Black and White

After reading the book I definitely have to say that I think socioeconomic status had to do with what happened to Marcus and Eddie. I do think that it had a lot to do with race issues too, but I think mostly it was SES because of the difference between the lawyers that the boys had. I felt that because of the fact that Eddie could pay for a better lawyer had a big effect on the fact that Marcus got sent to jail way before Eddie. I think that if Marcus would have had a better lawyer, then maybe he would have been able to stay out of jail longer. The way that the book ended, I don't think that Eddie will have as harsh a sentence as Marcus. It seems like maybe Eddie will get off with a sentence like only a year in jail. It's very troubling because this kind of thing can be seen happening all over the place and I think that in smaller towns it's less about SES and more about racism. I just think that overall, the kind of thing that happened to Marcus and Eddie would the same result, but for different reasons, in other places.

Thompson Article

I'll be as honest as possible. This article was confusing and difficult to read, but basically what I got out of it is that there aren't a lot of challenges being posed to children in the literature that is directed at them. There is overall a use of vocabulary that is easy, along with words that are very short. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think that books need to be extremely complicated or complex to read, but I do think that they sometimes need to be a little more realistic when it comes to actually giving an accurate depiction of what a child is going to be expected to deal with later in their educational careers. How often will children actually read something that is so easy to get through? The answer is not often, because upon reaching high school and college, children will realize that they are going to have to read things that are time consuming and difficult to get through, showing them that later in life reading becomes a more of a chore than anything else. If reading were all fun and games, then I'm sure that everyone would love it. I don't think that kids are exposed to enough things that give them a taste of whats to come and I think that if there was children's literature that started introducing them earlier to more challenging reads and topics, then there definitely wouldn't be students who have a hard time adapting once the reach college.