Blue+Jays

​  We read a book in class that is titled __Scout's Honor__. It was written by the New York Times bestselling author Avi. This book is about a nine year old boy that wants to prove he’s tougher then his friends. He wants to prove he is tough by earning a Boy Scout badge and becoming a Second Class, which is a rank in Boy Scouts. This turns out to be a tougher challenge then he would have ever thought.   In __Scout's Honor__ there are four main characters. The first one is the Narrator. He looks up to his best friends Horse and Max. He looks up to them because he thinks they are tough. In __Scout's Honor__ the Narrator is nine years old and ranked a tenderfoot. Horse is the Narrator’s friend and is a tall, skinny kid. He is also a tenderfoot like the Narrator. The Narrator thinks that Horse is a lot tougher than him. Max is also Narrator’s friend. He is even a lot stronger than the Narrator and Horse. The last one is Scoutmaster Brenkman. He is the troop leader of Max, Horse, and the Narrator. He has a real job as a pastor. All of the kids also look up to him.  The setting starts in the city of Brooklyn where Max, Horse, and the Narrator want a new scout badge that stands for scout spirit, scout participation, and scout craft. But the true meaning of the badge to the scouts is strength and bravery and it makes them feel like their the man. the setting of the story goes from Brooklyn to the High Street subway station where their mission for getting the badge starts. The striving scouts ride from the subway station to 168th street where they get off and start to walk by foot at the George Washington Bridge. They come to the border of __**New york**__ and __**New Jersey**__. They then realized they are in two states at the same time. Then they travel along and the setting moves across a bridge and into a camping area where they set up for the night. On this camping trip they had an umbrella that one of them has in case it rains but to him it is a very special and useful tool that helps her. Also on the journey, they have a compass and one of them says to always depend on a scouts compass. Within the story of Scout’s honor, there are many literary devices. The very first literary device in Scout’s honor is, “Puny pin oak.” (pg. 54- Alliteration) The next page after that, there is a hyperbole, “A zillion miles away from here.” (pg.55) On that same exact page, there is an idiom., “ Man, he could talk himself out of a locked room if he had.” (pg.55) This literary device doesn’t even make sense to me when I hear it. “Looked like a noodle factory hit by a bomb!” (pg.56-57-simile) When the author wrote the story, he obviously put a lot of thought into it. __Scout’s Honor__ is a very well written story using many literary devices.  The events, or if you want to call it the “Plot” in this story starts when the narrator is about to go camping with his boy scouts because he is trying to earn a badge so people would think that he was a tough kid(Pg. 54). He then goes and meets his fellow scouts at the subway station which is where they will catch a subway train to go out into the country (Pg. 56). Then Max which is the Narrator's friend gets stuck on a subway train when the Narrator and Horse get off because they forgot something that they put on the ground.. Luckily, he gets off the subway and back into a different subway station in Palisades, New Jersey which is the place they will be camping to get their Scout’s Honor badge (Pg.56-57). Lastly, they make through most of the camping trip, but it started to pour down rain furiously. This made them tired and wet, so they went back home.  As this short story went on I kept thinking what was going to happen to them and if they were going to make it. I think this book is well written and I like how it uses so many types of literary devices in it. I also liked how the setting changed from the city of Brooklyn to an old dump. Now I know why Avi is such a famous author.