of the special local interests of one quarter of the city or another. That every landscape element of the fair had to have one supreme object of everything that may be seen as a modestly contributive part of a grand whole.
- Olmsted next considered four specific candidates: that site an the lakeshore above the loop of two inland sites, one of which was Garfield Park on the western perimeter of the city and of Jackson Park. Olmsted himself prefer the northernmost site and he insisted Jackson Park could work and produce results of a pleasingly that becomes character such as having not hitherto been aimed at in world fair.
- Burnham hoped that his second report would at least compel a decision that delay was maddening. The board seemed unaware that Chicago now risked becoming a national, even global, temperament.\

4 - Question
- What is the importance of Jackson Park?
- What best site Chicago has that everybody in Chicago need to go?
- Why is Olmsted is really interested in Jackson Park?
- What does the landscape of the element of the fair have to do with the supreme object?
3 - Vocabulary
- exasperating = to irritate or provoke to a high degree; annoy extremely
- tonnage = the capacity of a merchant vessel, expressed either in units of weight, as deadweight tons, or of volume, as gross tons.
- terraces = To provide (a house, for example) with a terrace or terraces
2 - Literary Terms
- Simile = Chicago is like a big dump.
- Personification = Olmsted is a wild animal that is getting lost
1 - Overview
Olmsted is doing a project that is related to Jackson Park.

The Devil in the White City

5 -Comments
- In July 1890, nearly six months since Congress had voted to give the world’s Columbian Exposition to Chicago. The forty-five men on the Exposition’s board of directors still had not decided where the city pride will be at stake, which all Chicago had sung with one voice. Also the emissaries had boosted the congress the city that could deliver a grander and more appropriate setting than the location in New York. Now the Chicago would be insisting on a location within its own boundaries and the squabbling stymied of the boarder.
- Olmsted believed that the city protects it civic honor by producing the greatest such events in the world history, a goal that seemed to be slipping from Chicago grasp with each sweep of the clock’s hand. He offered a fee of one thousand dollars.
- Ellsworth insisted that Chicago had in mind been something far grander than even Paris exposition, and ha also describe the vision of the dream city designed by America’s greatest architects and covering an expanse at least one-third larger than Paris fair. Ellsworth assured Olmsted that by agreeing to help, that he would be joining his name to one of the greatest artistic undertaking of the century.
- Through out Olmsted career, he had struggle with problems in his business. But, he had success in some of his career. He was dispelling the perception that the landscape architecture was simply an ambitious sort of the fine arts, and full sister to the painting, sculpture, and brick-and-mortar architecture.
- In a letter that Ellsworth wrote to Olmsted, he wrote that “My position is this: the reputation of America is at stake in this matter, and the reputation of Chicago is also at stake in this matter, and the reputation if Chicago is also at stake.”
4 -Question
- What does the letter that Ellsworth wrote to Olmsted about the reputation of Chicago?
- Why does Olmsted believed that the city of Chicago is protecting the civic honor by production?
- What was the problem, the struggle that Olmsted had in his position/ his job? What did him success?
- What are the forty-five men have to do with the congress and Chicago? Does Ellsworth and Olmsted is one of the Forty-five people in the group?
3 -Vocabulary
- ambitious = having ambition; eagerly desirous of achieving or obtaining success, power, wealth, a specific goal, etc
- Dispel = to drive off in various directions; disperse; dissipate: to dispel the dense fog.
- architecture = the profession of designing buildings, open areas, communities, and other artificial constructions and environments, usually with some regard to aesthetic effect. Architecture often includes design or selection of furnishings and decorations, supervision of construction work, and the examination, restoration, or remodeling of existing buildings
2 -Literary Terms
- Simile = Chicago is like a big dump.
- Personification = Olmsted is a wild animal that is getting lost
1 - Overview
This part of the book is about the goals that Olmsted and Ellsworth are reaching for.

