1. Group G---jmason26

My book Out of Nowhere by Maria Padian it's about a high school student Tom Bouchard who lives in Maine. He goes to a school where Somalian immigrants are now attending. This school is known and being looked at for the immigrants. So far Tom plays soccer and 4 of the Somali kids play on the team. He's been trying to get to know Saeed. In their high school, their civil rights program is trying to express how to get along with everyone and treat people equally. Most of the Somali students don't speak the best English but they're trying their best to fit in. Tom recently has been getting into so little trouble but he's trying to help Saeed on his team. And a few of the others. In my book, I'm not sure if people think it's important to fit in by allowing the other to be themselves. Tom shows he's trying to learn the Somali culture and learn more about Saeed. A scene in my book is when Tom drives 4 of his Somali teammates to dinner and he offers Saeed the front seat. They start talking about Saeed and the kick he did in practice. A quote of this is, “‘That corner kick at practice on Tuesday? Amazing.’ I put my hand out to Saeed, palm up. He grinned, slapped. ‘I don better with no shoes,’ he said. Okay. So he did understand. SOme stuff, at least”(Padian 82). Tom then started asking him about that. He was interested in Saeed and his home life before and how he started playing soccer. Saeed then explained that in Kenya they played with no shin guards and no shoes or socks. He and the other Somali kids explain they share cleats with the JV players and that's why they are late to practice.   Tom shows he wants them to be themselves and try fitting into the community it's just hard because they have a lot of different outlooks on things and food that Tom and his community are learning and trying to comprehend. But then there are the other people who look at and judge the Somali kids for not knowing English and bully them and call them names for not understanding them.

In my book, Out of Nowhere by Maria Padian, Tom is a very knowledgeable person. In this book, it is important to fit in to the author and in general and the reader to come together and not necessarily be alike, but enjoy time with each other and to not have others feel left out. ¨It's like he came out of nowhere.¨(Padian 1) This is the very first thing said in the book, and it gives me an idea of how it is going to go.

In my book The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Oscar the main character is the black sheep of the family. He's very nerdy and on the heavier side and has acne during his middle/highschool days and even still when he is in college. In the beginning the book talks about him and how he was getting girls and stuff but then his gf threatened to break up with her since he had another gf. He broke up with his other gf Olga but the his other gf breaks up with him and he grows up he becomes a nerd and he got bigger and no girls wanted him. Then later on he goes to college and he meets a girl named Ana which he falls in love with and she brings him out on a date. And people in the book do infact think it's very important to fit in with other people instead of being themselves since almost everyone during highschool for him didnt like him at all since he didnt fit in with them. A good example of this is when the book talks about how he had always been a nerdy kid but in highschool people started thinking it was weird “Oscar had always been a young nerd, the kind of kid who read Tom Swift, who loved comic books and watched Ultraman but by high school his commit to the genres had become absolute.” (Diaz 20).

In my book Out of Nowhere by Maria Padian, the story follows Tom Bouchard, a popular high school soccer player, and his cousin Franny Powers, who is more independent and outspoken. Tom goes to an upscale prep school in Maine, where he navigates his life as a teenager and tries to fit in too much. We also meet Ishmael, a Somali refugee who recently moved to the area. He struggles to fit in at the school due to language barriers and racism. Some students are nice to him, but others, like Hank, treat him bad. There was a soccer game with Toms team against Ishmaels team and he is targeted by Toms team because of his background. Yes a lot of the characters are trying to fit in with the ground, “But you still have choices, no matter how big or small your luck quotient is” (Pandian 29). But this quote shows that some of them are understanding that the choices they make are very important and you dont wanna always follow the crowd.