Reading For The Fun Of It

I am very thankful that I had the opportunity to take reading for the fun of it as one of my interim term classes. I was able to finish one book and get about half way through another!!! I did not think there was too much work, it was a pretty steady amount. At the same time, I felt like I almost had a little too much time for reading. I tended to talk to my friends because I had an hour to read during class and had the chance to read at home, but I really enjoyed the class and had a good experience!!!!

Literary Criticism: The Adoration of Jenna Fox

I visited several websites which all debated the negatives and positives of The Adoration of Jenna Fox using facts and quotes from the book. I basically found the same ideas and opinions on the book on several websites, amazon book website and a few blogger's websites, one, two and three. Several people mentioned the intriguing questions this book aroused, such as, how far would a parent go for their child's life, how much does memory play a role in making us the person we are today, some debatable questions on medical ethics and many more. Most of the people liked the fact that Mary E. Pearson brought up some of these questions in her writing, showing both sides of the argument in the book, leaving you to come up with the answers. In addition, many people thought that the book had a wonderful set up, but left you hanging a little too much, meaning there was not enough information describing the outcome of too many scenes and some critical scenes seemed "simplified". I can agree with the idea of Mary Pearson simplifying the book for the most part, but there were several scenes where she went into thorough detail, which is why I disagree that the entire book was simplified. I think Mary Pearson really thought about which scenes needed detail and which scenes would be better off letting the reader figure it out. In the scene when Jenna's father says Bio Gel is, "an artificial neural network built on a biological model. It's condensed, oxygenated gel that is filled with neural chips. These chips are as small as human neurons, and the wonderful thing is, they communicate and pass messages in the same way human neurons do, through chemical neurotransmitters," (126) Mary Pearson is going into thorough detail describing Bio Gel. On the other hand, there were situations when Mary Pearson does not tell you enough. For instance, I knew the computers which Jenna found hidden in her parents closet, bolted down to a surface, contained all the information of Jenna, Locke, and Kara's brains, but I did not know why the father needed to keep them as "back ups". Mary Pearson never specified what kind of situation would demand for the use of these computers. The father in the book just said that him and his wife kept them just in case. This is one of the many situations where I was left to figure it out on my own. This is not always a bad thing, some readers enjoy it when the writer leaves you to form your own opinions and ideas, but they must not leave too much information out or else it leaves you puzzled. All in all, I enjoyed the book and I recommend it, but I wish there were not so many important details left out of the book.

Genetic Engineering: Jenna Fox

In the book, The Adoration of Jenna Fox, Jenna has no recollection of her entire life or who she is or how to even do the simplest things like laugh or cry. In the books, you find out Jenna was burned to the extent that there was hardly any unharmed skin on her entire body from a near death car crash. In addition, she was suffering from organ failures and was on the verge of death. Her father, the owner of a well known tech and pharmaceutical company in the book, Fox Biosystems, has created a substance called Bio Gel, "an artificial neural network built on a biological model. It's condensed, oxygenated gel that is filled with neural chips. These chips are as small as human neurons, and the wonderful thing is, they communicate and pass messages in the same way human neurons do, through chemical neurotransmitters." (126). Jenna has now been out of her coma for a few weeks, although her parents never told her she was in a coma, and they never told her any major details about her past, especially about the car crash. But she slowly regains her memory and begins to grow curious. Because of her curiosity and desire to uncover the secrets of her old life, Jenna discovers her body is not what she expected. She accidently reveals a blue substance under her skin and goes to her parents for answers. Jenna discovers her body is almost entirely made of Bio Gel, the blue substance underneath her skin. She is told that her father and other doctors basically grew skin from Jenna's unharmed skin cells, preserved organs, tissues and other damaged parts of the body, and replaced parts of the body that was beyond repair, including about 90% of her brain all using Bio Gel. In the book, the doctors are able to almost genetically engineer a body from scraps.
In my research, I searched for what scientists are capable of genetically engineering in a human body. I found one website that talked about the possible forms of genetic engineering on a human. According to Dr. Raymond Bohlin, there are two possible forms of genetic engineering in a human, gene therapy and an attempt to cure the disease all together. Gene therapy is an attempt to reduce a genetic disease in the body, by inserting genes without the disorder into the tissues most affected by the disease. The person who receives this treatment might live a longer and less painful life, but they will still  be a carrier of the disease, meaning their kids have a chance of getting the disease from them. In an attempt to completely eliminate a genetic disease in a human body, although it is possible, this type of genetic engineering has not yet been tried on a human, only on animals. Scientists would have to remove every gene carrying this disease throughout the body and replace it with a non disease carrying gene to get rid of the disease, which is nearly impossible. On the other hand, scientists have discovered that if you are able to trace a gene carrying a disease when the zygote is still in the state of an embryo, then the scientists have the ability to remove the gene and replace it with a non disease carrying gene, which has been tested on animals such as, cows, sheep and pigs. Theoretically, this tactic would remove the disease from the body, because when the genes would replicate through mitosis, they would replicate non disease carrying genes. However, Lee Silver says this is a bad idea, for two main reasons. When tested on animals, this technique has worked only 50% of the time. Also, about 5% of the animals that successfully had their disease carrying gene removed ended up having a mutation because the new gene, put in by scientists, overlaps a gene that has been present in the cell. After researching genetic engineering, I have realized, in The Adoration of Jenna Fox, the ability that the doctors have to genetically engineer a nearly identical body of Jenna Fox is completely fictional.

Mary E. Pearson: Author

I am currently reading The Adoration of Jenna Fox written by Mary E. Pearson. I decided to get ahead in biology by reading this during interim term. I searched Mary E. Pearson on Google and the first site that came up was the author's website, so I clicked on the site and clicked on a tab under the name of About Mary. She talks about her childhood for about 3 paragraphs then begins to talk about the long road to her writing career. She went to Long Beach University where she received her BFA in art. She worked as an artist for a little while until she gave up her job to be a mother. Later, she went to San Diego State University to get her teaching credential. Mary goes on to teach elementary school, and she says that her true inspiration for writing came from her second grade class. During a Writing Workshop exercise, she would sit down and write quick, little stories and share them with the class. Mary loved writing these stories so much that she gave up teaching to write full time at home in San Diego.  So far she has written several successful books, The Miles Between, The Adoration of Jenna Fox, A Room on Lorelei Street, Scribbler of Dreams, and David vs. God. 
I wanted to get more information on Mary and her books, so I went back to the author's website and found another tab under the name of Links. I clicked on Links and found a direct connection to her publisher's website under my very awesome publisher. Next, I typed in Mary E. Pearson in the search bar at the top of the website and The Adoration of Jenna Fox immediately popped up. I clicked on the book's link and the first thing that caught my eye was a list of all the awards The Adoration of Jenna Fox has received. A couple of these awards are The IRA Young Adult Choices, The Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year, The NYPL Stuff for the Teen Age, The School Library Journal Best Books of the Year, The California Young Reader Medal Master List and many more. In addition, the site had a book trailer, an excerpt from the book, an audio excerpt from the book, and a list of good comments on the book from Seattle Times, Teen Book Review, Publishers Weekly and many others. I found two awesome sites  with great information about Mary Pearson and the books she has written, and I hope someone will check them out and maybe start reading one of her books!!!!

All About Me

I have always loved reading from the start but I never have to time to read because of extra curricular activities or school work. Unfortunately, I can hardly find time to get a good read in or even read for 20 minutes. I am very excited that I got reading for the fun of it as one of my interim term classes!!! Now I have at least an hour and half of the day for reading. I am currently reading The Adoration of Jenna Fox which has been great so far and I can't wait to continue reading it!!!!!