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Sally Smith
Core A
November 14, 2013
Greeting
Dear Ms. Kwayzer,
I have just finished the book Freak the Mighty by Rodman Philbrick and I really loved the
book. Freak the Mighty is realistic fiction and is a genre that I often choose, but this book also
had adventure, mystery, and comedy which made it that much better. The main characters,
Max and Kevin, are two kids that are the most unlikely pair of friends. Everyone is afraid of Max
because he is HUGE compared to most people and everyone knows about his crazy past and
why his father is in prison. Kevin is known as Freak because people perceive him as different
because he is physically handicapped causing him to only be two feet tall. What is so interesting
is that Max thinks he is a butthead and not smart enough to read a book and Freak is possibly
the smartest kids in the world. I am not very good at math so I can relate to how Max feels, but
love to read to I am also a lot like Freak in the book. The part that keeps me reading are all the
adventures the boys go on and how people bully them both based on their size and handicaps.
I see bullying a lot in middle school and always try to be the best person I can be to help others
in those situations. My teacher knew I liked realistic fiction and that topic and recommended
this book to me.
At the beginning of the novel, I inferred that Max’s dad murdered his mother because
throughout my reading, I noticed that Max lives with his grandparents, Grim and Gram, and the
always referred to his mother in the past tense. Also, because everyone in town knows that
Max’s dad is in prison. Later in the book, you find out people refer to Max’s dad as “Killer
Kane.” The line from the novel that first made me infer all of this was on page 4. “Grim out in
the kitchen one night, after supper whispering to Gram had she noticed how much Maxwell
was getting to look like him? Which is the way he always talked about my father, who had
married his dear departed daughter and produced, eek, eek, Maxwell. Grim never says my
father’s name, just him, like his name is too scary to say.”
I feel that I am a decent reader and understand most of the novels I choose. I am a
slower reader and it takes me a little more time to finish my novels. I always visualize what I
think the characters look like in my head as I am reading so I can really see what is happening as
I am reading. I also think I do a great job when I come to a word I don’t know and can figure
out what it means in the context of the sentence. Sometimes I might have to use a dictionary if
I can’t figure it out. My reading goals for this trimester are to read at home for twenty to thirty
minutes each day so I can finish my book in time to complete the project. Also, my goal is to
read a book that is longer than 300 pages. Most of the books I have read up until 7 th grade
were 250 pages or less.
Closing
Your Student,
Sally Smith