What happened to Amanda's Encyclopedia A in Maniac Magee?

The encyclopedia is ripped to shreds to send a message to the Beales and Maniac.

Amanda’s library is her most prized possession, and the encyclopedia’s volume A is the crown jewel.  She wants to read the entire thing.  She has only the one volume of the encyclopedia.  Maniac wants to read it too, but he can’t get his hands on it.

Problem was, Amanda was always reading it. And she vowed she wasn't giving it up, not even to Maniac, till she read everything from Aardvark to Aztec. To make matters worse, the supermarket offer had expired, so there were no other volumes. (Ch. 15)

Amanda carts her entire library to school with her in a suitcase, to protect it.  On the day that Maniac unties the knot, they discover that someone ripped her book.

He followed the scrap-paper trail up Hector and down Sycamore, all the way to the Beales' front steps. The only thing left of the book was the blue-and-red covet. It looked something like an empty loose leaf binder. (Ch. 21)

Amanda is crying, and tearfully says it is her own fault because she left it in the living room where “anybody could look through the window.”  She doesn’t blame Maniac, but he blames himself.  He knows how much that book means to her.  It is the last straw.

After this incident, Maniac decides to leave.  He wants to make sure that Amanda and her family aren’t hurt any more.  People just don’t approve of a white boy living with a black family.  To Maniac, the Beales are his family.  Others do not see it that way.

Maniac’s search for belonging throughout the book is heart-breaking.  With the Beales, he has a chance at a normal life.  However, that normal life is tainted by racism and intolerance.  Although the Beales appreciate Maniac for who he is, the situation is untenable because race relations are not to the point where a white boy can be adopted by a black family.  Ultimately, though, Maniac decides that race makes no difference.

What does Colin learn about love?

In the beginning of An Abundance of Katherines, Colin is obsessed with having his "Eureka" moment. He is a child prodigy who is terrified of wasting his potential and becoming a mediocre adult, determined instead to do something that will change the world. He believes he's found the answer in a relationship formula. Most of the book is spent playing with relationship variables and creating a workable formula for the potential outcome of relationships. This formula is meant to predict both the length of a relationship and who will end the relationship first. Colin develops the formula with data from twenty of his own past relationships.

Just when he thinks he's gotten it right, he discovers the formula predicts that his current relationship will only span a few days, and that his girlfriend will dump him. Rather than dumping him, Lindsay leaves him a snarky note poking fun at his obsession with defining relationships. Colin learns that love is not something that can be predicted or quantified, because it is a variable unto itself.

What women appear or are referred to in the novella Of Mice and Men?

The novella Of Mice and Men only contains a handful of women. Most of them are not depicted in a positive light.

First, the reader encounters the woman in the red dress. In chapter one, George mentions the fact that she is the reason they had to leave their last job. She had accused Lennie of attempting to rape her when he could not let go of her silky red dress. Although she really wasn't to blame, she is one of the reasons that George sees women as nothing but trouble.

The second woman we hear about is Lennie's aunt. Aunt Clara is probably the only woman in the novella who is depicted in a favorable light. George revered her enough to honor her dying wish that he take care of Lennie, and Lennie recalls that she did nice things for him, like give him dead mice and soft pieces of cloth.

Next, we meet Curley's wife. She is a young, pretty woman who flirts with the ranch hands because of her lonesomeness. The ranch hands notice her flirtatious demeanor and say, "Yeah? Married two weeks and got the eye?" (109). Although she has a significant role in the novella, we only know her as "Curley's wife", showing the reader that women were not seen as important to men. In fact, if anything, the men seem to see her as a nuisance and as trouble. For example, Crooks is irritated when she enters his room in the stable and states, "You gotta husban', you got no call foolin' aroun' with other guys, causin' trouble" (85). When she is ultimately killed by Lennie and discarded like trash under hay, Curley angrily blames her for ruining his chance to leave the ranch. Not even her husband shows her any love and respect as he is more concerned with killing Lennie than mourning her.

Finally, the last women we learn of are the prostitutes that the ranch hands like to visit. We learn that there are two whore houses available, and Whit states that "Clara gets three bucks a crack and thirty-five cents a shot, and she don't crack no jokes. But Susy's place is clean and she got nice chairs" (144). The men have no women of their own in their lives, and all they know is women who are available for their use. Even George whom we respect as a character states, "You give me a good whore house every time...A guy can go in an' get drunk and get ever'thing outa his system all at once, an' no messes" (185). Again, the men in Of Mice and Men seem to give women no importance.

