Wednesday, March 9, 2011

independent reading reasponse revised

I am reading a book called "Jews without money" this book is a half fictional autobiography. It is Michael Gold's autobiography and it was used in the holocaust as Nazi propaganda. This book is about a 6 year old boy named Mikey who lives in the lower east side during the early 1900's. Mikey belongs to what he refers to as a gang but really it's just his little group of friends. Mikey has seen some pretty crazy stuff and known (sort of) what they were, he taunts prostitutes, makes friends with a pimp, takes care of a hobo and meets a one eyed gangster and he’s only six.

What this book so far has showed me is that the lower east side wasn't all just factories and big busy streets; it also had its little alleyways where all the dirty business goes on. whenever i use to hear of the olden days lower east side I always thought of busy streets pushcarts and such which, don't get me wrong are in the book, but you never are told of the dirty things that go on. This actually really interested me while I first read it. Another very weird thing for me at least is the fact that this 6 year old kid is basically living his life in these back alleys and he makes friends with pimps and hobos and prostitutes, it just seems weird.

Then again though those were different times and I really don't know what the norm was back then. I really am now interested as to what the norm was back then and how it compares to today. I would imagine that it would be much looser back then as apposed to now. I also wonder what kids used to do for fun I mean now it is watching tv or playing video games but back then it couldn’t have been and I think these kids then would have a whole different mind set then what they have today. Sort of going off what u was saying, I bet that the same exact kid raised back then and raised today would be completely different, but that’s only my opinion.

No comments:

Post a Comment