Fleabrain Loves Franny

I loved reading this book! I couldn't wait to finish it, and now I did. Franny is stronger now, she can't walk yet, but she's better. Fleabrain took her on more adventures like shrinking to his size so she can know his world and he took her through all the 7 wonders of the world in one night. It's Franny's birthday and she is inviting some friends over, like her best friend Walter Walter, Katy and Teresa (the girl who thought she was contagious). Fleabrain and Franny shrink Nurse Olivegarten temporally but they regret it later when they discover there's no instant cure for it. She had a little fight with Fleabrain and they stop talking and spending time together. Fleabrain tries to reach Franny with his letters but she isn't responding to any of them. One day Franny starts to miss Fleabrain and she wants to be his friend again. They become friends again but they don't talk as much as they did before. Franny tries to go back to her old school but they say she can't assist anymore because she's in a wheelchair and the school is not designed for wheelchairs. Alf is scratching a lot and Franny's parents suspect he has fleas and they are about to put a flea spray that kills all fleas and Franny is worried about Fleabrain dying because of the spray, but luckily he doesn't die. At the end, Franny goes to the front of her old school and protests because she can't assist there. Now everyone understands that Franny isn't contagious and that they can get close to her without catching Polio as well. Some scientists finally discover a cure for Polio.

"Spring had always meant hope to Franny, for good times and imagined beginnings." (Rocklin 183)

This quote is really important in the book. It shows how Franny is starting to feel like she can do anything she can to feel better and recover soon. Before she had just wished that she got better, now she has hope and she is sure that she will be better really soon and that she can go back to do the things she did before she caught Polio. This happened when Franny knew that some scientist found a vaccine that would help cure Polio and all of Franny's family was happy about that. Unfortunately, the vaccine had to be tested in order to be able to sell it and for people to use it without having any colateral damage later.  However, it was too late now, for Franny to take the vaccine, there was nothing she could do at this point. everyone was upset that the cure wasn't found before so Franny could get cured faster. Franny got a little mad because she felt that she was never going to get better, but she had hope and she knew, even though sometimes she thought she couldn't, that she would get better. Her family tried to help her by telling her that the exercises that Nurse Olivegarten made her do to get better. It is important in Franny's recovery that her family is there for her when she needs them and that they will help her understand what she's going through.

"He was happy for her. Oh, he was so happy for her. He was happy" (Rocklin 224)

This quote is when Francine and Fleabrain fight. Fleabrain missed Franny very much and he missed the moments he spent with her. He wrote a lot of letters to her, hoping for an answer but he didn't get one, Franny didn't answered to his many letters, she was sad. Fleabrain wasn't angry, he just missed her, she was a true friend to him. They were so close, it hurt having to lose contact with someone that close to you, specially when you care about that person, you care about him/her so much, that even though you two are in a fight, you want the other person to be happy and you wish them the best, even when you don't admit you do. That's how important friendship is, your true friends will always treat you well and they will always care for you, if they aren't your true friends they wont'c care if you are mad with them because they don't value your friendship, unlike true friends who will always appreciate you for who you are inside. Those are the ones you have to stick with because those are the ones that will never let you down, those friends are the ones YOU can't lose and you have to take care of them because they have value in your life.







I chose to include this specific picture because it relates to Franny's situation. she is ill, but if there's a "we" in her life, she will get better, as it explains in the picture. That "we" is the support all of us need to move on and go forward.








I'm really glad about how the book ended. Franny is stronger than ever. She has a strong character and that's what matters in life. Franny has showed me that you don't have to give up and that even in the toughest moments in your life, you have to keep your chin up and, the most important, never lose hope because with hope you will find a solution to the problems you thought were impossible to solve. At the end, Franny and Fleabrain reconcile and they go back to being friends again. I really hope that Franny fully recovers from Polio and that she can go back to normal as she wanted. I'm also glad that medicine has advanced because now it is less probable that someone with Polio dies or never fully recovers than back to the time when Franny lived. I think that medicine is one of the biggest progresses that our world has been successful with. Something I learned with this book is that friendship can make a stormy weather feel like a calm sunset in the sea shore. It also taught me that I have to value my friends because one day I may lose them, and I will not like how that feels. I really recommend this book because it teaches you many things, like the importance of friendship and little moments.

Fleabrain Loves Franny

Spider Charlotte's web dedicated to her Wilbur, her pig friend.

