Top Ten List

Top Ten List

This is a list of the top ten things you should know about Wolf Boy before reading it.

1. Plot.
Wolf Boy is a very deep story about a family where something horrible happens and it flips their world upside down. Francis one of the sons dies in a terrible car accident and everyone in the family gets greatly impacted by it.The Mother goes off the deep end. The Father acts as if he doesn't have a family anymore.Stephen the younger brother tries to keep his family together and help his girlfriend Nicole with her problems.Stephen starts writing comics to let out his emotions and they relate to what is happening at the time.

2.Comics
Stephen was really close to his brother and his death really affected him. He doesn't know how to let out his feelings.He starts to write comics called Wolf Boy. Every comic relates to what is happening in his life at the time and you can see how he feels about the situation which is really interesting.He sells the comics at the gas station.His girlfriend Nicole helps with the illustrations. His dad is really saddened when he finds the comics because the comics lack a father figure in them.

3.Stephen
Stephen is the younger brother of Francis. Stephen is the main character in the book. He holds most of weight of what happened on his shoulders.He tries his hardest to keep the family together. He was extremely close to Francis and was the person the most affected by it.He sits in the forest where him and his brother used to play as children and he just sits there and thinks about things.

4.Hallucinations
Hallucinations are a very big and strange part of this book.After Francis's death Stephen and Francis's girlfriend start seeing hallucinations of Francis. Most of the hallucinations involve Francis in some sort of body of water. Stephen's mom also hallucinates that she is floating up and can not stay on the ground, which shows that she feels detached from the world.At first they find the hallucinations weird but then they start to try and "find Francis" more and more often. They try and figure out why this is happening and what it is supposed to mean.

5.Francis's Death
Francis was the older brother to Stephen and Crispy, a son to Gene and Helen and a boyfriend to Nicole. Everyone was very close to each other. Francis and Nicole had to go to a debate about mushrooms,one of Francis's favorite interests, on a cold blizzardy day.They slid out and a truck hit the car. Francis flew out of the car because he wasn't wearing a seatbelt. The driver of the truck just sat in his truck not doing anything. Nicole called for help and stayed by Francis's side. Francis's death impacted everyone.The family could not get back to normal life.

6.Mom goes to jail.
Helen,Francis's mom, was so upset because the state kept accidentally resending her the death certificate of Francis. She was so upset that one day she went to the office and brutally attacked one of the workers.Security came and took her away. She had to stay in jail before her husband bailed her out. After that she had to go to meetings for a year. She liked attacking the woman and felt good about it. She felt that is was one of the only ways she could get closure from Francis's death. The family supported her and was worried about her mental state.

7.Setting
The setting of this story is in a suburban town.Most readers could relate to the setting. Some parts of the book have hallucinations in the them and they go to different strange places for example when Nicole went and swam with Francis by diving into the T.V.They describe the area where Francis had his accident as gloomy and sad. Any place involving Francis is describe as depressing.

8.Evan Kuhlman
Evan Kuhlman is the author of Wolf Boy. One interesting thing about that is Evan lost an older brother at a young age in a car accident just as in Wolf Boy.Wolf Boy was the first book he had written it as a student in the graduate creative writing program at Miami University.Evan wanted to add something interesting and different to his books, that is why he actually added comics into the book to give you a deeper understanding about what was going on. Evan is a highly reviewed author.

9.Stephen smokes
Stephen secretly met up with Nicole to visit Francis's grave.Stephen learns that his brother wasn't the perfect kid like he though he was. Francis turned out to be a big stoner. Stephen wanted to be like his brother so he asked Nicole if she had any pot. He smoked for his first time and then visited Francis's grave. Although that is not a good message it is really cool that Stephen felt a connection when he went to "visit" Francis.He did not smoke later through out the book but he talks about it and is fascinated that his brother did it regularly.

10.Love
Love was really scarce after Francis's death.Stephen's father cheated on his mother. Stephen's mother plans on getting a divorce.Nicole can't seem find someone she loved as much as she loved Francis. Stephen and his girlfriend are the only ones who seemed to get closer after his death. They relied on each other as each others support systems. Towards the end everyone tries to mend things with each other but things can never be the same.

Outside Reading 1-15-08

Post A:

Gauge(278): to estimate

Guffawed(235): To laugh heartily and boisterously.

"But the she saw Francis, in tattered black shades, attempting to swim alongside the highway in a ditch that held maybe five inches of rainwater.She honked the car horn and wished him peace,but decided not to stop."(288)

Jasmine,Francis's girlfriend, was driving along and saw another hallucination of Francis swimming.This quote is important because if she would have seen him any time earlier she would have stopped and tried to catch up with him. This quote shows that she is moving on with her life.

