• What experiences do you share with the characters?

  I don't share much with Ruth, the writer's mother, but I do share one common thing; The want to be outside of the house all the time, I like being outside because at home I don't have much to do.

• In what ways is your family similar or different from those in the book?

  It's similar in that the kids are somewhat distanced among each other, like my 2 oldest sisters exclude my brother Robert and me from many things because we only share one parent in common, with only my brother Sal being indifferent to it. Another factor is how the kids became distanced because of a bad parent, with my siblings' mother telling them that I wasn't like them, making 2 out of 4 of them have a certain prejudice against me.

• What did you learn about a character or group of people that you have not personally experienced?

  Feeling Alone, even when I was "Alone", I really wasn't. Either feeling excluded from my family for having a different parent or because of being neurodevergent, I've never felt alone, as friends and people who aren't even related to me have been supporting me.

• Throughout the chapter where they explain how Ruth and her family lived in the south and opened their shop, It's shown that people in the town are prejudiced against African Americas and have it separated by the train tracks. Even Ruth's father is like this, pointing out how they're dumb for being happy without a penny in their pockets, even if his family is miserable but with money. This is because in Orthodox Judaism they are "obligated" to do whatever in their power to keep from entering poverty, normally they are educated with this mindset, as for Orthodox Jews it is important to have wealth and use it however they with, as Orthodox Judaism doesn't share the mindset that many religions have towards charity

• Ruth explains that her father kept a gun to protect his money, He feared that black people would steal his money, when in actuality He was the one robing them by cranking up the prices of things by 100%.

• Tateh is being a hypocrite by saying this, and the presence of the gun worries Ruth because in her town a man got killed because there wasn't any gun safety, and Ruth fears that the same will happen to her father.

1. How does the writer's diction (word choice) reveal or reflect the work's meaning?

   It affects how you see the characters in the book, for example; James refers to his step-dad as "Daddy" or "Dad", He considered him his father, despite not being his biological father.

2. How effective is the author's use of dialogue? How does it enhance the storytelling?

   He changes between his and his mother's perspective and is shows how different they grew up. James grew up with many siblings and many of them distant, compared to his mother who grew up with only 2 siblings that were close to protect each other.

3. What recurring patterns (repeated or related words, images, etc.) can you find? What is the effect of these patterns or motifs?

   A recurring pattern is death, Ruth mentions it since the beginning of the book; She's dead to her family, Her family is dead to her, Her grandfather's death, her fear of being buried alive among the dead, and lastly, her brother getting killed.

Rereading "brothers and sisters" was interesting, because at first I just saw Helen running away as just her rebellious attitude, but when I reread it I saw that it was Helen being consumed by the pride of being black, forgetting that she's half White Jewish. It really shows how the surroundings of a teen can affect how they see the world.

Which of your personal Experiences or memories is affecting your perceptions of the story?

I relate a lot with James, Especially with the mirror scene. I relate a lot with that scene because I experienced almost the same thing, When I was little I would hate what I saw in the mirror. I compared myself to my older siblings; I didn't have nice and straight hair like my sister Barbie or was "beautiful" like Cleo, I wasn't tall like my brother Robert or "Smart" like Sal, I felt like I didn't fit in. Until recently I started seeing that my Siblings weren't perfect either, and that it was okay to be different from them.

This scene is interesting, seeing that Kosher food is prepared by a qualified butcher called a "shochet" and done with 1 specific knife called a "chalef" and no prayers are involved in making food Kosher. Seeing that Ruth's father is not a shochet and has multiple knives for the process, it gives a certain sense of fear or eeriness to Tateh

It shows how much Ruth loves her kids; She's willing to give all she has for them, even if it's so little, she'd rather give it to her kids. All of James' underage life we've seen his Mom fight for everything her kids need and even at the door of James' adult life she gives him all she has.

In the book we see that Black schools get much less funding and lower quality materials than White schools, and this still happens to this day, schools in mostly white populated areas have more funding and better quality things than in areas where the population is not mostly white.

They show that even when James started working to be able to get to Europe, James avoided some responsibilities, like when he was younger, he avoided his responsibilities as older sibling or student. He doesn't mention this pattern throughout the book, but it appears that James avoided for years anything that was close to routine or mundane, even when it came to getting a stable job, jumping from journalism to music constantly. This is one of his unconscious actions throughout the book that stood out to me.

I learned a bit too much about myself. I saw myself and my family in James and his family, in so many aspects; Half sibling that try to hide who their parents are and where they're from or how they look, Parents that didn't open up to what their old life was until they were much older, Getting compared to older siblings, Having a bit too many pets, and other things that connected this book to my actual family. This book made me see that it isn't bad to be or look different from your family, that it can be good and shape how unique someone can be. It also showed me what my great-grandmother might have had to live through, she was Jewish and married a christian man, and raised her children telling them nothing about her Jewishness until my mother convinced her to tell her story. I really loved this book and it really connected me to my family.