Upside Down in the Middle of Nowhere Book Review

Upside Down in the Middle of Nowhere Book Review In Upside Down in the Middle of Nowhere by Julie T. Lamana, Armani Curtis, a young African-American girl living in the Ninth Ward district of New Orleans, is completely uprooted from her world when Hurricane Katrina rips through her neighborhood. In her search to be reunited with family members, she discovers personal strengths and the real meaning of community. The publisher lists the book for ages 10 and older. Summary of the Story Its late August 2005 and 9-year-old Armani Curtis, looking forward to her birthday weekend, cannot wait to join the double digits club. Nothing, not even the persistent rumors of a storm, can burst Armani’s excitement until she notices her parents’ apprehension. Focusing on her celebration, Armani is disappointed when the other members of her family, including her beloved MeMaw, seem preoccupied with threats of a dangerous storm. When her older brother Georgie tells her the next door neighbors are evacuating, she makes him promise not to tell her parents until after her birthday. Despite their worries and a stormy black sky, Armani’s parents celebrate her tenth birthday with a Bar-B-Q, a delicious buttercream cake with blue frosting, and a brand new puppy which she promptly names Cricket. The celebration is cut short when a neighbor bursts into the backyard telling everyone it’s too late to evacuate and to prepare for a major storm.   Powerful winds begin to blow shattering windows and panic ensue when Georgie notices a rapidly approaching wave of water rolling over everything in its path and heading towards their home. The levee protecting their Ninth Ward neighborhood has broken and there is nowhere to go. The family flees to the attic to save their lives, but their nightmare is just beginning. Trapped in the attic with the floodwaters rising, Armani’s asthmatic baby brother is gasping for air while there are only a few bottles of water between them.  Their crisis grows more distressing as Armani’s brother and then her father, jump into the fast-moving floodwater to capture her birthday puppy. Stranded, the family of refugees must wait for rescue while worrying about the outcome of those family members who jumped into the water. Once on dry land, Armani is left to watch over the younger kids while her mom searches desperately for a clinic to help the sickly baby. Armani realizes it is up to her to keep her small group together amidst the crisis around her. In the process, she discovers how to trust, how to survive, and how to nurture hope in the face of great despair. Author Julie T. Lamana Julie Lamana knows first-hand the destruction brought on by Hurricane Katrina. In 2005 Lamana worked as a literacy aide in a Louisiana school. In the aftermath of the hurricane, she helped displaced children and found in her experiences the seeds to write a story. As a child growing up in a military family, Lamana moved many times and found it difficult to create lasting relationships and thus found comfort in books. Now retired from education, she spends her time writing and is currently at work on her next middle-grade book. Lamana and her family Lamana live in Greenwell Springs, Louisiana.   Recommendation and Review For readers who like survival stories, Upside Down in the Middle of Nowhere is a fearsome read. Real life scenarios based on Julie Lamana’s personal experiences dealing with Hurricane Katrina create the story foundation for those uncertain first few days in the Ninth Ward district of New Orleans, Louisiana.  These experiences provided material for an authentic, emotional story for readers who value accurate detail and realistic characters. The character of Armani Curtis transforms from a self-centered, judgmental child, to a conscientious young girl who learns to accept and trust others. Despite many warnings of the approaching storm, Armani is determined to not let anything take away from her special occasion. Lamana deliberately highlights Armani’s self-centered character (pretty typical of her age) so readers can clearly identify the great emotional changes the hurricane brings about forcing Armani to put aside her childish ways in order to make independent and protective decisions about her younger siblings. Within a matter of days, Armani’s childhood vanishes.  Fear and distrust color her every action, but over time Armani begins to allow others to help her rebuild trust. Like a gathering storm, this story starts out at a leisurely pace gradually building in intensity. A typical day of riding the bus, dealing with bullies, and sitting on the front porch swing with her beloved MeMaw slowly moves into whispered rumors of a gathering storm. Television newscasts, neighbors’ midnight evacuations, and an ever-changing colorful sky take Armani and her family from a birthday celebration to a fight for survival.   A Gentle Warning for Parents Julie Lamana has personal experience with Hurricane Katrina and she witnessed the devastating physical, social, and mental effects of the hurricane. Hence, she gives readers an authentic story where a very young girl must deal with death, disease, and despair. While not graphic in detail, there is no sugarcoating about the dead bodies floating in the water, the mass looting, or desperate â€Å"crazies† that Armani meets as she struggles to make sense of the chaos around her. A worthy book to understand how a natural disaster affects a community and a family, I highly recommend Upside Down in the Middle of Nowhere. Be sure to have a box of tissues close by. (Chronicle Books, 2014. ISBN: 9781452124568)

