Theme & Summary- Checkpoint 3

       A part of the text that I am going to summarize is after the Skidmore's get home from Mr. James Reardon's office. While at his office, Jonah and his family don't really learn much about Jonah's background and who he has become. Jonah was adopted and gets mysterious letters from unknown senders, and he wants to find out the point behind those letters and why he and his friend Chip are getting them. When they are at Mr. Reardon's office, Katherine takes a couple pictures of some secret documents that were on his desk.

       As soon as they get home from his office, Katherine and Jonah want to tell their adopted friend Chip about what happened. They head to his house and bring along the pictures to upload to the computer, and they zoom them in on the computer. On a page that says witnesses, they see the names Jonah Skidmore and Chip Winston lying directly next to eachother. This gets Jonah freaked out in the matter of seconds.

       Not wanting to learn anymore, Jonah races back home as fast as he can. He sees a mysterious figure lurking in his room, and asks his parents what they were doing in his room. It wasn't them. When Jonah races up the stairs as fast as he can, he doesn't find anything creeping in his room. All he sees is a letter sitting on his table, that he sworn he had somewhere else in his room. When Katherine finally comes home, she tells him that her and Chip were calling all of the names on the lists, and that all of those people were adopted and got the letters.

      One of the themes that I have begun to notice in Found is that you should try to attack your fears or obstacles in life. This theme starting coming along after Jonah and Chip got the second letters, because they were both curious to find out more about themselves and see what these letters are all about. As soon as Chip finds out he was adopted and they get the second letters, Chip and Jonas start meeting up at each other's house to gather information.

       "Today, coming home on the school bus, Chip had gotten obsessed with the idea that he had to see his birth certificate, that it would tell him everything he needed to know. So now the two boys were crouched beside a wall safe in Chip's basement." (Peterson-Haddix, 36)

       This part of the story showed how Chip and Jonah wanted to help each other learn more about themselves, and so they decided to try and break into Chip's dad's safe in the basement. When Chip learned that he was adopted, that became an obstacle for him and so he wanted to get over it. Finding out what your background was like was one of the biggest steps they took.

       When Jonah and Chip find out both of them are linked to James Reardon, that brings even greater fear into the two of them. The fact that they are both adopted raises the question of whether they came from the same place, considering they live next to each other.

       "She offered to call him for us, but she was so scattered I thought it might be better if we met with him ourselves. Would you like me to arrange that, Jonah? (Peterson-Haddix, 69)
       "Yes," Jonah said. (Peterson-Haddix 70)

       When Jonah finds out that he is connected to James Reardon in some way, he wants to learn more about himself. Considering that Chip also found a file with that name made Jonah even more confused. Jonah wanted to schedule that meeting because he wanted to find out where he was born, who his birth parents were, and why he is in the situation he is in today. Although the meeting didn't go too well, this showed Jonah attacking his fear and trying to get over it.

       I'm sure this theme will come back when I get deeper into the book, and will stretch my ideas when that comes.

Found- Reading Skills

       While I have been reading the book Found, there have actually been some things that I could relate to and understand better, which help me make predictions. The main point so far in the book is how Jonah and Chip are both adopted, and then how they keep getting mysterious letters that say "You are one of the missing". Receiving these letters gets both of them worried, and they do not know what may come next. Knowing these things helps me make predictions.

      Later on in the text, I think Jonah and Chip will have to go to some private meeting place to talk to people who know things about each of them. I make this prediction because Jonah went to a meeting with some man named James Reardon, who supposedly had some information about Jonah but was unwilling to give them the big details. It can lead you to think that Mr. Reardon will probably want to meet up with Jonas at a later point because he didn't give them the important parts of Jonah's questions.

       "Not always," Mr. Reardon said. "Many times we have strong reasons to keep something like this secret. And I can't tell you the reasons without giving away the secrets. Quite a quandry, isn't it?" (Peterson Haddix, 85)

       Mr. Reardon says he doesn't want to give away secrets now, which could mean he gives them away later in the book.

Some things that I wonder are why is Jonah so honest about being adopted, while Chip gets all worrried when people mention it to him? Also, why can't Mr. Reardon even tell them where Jonah was born? I think he should have the right to know where he is from. Finally, why would Mr. Reardon get all snotty with them when all they wanted to know was where Jonah was from and some of his background?

        A text-text connection I can make is to a magazine article I read about adoption. It really was an interesting read because it talked about how some kids react differently to being adopted than others. This is just like Jonah and Chip because Jonah isn't embarrassed to be adopted and tells everyone, but Chip didn't even know he was adopted and got sad when his parents told him.

      A text-self connection I can make is that I have an adopted cousin who is from China. Now she is seven, but she also has a lot of questions about her origins just like Jonah. She sometimes asks who her birth parents were, and why she isn't with them anymore. This is actually really sad to think about, but her family conforts her. Jonah's family does this too and doesn't exclude him from anything.

      A text-world connection that I think of is how people that find out they are from another country want to go back to that place. These peole find out about their origin, and want to go back to where they made their start and see what it's like there. Jonah wants to find out about where he was born and thinks that it would be cool to see his surroundings from when he was born. This adoption story is just like people going back to their home town to see what it is like.
      
