The white horse door Cynthia D. Grant

Title: The White Horse
Writer: Cynthia D. Grant
Date: 17/03/2005

Summary: (Samenvatting)

The White Horse is a story about a girl named Raina.
She is the main character in this book. Raina is a teenage girl with a lot of problems. She has left her dysfunctional family and she moved to the streets. She lives there with her boyfriend and other people. Her boyfriend is addicted to drugs and so are the other people she lives with. Raina has left home, but she still goes to school. She builds up a relationship with her English teacher, Miss. Johnson. Raina really starts to like her teacher, but she’s afraid of getting too much connected with her. That’s because of her own mom. Her mom is abusive and she really doesn’t
love her children. Miss Johnson is really encouraging to Raina and she tells Raina that she’s really good at poetry. But Raina doesn’t seem to like it, and she ignores it. But her boyfriends death (he died, when he was hit by a car) made her think different. Later she finds out that she is pregnant. She has a really hard time. She tries to go back home and try to live with her mom. But again she faces the fact that it really doesn’t make any sense to go back. She has to try living on her own. She heads back to Miss Johnson. Miss Johnson can’t have children her self. Raina thinks that’s pretty sad. Because a 14-year old girl like her is pregnant and a lonely teacher, who’s working with kids every day, can’t even have a child. Raina has made a decision; she decided to stop drinking alcohol and taking drugs. She realizes that she hates her own life and doesn’t want her child to have the same youth as she has had. She thinks stopping is the right decision to make. She wants to have a bright future and she wants to be happy and raise a healthy child.

Dit was de samenvatting, dan heb ik ook nog een 'review' gemaakt voor dit boek:
Een review is een recensie (in het Engels) en kan door zowel jezelf gemaakt zijn als door een ander.

Title: The White Horse

Details: Book, which is written from Raina’s view and from Miss Johnson’s point of view.
Reviewed by: *your name*

Introduction:

This book is about a girl which is fourteen years old. Raina has a lot of problems. She is kicked out of her home and she lives on the streets with her boyfriend. Troubles are coming when something happens to her boyfriend…

Overall opinion:

My opinion is that I think that this is a nice story. It makes me realize that there actually are people who are living like this. I don’t live like this and I don’t know people who are living like this, but I can imagine people who are living like this. Look at Amsterdam for example. When I’m there, I see people in bad clothes and drugs addicted walking there. I can see they have no money, or money they have spending it to drugs. They also have no place to stay. I think that this book expresses all the problems they can have. That Raina is 14 years old, makes it more attractive because she’s approximately my age.

Description of the plot:

Raina left her home. She was always arguing with her mom and so she decided to leave. She lives on the street with her boyfriend. She still goes to school, but she doesn’t see that she has a talent of writing poems. Poems about her own life. Her English teacher, Miss Johnson is encouraging Raina to continue, but she refuses and ignores everything. She does starts to like Miss Johnson who tells Raina she can’t have any kids. Later in the story, Raina gets pregnant. She’s still addicted to drugs, but something is going to change when something happens to her boyfriend.

Introduction of the characters:

Raina: Fourteen year old girl, addicted to drugs, boyfriend, pregnant. Raina is the main character of the book.
Miss Johnson: English teacher, can’t have kids, wants to help Raina.
Sonny: Raina’s boyfriend, also addicted to drugs, dies after a car accident.

Opinions on details of the plot or characters:

The book was written by two points of view; Raina’s and Miss Johnson’s view. I personally don’t like this style of writing. I prefer to write a book which is normally written; just the storyline and not out of someone’s view.

Conclusion:

I think the book is a good book to read for (young)teenagers. They can learn how life is, when you don’t have a home. I see kids every day, and I do know that there are problems which you can’t see. Like violence in households or other nasty things. But this book makes clear that living on the street is not funny and drugs is a bad thing that has a lot of influence on your life. I think that is was very good to read this book in the class. First, the book is not really gripping, but while making a summary of the boos, I started to realize that this book is a good example for Dutch kids. Here in Holland drugs is not always illegal, and it’s not so hard to get it. When I was in my 2nd year of the SGL,
I knew a guy who called a man, and five minutes later he had a few grams of weed.