6 Resume Tips for Recent Graduates

6 Resume Tips for Recent Graduates School can feel like an intense bubble while you’re in it. Classes, papers, grades, and activities take up so much of your time and energy. But then graduation comes, and it’s time and put those skills and that knowledge to use for cash money and a satisfying career. That can be a tough transition, so if you’re high on potential and low on experience, don’t despair. To get yourself ready for the post-graduation job hunt, here are 6 great resume tips for recent graduates. If you already have some experiences from internship or part time jobs, you can also check out our guide on resume best practices 2016.1. Don’t stress about lack of experience.You’re a new grad- no one expects you to have experience beyond an entry level. What you do have already are skills. Your resume should be heavy on the skills you’ve been developing through your academic career: for example, software training and use, presentation skills, and problem solving skil ls. You also likely have part-time work, student employment, or volunteer experience as well. Definitely don’t forget those, even if they’re not obviously related to your future career.2. Think about what you need.It can also be stressful if you feel like your education hasn’t really prepared you for the job market. I’ve been there: I was an English major at a large state university. The school focused on academics and teaching as postgrad options- both of which I’d already ruled out as careers for myself. So I sat down researching what I could do with my English degree, and what my interests were. That led to publishing, and I came up with a plan to get extra training in editing and writing while working general office jobs to get experience and pay my postgrad bills.Thinking about what you really want, and having an action plan to get it can really help you refine your resume.3. Don’t forget the extracurriculars.If you have activities that have helped build skills (student government, Spanish Club, Future Accountants of America), you should take stock of those skills as well. As you get further into your career, you won’t need to lean as heavily on your school activities, but when you’re getting started those skills you picked up can help fill in for concrete experience. If you decide to use your extracurriculars in your resume, be sure to use examples of how they helped build your skills.4. You don’t need to write a novel.Again, no one expects recent grads to come up with a several-pages-long list of accomplishments. A clear, concise one-pager is fine.5. Be prepared to edit.Similar to #3, you don’t need to have one sacred resume doc that fits all. This means you should plan to do several stages of editing. The first round is to go through and figure out what’s necessary to include (skills, training, education, recent honors/awards, work experience) and what’s probably not cr ucial (specific classes you took, the spelling award you got in third grade, or the six months you thought you wanted to be a puppeteer- false alarm).The second round of edits should be specific to each job you’re applying for. Include related honors and awards, any experience you have in that area, and applicable skills. Be creative†¦if your thankless summer job included dealing with customers of (ahem) varying degrees of politeness, emphasize in your resume that you have strong communication and public service skills.6. Play with the format.If you’re following the traditional resume template of education/coursework, jobs, accomplishments, and then general skills, consider switching it up. Quality is more important than format, and you want the reader to be presented with your best side up front. If you feel more comfortable leaning on your skills over your experience, frontload those.For example, your resume could be: skills/training, education, awards, then job s and experience. As long as your resume is a coherent snapshot of you and is written well, you’re not stuck with any particular format.The best thing you can do for your postgrad rà ©sumà © is to put in the time and effort to figure out what you already have working for you, and how to spin it. â€Å"New grad† doesn’t have to mean â€Å"blank slate.† You can totally make it mean â€Å"building a new career on a great foundation.†