The Comparison of City of Ashes and Sarah Bishop

 Author's Note: This is an essay about how Sarah Bishop and City of Ashes are very similar books, as mentioned more than once in the piece.

     Survival is a main theme in both Sarah Bishop and City of Ashes for a variety of reasons. There are many moments in each book where survival is needed, and used throughout the book. It is true that both books share the theme, although they are used in completely different ways. Both books show great examples of survival throughout the whole book.

     In both books, the main character is a teenage girl. During the first half of each book, important things happen to each girl, things that change their lives. Clary, the girl from City of Ashes, is in a relationship with Simon, which she thought would never happen. Later in the book, Simon becomes a vampire. It completely changes his life, as well as a big part in Clary's. In Sarah Bishop, both of her family members get killed, her father through an attack and getting caught under tar, and her brother being starved to death.

     Their lives are completely wrecked after that, but once they get it together, they find out how to cope with each of their completely different situations. Clary learns to deal with only seeing Simon at night, as she knows that  if he shows even a foot out in the sun, he will be burned into ash. This thought made Clary extremely cautious if what Simon did and when. Sarah, on the other hand, decided to live in the forest on her own. She thought it would be better than living with anyone else.

     Although they're relatively similar, they're also very different. They're meanings of survival are completely different. In Clary's eyes, she's surviving from her evil father Valentine, trying to destroy the world with demons. She's trying to save her friends while at the same time, save her own life. Sarah is just living on her own, in the forest. Sarah's meaning of survival is usually the first thing people think of when they hear that word. That makes them completely different.

     To finish off, these reasons are the key reasons as to why these two books are very different yet slightly different. Of course, there's more, these are just the main and most important ones. This is just one example of many that proves different books can be quite similar.

The Life Of Sarah Bishop

Author's Note: This piece was written based off the story Sarah Bishop, the historical fiction book I am reading for social studies.

     There are a lot of events that happen to Sarah in the book Sarah Bishop. There are things from living a normal life of happiness  to living a perilous life of survival. All the events that happen in between those are key points explaining the cause/effect.

     The book starts out with Sarah living with her father and her brother, Chad. Life was fairly well with Sarah, nothing really out-of-the-ordinary. Little did she know, she was about to experience the most tragic thing in her life. A few days after her brother decided to join in on the war, her house was invaded and burned, along with her father having a blanket of tar placed over him, killing him. She decided to set out on a journey to find her brother.

    She started on her journey, and she ended up being fooled by the officer of the prison, who decided to trick her into giving her money. He later became kind-hearted and returned the stolen money. He decided to help Sarah find her brother. She made her way onto the Scorpion, only to find Chad's friend, David Whitlock, who had told her the news about her brother. Chad was dead, and this is the cause that she could never recover from.

     She went to a place where she met a nice lady, who told her of the land of the wild, where there were trees, animals, and no people. This sounded pretty good to Sarah. She decided to work her way there, running into a few problems, but mainly being a strong woman and making it into the wild. She decided to make herself a home in a cave, and the story goes on from there.

     So the cause is how Sarah lost all of her family, and the effect is that she decided to live alone, completely alone, in the woods, far away from any sort of village, and especially far away from the war. She clearly wasn't ready to handle the company of others just yet, after the tragic event that took place in her life.

Sarah Bishop

Author's Note: I wrote this from what I understood because I think that the book is a little confusing. 

     The book Sarah Bishop is about a girl named Sarah Bishop, who used to live with her father and brother, Chad Bishop. After her own home being burned by the other side, and her dad being killed by having himself covered in tar. Her brother wanted to join the army, so he did, and so Sarah was all alone. She went on the perilous journey to try and find her brother, her only family member that remained alive, or so she thought.

     Her point of view effects the way you look at the story because she is neutral, and she doesn't necessarily have a side that she's on. She's basically neutral because the war isn't her top priority, it's surviving. All she's worried about is making a life out in the woods and avoiding the soldiers that want to track her down.

     If it were in the point of view of the soldiers, the war would mean everything to them, and it means everything to them to win. All they want is to have the land they were fighting for, and they don't care about Sarah as much as she doesn't care about the war.