Fleabrain Loves Franny is a book wrote by Joanne Rocklin, it's about a girl named Franny Katzenback who lives in Pittsburgh and has Polio, in 1952. She starts receiving notes from a flea that lives in Alf's tail (Alf is Franny's dog) named Fleabrain, he is like her Charlotte from Charlotte's Web (Franny's favorite book). Franny returned to her house after being in treatment for her illness and when she finally meets Fleabrain, they go on  marvelous adventures together. Nurse Olivegarten was Franny's nurse who was sure that her treatment will make Franny walk again and get rid of her wheelchair but Franny thinks that the treatment is painful and she doesn't like to do it. The first adventure Franny and Fleabrain had was when Fleabrain took Franny in a magical horse ride because Franny had never tried a ride in a horse before, and she couldn't try it now because of Polio but Fleabrain used his FB Saliva #1 to make Franny able to ride a horse in the middle of a night through the sky. Nurse Olivegarten always wanted Franny to show everyone her progress but franny wasn't comfortable with that, at least not under that kind of pressure, but she did insist her sister Min to let her walk a bit, even though she couldn't do it.

"Franny's heart ached. Loneliness hurt." (Rocklin 77)

 The previous quote shows a moment when Franny is feeling sad. 'Loneliness hurt', that's what Franny felt, loneliness, before she had Polio she had many friends, and they played with her outside and they were kind. Everything changed when she went back home, they didn't played with her anymore, she couldn't play the things they played, she was in a wheelchair now and she was far from walking and running. Some of her old friends said that she was contagious so if they touched her, they would have Polio too. Fleabrain wanted to end that loneliness and that's why he used magic to make Franny happy, but he didn't realized that that's not the only thing she needed to reencounter the joy in her life. Franny also felt bad because of her sister, who had always been the "saint" one, but Franny knew that she was no saint and that she was just pretending to be good to Franny because she was sick. But later she discovers that Min really cared about her and although she wasn't saint she still cared a lot about her younger sister. Sister Ed, she was what Franny missed the most from the Children's Hospital. She was a kind nurse that motivated Franny and she helped her through hard times during her recovery, it was hard for both them having to say goodbye after such memorable days at the hospital. Now, Franny's motivation was Fleabrain, he was her friend and he was the one who will help her cure.

"She'd wiggled one left toe, but in real life! She was looking right at it, wiggling away. Her toe bobbed above the water, then under, then up again, like a dancing toe-fish. Or a puppet. And she, Franny, was the puppeteer!" (Rocklin 79)

Yay! Franny moved all by herself, just a toe, but something is better than nothing. This event happened when Franny was in the bathtub and she was taking a normal bath with the help of her nurse until she got a call and left Franny in the water. She started to imagine how would it be if she could actually move her legs by herself without braces and without supporters. She tried calling Nurse Olivegarten but she couldn't hear over her phone call. This was a moment that brought hope to Franny. Hope that she would finally be able to walk, run and play just like old times, when nobody thought she was contagious and her friends played with her. This was hope that one day soon, she would be a normal girl. A toe, such a little part of our body, and yet, moving it means a lot. "Enjoy the little things in life for one day you'll look back and realize they were big things" (Unknown), moving a toe may sound insignificance to the majority of us, but what we don't realize is that when you lose the ability to control your body, moving a toe, that insignificant toe, will be the best thing ever because you are controlling it, you are moving it with your brain, the same brain that couldn't move anything before, it moved a toe, your toe. Imagine how joyful Franny was when this happened, she will appreciate this moment forever, it was the start of something big, it was the start of recovery.

I can't wait to keep reading! I really want Franny to be able to play again and go back to her school, I hope that she recovers soon. Fleabrain has been a great friend to Franny and she has really gotten better since she met him, but he really needs to see that Franny doesn't need fantasies, she needs her old reality back. I think that Franny is soon going to be able to do the things she did before and I think that Fleabrain will still be her friend but they won't spend as much time together anymore because Franny will have other things to do now that she is back to normal. I think that her friends who treated her badly will apologize to her, but that isn't so easy to forgive, specially when it was about something as serious as Polio. But Franny is a good friend so she will forgive them and they will go back to what was like before and now everyone will appreciate what they have. But, I can't fill my head with expectations about what's going to happen, the only way of knowing for sure what comes next is to keep reading the book until I'm done with it.

