Night John: reading response (theme)  

                The book night John an amazing read for me, it  had taught me so much and so many ways slaves were treated. This book was by Gary Paulson and he really inspired me in so many ways. In the beginning a little girl named Sarny was picking tobacco and saw a man pulling a horse and a slave owner by his neck. This part was the most shocking because this showed how cruel slavery was. I felt really awful because that part because it was so descriptive. The way that Sarny described that scene was devastating because the man was sweating, had scars all  and over his back, he was constantly being whipped if he slowed down. It was so harsh that you could really picture the moment. Overtime the slave that was dragging the owner of the plantation was named night john. He taught kids that were slaves, he went underground to teach kids that were slaves how to read and write.

Letters: ever since life went on with a new slave named night john, he has been teaching Sarny how to read and write but secretly. Every day he teaches her a new letter and how to write it. I really thought that that was touching because John is risking his life to teach a young child to read and write. So basically john is like a teacher and she’s the student, which is showing how unfair slavery really was. Learning letters as a slave must have been fascinating because they don’t learn anything because all they are expected to know is how to pick and grow crops. Each day while John is teaching Sarny how to read and write, the slave owner starts to get suspicious. One day when Sarny is “suppose” to be picking cotton she starts to retrace what John has been teaching her, she starts tracing the letters A,B and C in the dirt but she does not notice that the owner is coming her way. He approaches her and says “{ what you tracing in that dirt” and she does not reply. He kicks her and kicks her until she speaks but nothing comes out. He kicks her across the face and her mother  steps in and says “ ME, I was the one that taught her the letters” and he walks over to her and rips off her shirt in front of a croud of men and woman. She is tied by her arm and legs until she confesses where she learned how to write but she doesn’t.

Alice: A big part of the story is where a woman named Alice who cannot stand working for the owner and just gets fed up with him one day and tries to make a run for it, she feels as though no one is going to find her but deep down inside she feels the guilt and taste of regret. She keeps running through the night thinking that she is same although she knows that they shall find her. I feel like it was not a good idea to run away from the plantation because everyone knows the concqeuence that you will face if you disobey orders. She hears the sound of hungry vicous dogs nearby but thinks nothing of it. The sound starts to get closer and closer. She starts to run faster and faster, but its too late the dogs catch up, she is being bitten all over her back and feels the thought of regret and pain. The dogs drag her back to the rotten plantation. Alice’s back is ripped and sore, the woman of the plantation put salt and cloth to heal the bruise. She never talks again, she just laid in that same corner that she died in.

An overall summary of this book is that it was very suspenseful but sad at the same time because there was so many scenes in the book that sounded so realistic. I really enjoyed the part at the end where him and Sarny just leave the plantation at night to travel to the underground railroad to teach other kids to read and write. That part of the book was the best, because it wasn’t about hanging anyone or people dying because of stress or pain in general. I also feel that this book was based on a real story although it wasn’t.