     This can influence you because it can show you that maybe you don't want to have a point of view, you just want to stay out of the war completely. It can make you not care about wars, or maybe become one of those people who want to live in the wilderness to avoid it. There's many scenarios that people might do because of this point of view.

Graystripe and Mille's Journey

Author's Note: This isn't actually one book, because they're too short, so I wrote it on the series.

     All of the life you've ever known, you've lived in the forest. Happy, with your friends, and life is great.  Until one day, two-legs come and take all of your clanmates. Big machines take over, and you have no clue what's going on. So much has happened, and after losing your best friend in a forest fire, the fact that he was losing everyone else did not help. All you care about is the lives of others, so you jump onto the truck and release everybody, except for one. As you attempt to pry open the lock, the van starts to accelerate. You free your clanmate, but before you get the chance to make an escape, both of the doors slam shut and there's no way out. This is from the view of Graystripe, one of the many cats whose home was taken away from them.

     While in the van, Graystripe passed out. When he woke up, he was in a strange place he had not yet seen in his 9 lives. There were no trees, and it had a different aroma. Still in shock, he ran into a wall, waking himself up. He looked around, and observed that he wasn't dreaming. He jumped up onto a window sill, and looked out. It was cold and wet out there, yet warm in dry inside. He was happy to have shelter, but he would give anything to see his family and friends again. The very next day, when it was sunny, he decided to step outside and try to escape. There were too many loud noises, and none that he recognized. He ran back inside, as his first plan had failed.

     The next time he tried , he hopped a fence into the home of one angry cat. His name was Duke. He tried to kill Graystripe for entering his territory, only Graystripe got away. On his walk home, he met Mille. She showed him the way to the house, instead of towards the forest. Graystripe seemed to like her. When they met up again, Mille showed Graystripe a small area of woods, and he was so excited. They went there everyday from then on, and Graystripe taught Mille how to do everything a clan cat would. To fight, hunt, and to survive. After a few more days of events and decisions, they decide to go on the perilous journey back to Graystripe's original home.

     After a day or two, they slip off the road into a cornfield, where they accidentally take separate paths. Graystripe sprints to find someone to help, and walks into a barn, where he finds some cats to assist him. When they find Mille, they find out that she managed to scratch her eyes to the point where she desperately needed help. They go back to the barn, and she is taken care of, and for lack of the ability to travel, they spend the night. They spend a few days there, and end up helping the cats there a great deal. The decide to move on, only to find disappointment and great tragedy.

     As Mille and Graystripe approach a once gorgeous place, Graystripe he heartbroken. All the trees were demolished, and the river had mostly evaporated. None of the other cats from any of the four clans remained, and there was nothing Graystripe could do. They spent the night in the only place that stayed standing, which was the medicine shelter. The next morning, Mille cheered up Graystripe, and motivated him to continue on their journey, and remind him that only the place was destroyed, not all of his friends. He agreed to continue and they moved on. They approached a different barn, where some of his old friends were settled. They pointed them in the direction of which they had seen the clans moving. They set off towards that direction, and soon, they find that they're very, very hungry.

     They reach a gas station, and they search there. They soon get into a huge fight, and while Graystripe storms off, Mille watches helplessly as he gets hit by a car. His shoulder is in a great deal of pain, and he has to be taken care of by Mille and the cat who lives there, who's name is Diesel. He helps them get back on their feet. There is when Graystripe realizes how he feels about Mille, but cannot find the fight time to tell her. As they leave to move on, he can't stop thinking about it.

     They end up at the beach, and they look around for possibilities of where they could've gone from there. A forested area is spotted, and that's the direction they head towards. They fun through the forest for a little while, until they run into a rogue. They ask if he's seen a large group of cats, and he is pointed in a certain direction. Standing at the top of a hill in the moonlight, they stare down at an island with moving objects on it. Graystripe was so overjoyed that he found his family. It was right then and there that he asked Mille to be his mate. She accepted, and both extremely happy, they walk down onto the island to be greeted by all of his long-lost friends. Life could not possibly be better than this!