The Giver

The book has finally come to an end. Jonas found his friends playing a war game on a holiday and he tries to stop them from playing it and Asher gets mad at him, but it's helpless, they can't understand what war really is. The next day, The giver explained Jonas what happened ten years ago with the last Receiver, Rosemary, he said that after she saw loss, she was released and the memories she had were set free. Jonas learned what release was when he watched a tape of his father releasing a baby twin, he realized that the baby was killed and he was angry at his dad. The giver tried to explain that nobody knew that release was murder, and that's why they were ok with it. Jonas stayed with The Giver that night and they plan something so the memories are all set free. The plan is this: at the Ceremony in December, Jonas will sneak out of his dwelling at night and will go to the Annex where The Giver will be waiting for him with some food and supplies, then Jonas will go to elsewhere in his bicycle while everybody goes to the ceremony, The Giver will place some if Jonas' clothes beside the river so everyone will think he drowned, when Jonas reaches the edge of elsewhere and crosses it, all the memories he had will be set free and everyone in the community will have them, so The giver must stay there to help everyone handle all the pain. The next day, when Jonas goes home and finds out that Gabe will be released so he leaves that night to be able to save him, he grabs his father's bicycle and the leftovers from the family units' dinners. He goes to elsewhere, where he has to hide from searching planes and manage to survive and keep Gabe alive, he gives him strength with happy memories. By the time he reaches the snowy part of elsewhere, he starts feeling weak, but then he found a sled and he sled down a hill just like in his first memory, he reached the edge of elsewhere safe and with Gabe and he sets all his memories free, he finds a home where he heard music for the first time and he believes that maybe, he heard music from far away, from the place he had left.

"Jonas looked at her. She was so lovely. For a fleeting instant he thought he would like nothing better than to ride peacefully along the river path, laughing and talking with his gentle female friend. But he knew such times had been taken from him now. He shook his head. After a moment his two friends turned and went to their bikes. He watched as they rode away" (Lowry 134)

 The previous quote shows how Jonas' life has changed since he became the new Receiver. He started seeing all the colors and he started feeling. He was able to feel because he stopped taking his stirring pills and he had been feeling for four months. When Fiona asked if he wanted to go on a ride beside the river, he wanted to say yes, but he knew he couldn't because now he had feelings for her. If Jonas went with Fiona in the ride, it wouldn't have been the same as before, because before, Jonas saw Fiona a s his friend and he felt good around her but now, he started to like her, and the created tension and made Jonas feel awkward around her. But this this quote means that Jonas' life changed completely, he now has a different perspective of life, and he wasn't blind anymore, he felt things, he saw things and he knew things that no one else did, he saw the world and he wasn't going back to living a fake life. I think that what Jonas did was the right thing to do because that way he's proving that he can't be controlled or manipulated.

"The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared" (Lowry 153)

I chose this quote because I think it shows a lot about Jonas' relationship with The Giver. After The Giver tells this to Jonas, he says that he is now sharing the memories with him and that he doesn't have to handle the pain by all by himself. It shows how they both care about each other, how they both love each other and they want the other to be safe. I think this is important because caring for each other is what makes a family grow in a healthy way. In some way, Jonas and The Giver have become family, specially because they don't know who their blood relatives are so they need someone they can trust and rely on. This quote shows the importance of sharing because by sharing, you help other people and you help yourself, it also shows the importance of love because with love you can create so much, you can create magical things that feel nice and they give you strength and courage to keep going in your life. If you have someone to truly love, and someone who loves you, you can't give up.

It's so good to have finished the book! I'm glad I liked this book because if I hadn't liked it, it would probably have been really boring for me to read it and answer the questions I was asked about it. I think that Lois Lowry is a very good writer because the way she wrote this book shows us how creative she is, I mean, she created a whole world that isn't like in fairytales, where there's magic or somewhere where the impossible happens, she created a more realistic community that is more similar to our actual world than the other worlds created. This book has many messages to give us, one of them is that we have to fight for what we think is right,  Jonas almost died trying to save his community, he almost starved, froze, but he was brave, and he survived, and he was alive. I would really recommend this book because it's a really good book and once you start it, you just want to keep going until you reach the end without even realizing. I think that if anyone is going to read this book, read it before you watch the movie, that way, you will create a different world in your head, you will imagine differently and that will make the book even more special for you.

I decided to include the trailer of the movie here.