In To Kill a Mockingbird, how does finding the gifts in the tree affect Jem?

Jem is moved that the "haint" of Boo Radley has reached out to them in friendship; he is also impressed with how well Boo has carved the little figures of Scout and himself.

When Scout and Jem discover that there is something in the knothole of the Radley's tree that they pass every day on the way home from school, he lets Scout pull them out. She extracts two carved figures from soap of a boy and a girl. Scout thinks of "hoo-dooing," and in fright throws the figures to the ground. This action angers Jem, who quickly snatches them up, scolding Scout, "What's the matter with you?....I've never seen any this good." Then, he realizes that Boo has carved the two of them in close likenesses. Clearly, he is touched emotionally because Jem stands still, staring at Scout, probably without really seeing her. And, when the children return home, Jem takes the two figures and puts them safely in his trunk.

What is Old Major's claim in Animal Farm and what are three reasons why that is his claim?

The basic claim of Old Major is that all animals, no matter what they believe, are slaves. He makes this point right from the beginning. Here are his words:

No animal in England is free. The life of an animal is misery and slavery: that is the plain truth.

Old Major has a cogent case.  He offers proof. First, he says that man is an enemy.  He says that man is the only animal that produces nothing but consumes everything. Moreover, man is the one who oppresses the animals. Here are his words again:

Man is the only real enemy we have. Remove Man from the scene, and the root cause of hunger and overwork is abolished for ever.

Second, he goes on to say that even the offspring of the animals are not even their own, as man sells or consumes them. He says to Colver that each of his foals were sold off.

Each was sold at a year old — you will never see one of them again.

Finally, Old Major makes the point that even if the animals escaped all of these evils, in the end they are all put under the knife.  They are killed.  Again he says:

But no animal escapes the cruel knife in the end.

Based on these words, Old Major makes a strong case against man. 

Where does Calpurnia take the children?

While Atticus is away for work in law, Calpurnia is in charge of the children.  When Sunday comes, she wants to take them to church.  So, she along with Jem and Scout go to Calpurnia's church.  It is a black church, which offers Jem and Scout a new experience. 

As soon as they arrive, a woman named Lula opposes them.  She does not like the idea of white children in a black church.  She, therefore, accosts Calpurnia with strong words.  Here is the text:

When Lula came up the pathway toward us Calpurnia said, “Stop right there, nigger.”

Lula stopped, but she said, “You ain’t got no business bringin‘ white chillun here —they got their church, we got our’n. It is our church, ain’t it, Miss Cal?”

This shows that racism comes from all sides.  Lula could not stomach white children, no matter how young or who, coming into what she viewed as her "sacred" space.  The irony here is that she probably did not know that Atticus would be the one to defend Tom Robinson. 

Why did Holden decide to write Stradlater's composition for him in The Catcher in the Rye?

When Holden's roommate Stradlater asks him to ghost-write a descriptive composition for him, Holden's answer shows a lot about his character as well as why he is flunking out.

"If I get the time, I will. If I don't I won't," I said.

Holden has to be in the mood to do anything. Then if he does it, he does it his way. He is a nonconformist. When he finally gets around to writing Stradlater's composition, he only does it because he is thinking about his dead brother and sees how he could write that "descriptive composition" about Allie.

Anyway, that's what I wrote Stradlater's composition about. Old Allie's baseball mitt. I happened to have it with me, in my suitcase, so I got it out and copied down the poems that were written on it. . . I wasn't too crazy about doing it, but I couldn't think of anything else descriptive. Besides, I sort of liked writing about it.

One of Holden's problems is that he lacks self-discipline. He attends classes when he feels like it and plays hookie when he doesn't. He reads the assigned books if they interest him; otherwise, he ignores them. This pretty much explains why he has flunked out of three prestigious prep schools. Holden always does well in his English classes because he has a natural talent for writing. J. D. Salinger needed to emphasize that Holden is a good writer, as well as a habitual reader of the books that appeal to him, in order to make it plausible that this sixteen-year-old boy could have been the putative author of The Catcher in the Rye. This rambling, episodic, irreverent, and enormously popular novel sounds like the work of a talented adolescent nonconformist. 

When Stradlater returns from his date and reads the composition he was hoping to turn in as his own work, he explodes.

"You always do everything backasswards." He looked at me. "No wonder you're flunking the hell out of here," he said. "You don't do one damn thing the way you're supposed to. I mean it. Not one damn thing."

Holden must realize that Stradlater is telling him the plain truth. Otherwise, he would not be quoting him when he comes to write The Catcher in the Rye.