Night of the Howling Dogs by Graham Salisbury

Dear Mrs.Zrihen,

I just started the book called Night of the Howling Dogs by Graham Salisbury. A strategy I used when I picked this book was when I saw the title " Night of The Howling Dogs" it really standed out because on the illustration it showed the wilderness and the animals like the wolf, so maybe it would have been about people who had to survive on the wilderness all alone. Also when I read the back of the book it really caught my attention and explained to me what the book would be about, so it confirmed my prediction. Another strategy was to skim and scan for text features around the story, like for example the title which revealed where the story was going to take place, in the wilderness, also when I look at each chapter title it shows the topic of the chapter and a part of the cover page, another text feature was the synopsis that made me interested in the book. A passage in the story that took my attention was the first paragraph of the story on page 1:

“At 3:20 in the morning I woke up and rode my bike down the old coast road to Casey Bellows hose. I followed the broken white line in the middle of the road, ghostly gray under the stars. Every now and then somebody's yard light blinked from the jungle, but mostly it was black as tar. The only living thing I saw was a toad that sprang out and leaped across the road. Scared the spit out of me."

I think this passage is important to the readers that read the book because this passage helps people understand that a great author usually sets the reader into a scene to explain and make the reader interested into what he/she is reading. Also I like this passage because it old how the town that the kid lived in looks so dull and silent on such and early day, so it showed the big change from day and afternoon.  This book's genre is realistic fiction because when I began to read it I found out that this event could have happened in real life, and I need the genre for Mrs.Zrihen's " A Book a Week Challenge."  The conflict in the story is Man.Vs Man because this is about Dylan having troubles with Louie; an Eighth grader who had met Dylan in another conflict some time ago, this book is external. The characters in the story that I have read so far are: Mr.Bellow, Casey, Dylan, Zach, Sam, Reverend, Louie, Tad, and Mike, the protagonist is Dylan and the antagonist, I think, is Louie. The foils are Zach, Sam, Mike, and Tad. The tone of the story is sometimes annoyed because when the author describes that Louie was pranking Dylan. The mood that I felt while reading the story was excited because I didn't know what was going to happen next. I don't really know the theme because I haven't gone that far in the story so I couldn't find it out. The point of view of the story is first person because the author is referring the story to himself because of the clue words" I, me, and me." The pattern of organization of the story was chronological order because the story is going from beginning to end. The author's purpose into writing this book was to entertain the reader and make the reader be excited. The setting of this book is in Hilo, Hawaii. Some during reading strategies that I used was to confirm my prediction that I made in the past and I was right. Also I used the strategy to use to understand Hawaiian words that were mentioned in the story. I couldn't do any after reading strategies because I didn’t finish the book.

Hope you enjoyed.

                      Sincerely,
                          Juan 702