Close reading

The passage that I picked for the Close Reading activity was: “I thought the Joshua tree was ugly. It looked scraggly and freakish, permanently stuck in its twisted, tortured position, and it made me think of how some adults tell you not to make weird faces because your features could freeze.” (pg 35, paragraph 3) This quote stands out to me because the description doesn’t just show you what the tree looks like, it also shows you what the author thinks of the tree. The author first describes the tree and what she thinks of it and then she compares it to something most people experience in their childhood. The combination of these things really make the quote more interesting and much more memorable as well. Also, I think describing it first was a good move. If the author had compared it to adults telling kids not to make weird faces first it would have been somewhat confusing. This way she sort of lays it out on the table for whoever is reading the book and then adds humor to the whole experience. The author’s voice is also very clear in this quote. You can tell from hearing it that whoever is talking is probably not an adult. In addition, it seems like this person is very smart and knows a lot of words most people that young probably wouldn’t know. This could be the author’s doing and not necessarily exactly the way her younger self would have thought about it. However, it kind of just seems like the author was very literate from a very young age. I personally think the part where the author says it reminded her of “how some adults tell you not to make weird faces because your feature could freeze” is the best part. I enjoyed it the most because of the humor and because of how relatable it was for me. I remembered how weird it was to hear that myself from adults in my life. I don’t think I believed whoever told me, but it felt like such an odd thing to have someone say to me that I remembered it.