Tuesday, September 24, 2013

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.

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