It’s OK to be a Monster!

Part A.

Monster. Ugh. This book is one of the most difficult I’ve had to read. That being said, I find the subject very interesting, as my mother is a lawyer and she has dealt with cases like this before. My mom is a prosecutor for the county of LA, so she defends the people of LA. I love my mom dearly, but I’ve seen her in court and she is a very different person in court; she’s similar to Petrochelli. She does her job well and has to believe that whoever she is against is guilty in order to be successful with her job. Unfortunately for the defense, she wins almost every time. I’ve been trying to keep my mother in mind while reading Monster.

I think my favorite parts of monster are his journal entries. For anyone who hasn’t read Monster, it’s about a 16 year old boy who is on trial for murder, but he is writing a screenplay about his life and the trial (sorry should have mentioned that earlier^). He occasionally separates scenes with journal entries that are very deep and personal. They are pretty much the only time we get to see what he is really thinking and feeling. Because of the way this book is written and structured, it is very difficult to read. Your eyes have to adjust to reading the name of the person speaking before each new line, and you have to develop the emotions and setting more on your own.

This book would be hard for children to read alone, but I think it would be a good middle school group activity to do. I think I would use the journal entries as a guide for their own journal. I would give them a scenario every day and they could write about the hardships of the life in that scenario. It could be a very creative writing piece and they could reference the book if they got stuck. Another idea is to have them write their own screenplays of a situation they remember clearly from home, or even something they have made up. I think it would be really interesting to see what they have to say about the court scenes in Monster. My mother has been a lawyer my whole life and it’s taken me that long to fully understand all the steps that go on. It might be beneficial to go over each character before reading out loud, talk about their significance in the book, and how they think those characters have changed or not.

Part B.

I’m only a Monster ( title) <<< lines used from book

The best time to cry is at night

all the blood in my veins were bubbling

all the thoughts in my head were buzzing

you can’t cut this out

this is reality, this is the real deal

I think about all the tomorrow of your life

and how my whole life will be gone tomorrow