Keep Me in Your Heart

I just finished reading a book called "Keep Me in Your Heart", by Lurlene McDaniel. This book was composed of three very wonderful short stories about the values of love and life/death situations.

The first short story was called "Saving Jessica". In this short story, Jessica finds out she has kidney failure and has to live the rest of her life on a machine unless someone can donate a kidney. Her boyfriend, Jeremy, helps her all along the way. After finding out none of her family members have a kidney that matches, Jeremy wants to donate his (which just happens to be a perfect match). But since he is 16, he can't do it with out his parents permission. In the end, he goes to court against his parents to fill a suit saying he should have control over his own body. He wins and they save Jessica. This book shows me that their love is strong. More than that though, they care about each other a lot and will do anything to help the other person, even if it's against their parents wills.

The second short story was called "Telling Christina Goodbye". In this short story, Trisha and her perfect best friend (Christina) both have boyfriends. The difference is, Trisha's boyfriend Cody actually treats her with the respect that she deserves. While Christina has a lousy boyfriend (Tucker) who takes control over her all the time. Even though on the outside it might look like he doesn't like her, if you look deeper you realize he just has a hard time showing it. After a car accident (with Tucker driving), Christina dies and Cody gets extremely hurt. People can't help but blame Tucker for the death but really it wasn't his fault at all. In the end, Tucker realizes he should have not only treated Christina better but the whole world. At the end you also see how great Trisha and Cody's relationship is because Cody wakes up not remembering anything. Though, Trisha could just walk away from him she doesn't because of their love for each other.

The third short story was called "Letting Go of Lisa". In this short story, Nathan finally gets to go to public school, senior year of high school. He meets this girl named Lisa who is popular because she is herself. She is independent and always does things her way. Though she's popular, she doesn't let anyone get close to her. Nathan starts to wonder why. He starts to study her and follow her places trying to understand or help and one night he finds out she has brain tumor. She never wanted anyone to know because she didn't want "special treatment". While she dies, Nathan is always by her side no matter what. "Lisa took flight 3:09 this morning".

All in all, these stories are all different but they all have the same message. You should love who you love and treat them special because one day they won't be there. Tucker didn't do that and now he lives his life in regrets of what he should have done. But the thing is, you can never go back. The idea of life/death also comes in to play in a lot of these stories. Life is a valuable thing and you have to treasure it forever. Keep the ones you love close and always remind them that they are special. I enjoyed reading this book a lot because it taught me how I should live.

Game of Kings

I am currently reading the book, "Game of Kings" by Michael Weinreb. This book isn't like any other book I've read. It is about "The odd balls and geniuses who make up America's top high school chess team". One of those teams is in Edward R. Murrow High School. 

Mr. Weiss, the chess teacher, was not always a teacher at Murrow. So many times he came close to becoming a math teacher at the school but the Board of Education brought him down. But he never gave up and kept trying until in August 1981 (his third try) he finally got accepted. All through the process though he managed to play chess and make a living teaching at other schools. 

Murrow is known for its chess team. The students come from all different ethnic groups and levels. They have won many awards and have a strong traveling chess team. One of their struggles though was the ability to have enough money to actually go to different states and complete nationally. Mr. Weiss tried everything he could for team because he believed in them. From something as small as selling water bottles to setting up TV and newspaper interviews. Once he did this though, the media soon kept an eye on them and saw that they kept on beating every team they played. The sponsorship money soon came rolling in and they could go to many more tournaments.

At Murrow, students have the freedoms to do what they want, when they want. If they skip class, teachers won't crack down on them. Now why is that? It's because they have the freedoms of a college students. Students can abuse the time they have and fool around (having okay grades) or they can take the time and use it wisely to study and succeed at Murrow. Many of them are independent, self motivators and hard working-that's why they got chosen to go to Murrow. This also applies to the chess students. All of them are good students but some didn't keep up with their schoolwork. It wasn't because they were lazy or didn't want to do their work though, it was because of their love and desire to play chess. "Thirteen percent of my life is spent of the ICC (the internet chess club)" says Alex Lenderman. 

Only on page 65, I learned that Mr. Weiss never gave up. He was determined to have a chess team and to teach at Murrow and he did. He followed his dreams and pursued them. He developed an amazing chess team that still plays today. His students not only get the motivation to learn chess but they also get valuable life lessons from him.