The Devil in the White city

5 -comments
- Mudgett lived in Gilmanton that was a small farming village in New Hampshire’s lake country. His fathers name was Levi and he was a farmer. He has a brother and a sister. His parents were devout Methodists whose response to even routines misbehavior. Mudgett was like a mama’s boy (“mothers boy”) because he stays alone in his room reading Jules Verne and invents things. His best friend was an older child named Tom who was killed in the fall while the boys were playing a game.
-When Mudgett was 16 years old he graduated school (doesn’t tell if he went to a high school, or what school he was in) and despite his age to get a job. Mudgett felt in love with a woman named Clara A. Lovering. They loved each other so much. They got married in July 4, 1878 before a justice of peace. At nineteen, he went to collage. He enrolled a medical program in the University of Vermont in Burlington. He found the school too small so, he transfer to the university of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
- Mudgett graduated from the university of Vermont in Ann Arbor. He graduated with a lackluster record. He took out to find some “ favorable location”. Then he went to New York and the Chicago tribune hired him as a school principle.
- Mudgett needed more money because the money that he is earning of his teaching salary wasn’t enough. He said “starvation was staring me in the face”. He and his Canadian friend was making some sort of plan of buying a life insurance and fake death. His friend and him was going to do there plan of faking death with a family of three. The three people body would turn up later and Mudgett and his friend would divide the $40,000 dollars (that is more than one million dollars in our present day).
- When Mudgett found out about the consequences about there scheme, they would get in big trouble. That the doctor would know what was happening and Mudgett was afraid. He took a train to Chicago and renamed himself as Holmes.

4 - Question
- why didn’t Mudgett another job and not do a stupid thing like faking death?
- How much was the teacher salary?
- What happened to Mudgett wife when they did there plan?
-Did the situation got any better?

3 -Vocabulary
Mortgaging = a conveyance of an interest in property as security for the repayment of money borrowed.
Dwindled = to become smaller and smaller
Convenient = Suited or favorable to one's comfort, purpose, or needs
2 - Literary Terms
Characterization = Word spread that a young, handsome, and apparently unmarried young doctor now stood behind the counter, an increasing of woman (single) come and buy what they don’t need just to talk to him.
Simile = Chicago was like a big dump.
1 -Overview
This part of the book is about when a young men do something illegal and he is trying to do something about it.

The Devil in the White City

5- Comments
- The black City was known for Chicago. In Chicago, people get lost really quickly that when a person get lost, the people says that that person is never seen again. Around 1800s, Chicago use to be a dangerous place to live especially for young girls/woman. James Addams, the reformer who founded Chicago’s Hull House wrote “ Never before in civilization have such numbers of young girls been suddenly released from protection of the homes and permitted to walk unattended upon the city streets and to work under alien roofs”.
- On March 30, 1890, an officer of the first National Bank placed a warning in the help-wanted section of the Chicago Tribune, to inform female stenographers of there growing conviction that no thoroughly honorable business-man…… So the females were more in danger in Chicago than men’s.
- In Chicago, many people are died in there young age, that death came early and often in Chicago. Approximate, two people died in a horrified way or a common death. There are men killing woman and woman killing men (at one another) and children’s killing each other or themselves by accident. This time of year was around 1892. Some of the polices didn’t had gun power to keep the balance of criminals and murders in a low balance. The police didn’t had enough equipment to do there job.
- In February 24, 1890, two thousand people gathered on the sidewalk and streets outside the office of the Chicago Tribune, as similar crowds collected at each of the city’s twenty-eight other daily newspapers and in hotels lobbies….. The people that was in the gathering were business men’s, clerks, traveling salesmen, polices, stenographers and maybe one barber.
-Chicago’s population had topped one million people, making them the second most popular in the nation (New York is on top, that has the most people).
4 -Question
- Why Chicago is also known for the black city?
- Why don’t the people of Chicago wont help the situation of Chicago?
- What was the meaning of going and gathering people on the sidewalk outside of the Chicago office?
- How did Chicago became the second most popular in the nation if people are died?
3-Vocabulary
Lackluster = a lack of brilliance or vitality.
Grotesque = odd or unnatural in shape, appearance, or character; fantastically ugly or absurd.
Prosaic = commonplace or dull.
2 - Literary Terms
Imagery = moved into the Rookery at La Salle and Adams, a gorgeous light-filled structure of root’s design, they saw views of the lake and the city that no one but constructive workers had seen before.
Characterization = Soon a different men appear in the tribune window. He was tall, thin and young and wore a black beard.
1 -Overview
This section is about the time in Chicago, the construction of the skyscraper, the situation that happened in Chicago.