Post B:

Stephen's birthday had come and he was very disappointed because he did not see Francis's ghost/hallucination. His parents gave him a meager gift and Stephen was really saddened by it. Helen,Gene,Stephen,Nicole and Crispy went out to stargaze one night. Gene had been trying to put his family back together. He went to some of Helen's group therapy meetings. He had been spending more and more time with Stephen and Crispy.Helen and Gene seemed to have started to re-connect but Helen wants to get a divorce and move somewhere warm where she can be a teacher.Everyone seems to be moving on with there lives since Francis's death.

Post 4 Outside Reading

Post A:

Feebly(135):physically weak

Juke(165):to make a move intended to deceive

"Helen suddenly wasn't feeling right. Too airy, almost weightless, like the forces holding her earthbound had taken a hit. She tried to breathe in deeply, to center herself, but her rhythm was screwy: she could inhale okay, but as soon as she tried to exhale she'd be inhaling again, as if her body was trying to puff itself up with air, aiding buoyancy"(145)

Stephen's mom like everyone else in the family has been feeling weird lately and haven't gone back to their usually selves. This quote shows an example of that, Helen thinks she is floating away from the earth.

Post B:

Stephen has been hanging out with his girlfriend Nicole a lot more lately. They have been drawing their comic books more and more and the story lines relate to there life. The man who hit Francis's car and killed him came and visited the family. Stephen then wrote a comic about a villain and, the villain resembles the man in the car and is very bad and accidentally kills or hurts innocent people.Helen Stephen's mother goes crazy and thinks she will float away.She goes to the Emergency Room and they give her depressants but they don't work so, she checks into a mental hospital for three days.She feels as though her husband doesn't love her anymore as shown in this quote. "Where did it all go? Passion and love, those crazy kids, must have run off together, she though.'Come back you liars' she asked of them. Or maybe it was the waves that night at the dunes, wetting the sand again and again, that whispered lies to Helen about continuance , that Gene's love would stay, that the children she would someday bear would grow up and grow old. Or was it Gene who said, and sang, those lies."(158)As you can see she is deeply saddened by her husband. Having her son Francis die is making her re-think all her relationships.

Post 3 Outside Reading

Post A:

(pg 100)Fared: to turn out.
(pg 110)Begrudgingly:to be reluctant to give.

"Above him, the sky was a deep seawater blue, perfect for swimming in if his brother was still up there, and the sun was curling light into everything living, including Stephen. It was late June, and ever though his brother was still very dead at least life was starting to cook."(pg 96)

This quote is significant because Stephan still misses his brother and thinks about him often, but is very pleased that friends and family have started to move on a little. Things are slowly going back to as normal as they can be.

Post B:

Wolfboy is very deep. It shows the inner turmoil someone goes through when something tragic happens. Stephen always thinks about Francis and swear he sees him everywhere they used to go together. It is how he copes with his death. He goes to the woods a lot and "talks" to Francis or just wanders and looks at mushrooms. Francis was fascinated by mushrooms. Stephen has become very interested in them and has started doing everything his brother loved. His father is still very upset and same with his mother. Stephen feels as though she doesn't even notice him anymore and is deeply saddened."Stephen panicked, felt too far away from his own life. He climbed down quickly and ran into the house.' I'm Home,' he said loudly.' I didn't know you were not home' Helen said from the kitchen."(pg 100) That quote is an example of why Stephen feels so sad.

Post 2 Outside Reading

Post 1 Outside Reading

Post A:

(pg 13)Vigor: active strength or force.
(pg 14) Spangled:to sprinkle or stud with small, bright pieces, objects.

" He looked at the phone and suddenly remembered that Francis owned a pager, so he dashed over to it and plugged it in and quickly punched in the number followed by 911. "Call back," Stephen begged his brother. The pager buzzed somewhere, at a hospital, or in the smashed car, or alongside a dangerous road, but Francis never called back"(pg 20)

This quotes is significant because Stephen just found out his brother had died in a car accident. He was very distressed because his brother ,Francis, was his best friend. Stephen is trying to reach out and talk to him one last time.

Post B:

Wolf Boy is a pretty decent book. Right in the first chapter Stephen's brother Francis dies. It is very sad because Stephen doesn't know how to cope with it. His mother seems very distressed after Francis's death she hasn't made dinner for the family. She has just stayed in her room and occasionally talks to her family."Gene took a minute to gather himself, then turned and slogged by his family, then turned and slogged by his family, saying only, 'See you back at the ranch,'his voice quavering. When he made it to the Honda he started it up and raced the engine, the pistons screaming on his behalf, and then drove away. Stephen wished later that he had ridden home with his father. That must have been the loneliest drive the old man ever took."(pg 27) This quote help shows that everyone in the family is having a rough time. It also helps show that Stephen wants everyone to be ok and not to be sad.I like the book so far and i'm sure things will get interesting because the title is very interesting.

Outside reading quater two

• Wolf Boy by Evan Kuhlman
  
• Published in 2006
• Fiction
• 322 pages
• I got it in the Literature and Fiction section.
• I chose my book because I liked the cover and the explanation on the back seemed very interesting!