 Adoption Article

Found Update

      I have been reading the book Found, and there have been multiple advancements in the plot. When I had left off, Jonah had just been informed by his dad that a man named James Reardon had information about Jonah. It was mysterious because Jonah found a post-it note in Chip's basement with the same name on it, and they are both adopted. Jonah wanted to learn more about this Reardon guy, so he and his parents decided to set up a meeting with him to discuss Jonah's past.

      When their family gets to the office, they already can sense something weird is going on there. Jonah gets handed a free mountain dew by a random janitor, and Mr. Reardon says a lot of things that sound suspicious. He refuses to tell Jonah where he was actually born, which was very confusing to me.
       "Is he a naturalized American citizen or native born?" Mr. Reardon shrugged, still smiling.
       "Why does it matter?"

       This part of the meeting shows how Mr. Reardon was very awkward and was unwilling to give the Skidmore's any information about Jonah. He wouldn't even tell them where Jonah was born, and was really trying to hide from all of the questions they were trying to ask him.

       While in the meeting Jonah has to throw up, so he rushes to the bathroom. In there he sees a different janitor, who tells him to look at a file on Mr. Reardon's desk. Jonah gets confused by this, but his sister Katherine was able to get pictures of the files.
     

   

Characterization- Found

     
        In the beginning of the book Found, Jonah and Chip were just hanging out when they found a strange letter in Jonah's mailbox. Little did they know was that these letters would keep on coming. At first they thought that these letters were just pranks being put on them, but they kept on getting more mysterious and making their heads boggle. They thought they were just fine, but realized they might be in trouble as the book move alongs.

       In the beginning of the book we find out that Jonah is adopted, but we didn't discover that Chip was also until he got the same mysterious letter as Jonah. They seem to be pretty different because Jonah accepts the fact that he is adopted, but Chip is embarrassed and gets angry. They advance the plot by trying to figure out where Chip is from by breaking into his parents' safe. To show that Jonah doesn't really care the text says, "Then he sneaked a glance to Chip, to see if this made a difference. It didn't to Jonah-he'd always known he was adopted, and as far as he was concerned, it wasn't much more of a deal than his liking mint chocolate-chip ice cream while Katherine liked orange sherbet." (Haddix, 13)

        In the beginning of the book you could kind of tell that Jonah was more laid back and Chip was very worrisome, but Jonah is also turning worrisome. He starts to realize that these letters may not be a coincidence, but may have something to do with the fact that he is adopted. Chip and Jonah are starting to worry, and they always check with eachother about updates with the other one getting letters. "Jonah? Dad said, sounding worried now. "I'm here," Jonah said. "The phone must have cut for a minute." If in doubt, blame the technology. He gulped and tightened his grip on the bricks. "This guy...what does he know about me?" (Haddix 100) You can tell how Jonah doesn't want to hear more about the situation.

I can infer that they continue to gain fear in themselves because the letters are certainly not uplifting and bring up concern.

Found- New Advancements

       As I continued to read Found, I sort of realized a changing in the theme or idea of the story. I predicted correctly, that they would continue to get more letters, and the letters are changing how Jonah and Chip feel about themselves. "Beware! They're coming back to get you!" Jonah recited tonelessly. "It took no effort to remember; he'd stared at the words for so long the night before that it seemed like they were imprinted on his eyeballs." Jonah is starting to get worried, and him reading it over and over shows that.

       Jonah decided he wanted to know more about himself, and he asked his parents if they had any other information. They got back to him, and a name they found in documents was James Reardon. The same name found on a post-it in Chip's house. I stopped reading there, but I am very intrigued to continue reading the book. I wonder how the same name shows up for both Jonhs and Chip? Maybe they are from the same place and handled by the same people...

Found- Margaret Peterson Haddix

       So far throughout the book, it is tough to come up with themes or summarize the characters. The book is about two adopted boys named Jonah and Chip and they each receive a mysterious letter saying "You are one of the missing". At first they think the letters are just pranks put on them, but they then think the letters may be serious. It is hard to draw a theme from the first fifty pages, but one might be that even if you are adopted, you are still cared for by someone. Chip gets mad at the fact that he is adopted, but Jonah helps calm him down by using quotes about adoption. He says, "You know there are lots of reasons people can't take care of their own kids. Maybe your birth parents died. Maybe you're adopted from Russia or someplace like that, where things are different." (Haddix, 34)

       We meet the two main characters, Chip and Jonah, whom have only known each other for a couple of months. They seem to be pretty different because Jonah accepts the fact that he is adopted, but Chip is embarrassed and gets angry. They advance the plot by trying to figure out where Chip is from by breaking into his parents' safe. To show that Jonah doesn't really care the text says, "Then he sneaked a glance to Chip, to see if this made a difference. It didn't to Jonah-he'd always known he was adopted, and as far as he was concerned, it wasn't much more of a deal than his liking mint chocolate-chip ice cream while Katherine liked orange sherbet." (Haddix, 13)

      I can predict that Jonah and Chip continue to get strange letters because they are both adopted. My cousin is adopted from China, but she really doesn't even care about it. So far I like the book and think it will get better.