Touch the top of the world

5 - Comments
- The police knows Erik. The police was asking Erik about the whole lots of smoke pouring out the cracks on Erik garage. Erik said that there was nothing wrong in the garage but, the police don’t trust him. The police would want to check the garage but, Erik tells the police “do you need a warrant for this situation”.
- Chris dared Erik to moon the car and in that car was a van full of high school seniors. Erik was scared that if the seniors caught him mooning there car, that they will beat him up. That he imagine the high school seniors, twice the size of him wanted to get him
-The teacher gave Erik a tape record so he could hear the reading from the book. When he heard the section about sex, he was interested in that section. He couldn’t wait to read about “sex” (he use a special kind of tools that people that are almost blind, that cant see very well use to read). He took a tape recorder to detention and heard the section about “sex”.
- The people around Erik wanted to help Erik a of his problem. Some of the people wanted to help him to be more successful and some of them just wanted to help him. Erik was flatter but, he didn’t wanted this kind of things happening now, he just want a person like him to be a friend of him. A person like Erik would make Erik fell more better.
- Erik is worried that his friend would laugh at him because he is going on a handicap car. The driver told Erik that you cant see how the car looks like, that you don’t now what you are riding on. The next day, you would wave your friends goodbye and go in the car.
4 - Question
- Why did Erik didn’t wanted to be seen that he is taking the handicap car?
- Did Erik wanted the police man to know what was happening in the garage?
- Why did Erik said that the smoke smells like burning rubber?
- Does Erik really needs a friend that is like him?
3 - Vocabulary
- pursuers = To follow in an effort to overtake or capture; chase
- darted = To thrust or throw suddenly and rapidly.
- shuddered = To shiver convulsively, as from fear or revulsion
2 - Literary Terms
- simile = I imagined her huge legs squeezed into combustible green tights, steaming and groaning under the building pressure until, finally, fat and gristle explode through the hallway like shrapnel.
- simile = I had been standing on the side of the road, my pale butt glowing in the dark like a second moon.
1 - Overview
- This part of the book is about Erik learning to do things and experience things that he never though of by his blindness.

touch the top of the world

5 – Comments
- Erik thought that his mom was acting strange because she uses to be energetic and now she is started to be lazy. One day, the mom told Erik about when she is not there to be with you and he got scare. He thought of the worst thing that would happen.

- On Christmas Eve, everybody but Erik mom was down stairs having fun and enjoying themselves plus opening presents. When Erik went to tell the mom to come down stairs to open presents, she got crazy. She started to throw her jaw from China into the floor. That day they took her to the hospital to the emergency room. The family was worried.

- Erik is going to start high school and he is nervous.

- In the beginning of high school the principle assign him a supervisor to take him everywhere he needs to go. When week pass, he wasn’t happy with his supervisor because he has no freedom. He thought that in high school there is freedom, that you could do whatever you want.

- He seeks out from the supervisor and went to the cafeteria by himself. It took him a little while just to get to the cafeteria but he got there. It was hard to get his lunch because of the crowded people pushing one another. When he got his lunch, he heard his friend voice Chris. When Erik got closer, the voice keeps on getting louder. When he got there the people in the table stayed quiet. Not ever his friend spoke. He went back and they started to talk again.

4 – Question
- Why Erik mom was acting crazy and confused?
- Why didn’t Chris talk to Erik when Erik went close to the table?
- Why Erik did seek from the supervisor when he knows that he is going to get lost?
- Does Erik mom got a disease that might catch from the tour of china?
3 – Vocabulary
- Congenital =having by nature a specified character
- Haphazardly = in a haphazard manner
- Pavement = a material in which a surface is made
2 – Literary terms
- He is like a lonely wolf (simile)
- My mom was a crazy bull (metaphor)
1 – Overview
- This part of the book is about when the mom goes to the hospital and when he start high school.

Touch the top of the world

5 – Comments
- Erik doesn’t like his supervisor because she treats him like an elementary or middle school student. Erik wanted to do things that normal people do. He didn’t consider himself a normal human being because of his blindness. He wanted more freedom.

- The supervisor is going to show Erik a better way to read and to do things most of the things that normal people do. He thought that he needed to learn it all over again because the supervisor was going to teach what he knows but in a better way. He didn’t want to do it because he already learned it.

- He hated this year of high school because the students treat him as a kid. One day when he was going to the bathroom, everybody got out of the way and some student wanted to help him to go to the bathroom. But, he said no because he thinks that he all grown up.

- One day he needed to use the bathroom so bad so he asks the teacher to let him go and he said “okay”. He wanted to go alone. When he went alone, he thought it would be easy to find it but, it wasn’t. Each time he touches the door and opens it, it’s another classroom. He couldn’t hold it for long and then he pee on himself. His supervisor saw him and told him not to go unsupervised. He got mad because he can’t do anything by himself.

- The first year of high school is not what he imagine, he doesn’t like it. He is treated so different from other students.

4 – Question
- Why doesn’t he accept people help when they give it to him?
- Why does he try to do things on his own? What is Erik goal of doing things of his own?
- Does he really need to do things on his own?
3 – Vocabulary
- Firmly = not shaking or trembling
- Frantic = desperate or wild with excitement, passion, fear, pain and etc.
- Haltingly = limping or lame
2 – Literary Term
- Chris is like a quagmire (simile).
- I thought that high school supposes to have freedom, which you have more liberty, but I’m in prison. (Imagery).
1 – Overview
- This part of the chapter is about Erik being in high school (freshman year) and he wants to do thing on his own but, he can’t because he always get lost or mess up.

Touch the top of the world

5 – Comments
- Erik dad was promoted and his new job was in Hong Kong and him and his family needed to move. They lived in an apartment.

- One day the mom went to a two-week tour in china and Eddi, his dad and he was alone. They explored a patch of land governed by Hong Kong but connected to mainland china. They crawled under a barbed-wire fence and hiked along the narrow beach. There was a sign saying “TURN BACK IMMEDIATELY, YOU HAVE ENTERED THE PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA. The dad was really excited and wanted to trespass. They got caught and got a fine of HK$200 ($40 in USA).


- One day his dad let Erik walked alone from his friend because Erik wanted to go alone. He was familiar of the streets to go to his house. He could see the outline of an object. When he was returning to his house, he had some diffulties. He was going to a different route. That day the father was picking up his wife from the tour. When the dad was really worried that Erik didn’t made it in time. When they got there, Erik was there. He saved his dad life.

- When four years past, his dad got transform back to New York City and his mom got a house in Weston, Connecticut. They lived in top of a hill.

- A couple of weeks when they moved in to their new home, he was happy because they weren’t as many people in the streets like there were in Hong Kong and he could do what he wants.

4 – Question
- Why Erik does wants to go alone from his friend house to his own if he could get lost? He can’t see every well.
- Why did he mess up when he was driving with the family (with dad’s help) if he was driving well when he was with his dad?
- Why did the dad wanted to trespass the barbed-wire fence if the sign said not to?
- Does Erik Weihenmayer have a goal to do things without seeing a lot?
3 – Vocabulary
- Pungent = mentally stimulating or appealing.
- Distinguishable = to mark off as different
- Pavement = a hard smooth surface, especially of a public area or thoroughfare, that will bear travel.
2 – Literary terms
- I threw my body against the metal deck, my heart nearly exploding out of my chest (metaphor)
- His body jerked and writhed as he snatched for something to grab. (simile)
1 – Overview
- This part of the story is about the adventure his dad, Eddi and he had in Hong Kong, and when they move to Connecticut because his dad got transfer back to New York City.

Touch the top of the world

5- Comments
- When Erik dad was teaching him how to ride a two wheel bike, the mom stared at Erik. When he was riding the bike, the mom didn’t smile or said “I’m proud of you”. When he fell and hurt himself of the bike, the mom went running towards him and yells at the father. She is over protective to him because he is blind (sort of).

- When it was almost Halloween (one day before Halloween) a group of child was about to go with Erik but, the parents (the group’s parents) thought that he would be a lot of responsibility. He didn’t have a costume so his mom stayed up all night making a Quasimodo costume for him. But, when he put on that costume, he felt that he was a real Quasimodo.

- When the doctor told them how he got it, Erik told his mom “thanks a lot” because the disease came from the side of his mother. The mother started to cry and went to the bathroom to clean herself and to be alone. He didn’t mean it. When she came back, he gave her a big hug but, she sat in the table without saying a word.

- His mom is teaching him how to do different thing about camp. Learning what is what.

- The doctor gave monocular to Erik so that he could see well. When they gave him that, he could see half of the movie star was but he still needed to seat on top of the row.

4- Questions
- Why didn’t the mother show happiness to his son when he was riding the bike by himself?
- Why Erik did said “he felt like a real Quasimodo?
- Why did the mom stayed quiet when Erik apologized to her when he said thanks a lot for the disease?
- Why Erik did said Thank a lot for the disease?

3- Vocabulary
- Systematically = In a systematic manner; methodically
- Congenital = Of or pertaining to a condition present at birth, weather inherited or caused by the enviroment, esp. the uterine enviroment.
- Immensely = Vast; huge; very great: an immense territory.

2- Literary Terms
- Simile = My father was like a broom, sweeping me out into the world, while my mother was the dustpan, constantly gathering up the shattered pieces and putting me back together again.
- Personification = Her face slowly metamorphosed into a mother lioness. She clenched her jaw and flashed an angry glance at my father before she rushed to me, throwing her arms around me and hurrying me down the hallway to the medicine closet.
1-Overview
This part of the story is about when Erik gets his monocular so he could see more.

Touch the top of the world

5- Comments
- The parents put Erik in school (starting kindergarten) but, the head administrator told his mother that she recommend her to take her son to a school for blind people because in this school we won’t treat him with special care.

- Ellen Suzanne (Erik mom) told the head administrator about her cousin was blind and went to a special school for blind. She said “my cousin can’t do anything by herself. She can’t peel an orange; she can’t mop or clean her bed. And what would happen if her parents died. Her parents help her do anything because the school she went to only taught her to use the piano. What would my son use the tune of a piano if he can do a lot of things?

- Erik was surprise of how she reacted and has courage of the things she said.

- Erik was thinking about the life his mom had when she was a teenager. She graduated from high school, she got raped, she had two kids with her first husband, her first husband was a alcoholic and hit her, her two sons and her moved, she worked in a factory for two years, met Erik father in a corps officer’s club, got married, and had birth to Eddi and then him (Erik).

- The schools accept Erik to the school. When he had his first quiz, his paper was full of scribbles and the teacher gave him a smile face. When he got home the mother saw his paper and was mad because the teacher gave him a smile face on the paper and the paper only had scribbles. She went to school, complaint and when they went home; the mom was showing him how to write.

4- Question
- Why Erik did was thinking back about her life when she was younger?
- Why the administrators did write a letter that he’s accepted?
- Why didn’t the mom just taught him before going the trouble to put him in a regular school?
- Why did the mom bring control to his world?
3- Vocabulary
- Queer = unusually
- Haphazardly = mere chance; fortuity
- Shimmered = a flickering or tremulous light; a glimmer
2- Literary term
- Simile = rise and shine like the morning sun.
- Imagery = Ellen Suzanne Baker had grown up in Jay, Florida, a hard-drinking, one-stoplight town near the border of Alabama.
1-Overview
- This part of the book is about when Erik got accepted to the school the mom wanted him to go, teaching him to write and learning where thing are and go plus, about the life of the mother when she was young.

Touch the top of the world

5- Comments
- When Erik was small, his eyes were strange. When the dad saw Erik eyes shaking as the eyes of his were trying to follow the ball that the dad had, his dad was worried.

- The parents called a specialist and when the specialist came, he thought that his eyes were bizarre. The specialist told them that Erik suffered from retinas.

- The doctor saw his eyes and study it he said “he needs surgery”. The mom was so worried and afraid that she went to different hospital to see if there’s another way.

- Erik has a rare disease called retinoschisis that the retinas were attach to his pupils. He can’t see straight ahead. The doctor told Erik parents that he won’t be able to see for the rest of his teenage life.

- When they were going to New Jersey, they stop at a church. People said that priest perform miracles and she(the mother) wanted the full sight of his son. Nobody was there and then she was praying for her son. Erik was scared because of her mother crying the dark place he was in(He could see, but not much). He was also praying with his mom but, for a different reason. He wanted to get uot of the church.

4- Question
- How did Erik got the retinas?
- Why didn’t the parents deside to let the doctor operate Erik when he had the rare disease retinoschsis?
- Why didn’t his parent took him into the hospital rigth away when that first happen when he was a baby?
- Where did the disease retinas came from?
3- Vocabulary
- Haltingly = limping manner
- Disembodied = to free from the body
- Frantic = desperate or wild with excitement, passion, fear, pain and etc.
2- Literary terms
- The men were barefoot, the pads of their feet flat and as thick as soles of our shoes. Simile
- I prayed for my sight so my parents won’t bring me to dark places and sounde so desperate and scared.
Imagry
1- Overview
- This part of the book is about the depression moment of when his had a rare disease and almost can’t see at all.