Thursday, May 22, 2014

Lea Sabra - Gilda Joyce



MLA Citation:
Allison, Jennifer. Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator. New York, United States: The Penguin Group, 2005. Print.

Summary:
Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator is about a girl called Gilda who wants to be a psychic when she gets older and still considers herself one now. Since her friend is going to summer camp, she decides to go to San Francisco to visit her mothers long lost cousin, Lester. She had heard that his sister recently committed suicide and that he had a daughter who didn’t know anything about her death. Gilda wanted to solve this mystery and find out why Lester’s sister, Melanie, killed herself. Soon into the story, Gilda becomes friends with Lester’s daughter and convinces her to find out what happened the night Melanie got killed.
Exposition:
            On page 48, the author shows how Gilda is and what the theme of the book is, what the story is about by making a ‘progress report’ for Gilda and how she has been doing. But she writes it in Gilda’s voice. The progress report says all her projects and what she wants to do.
Allison, Jennifer. Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator. New York, United States: The Penguin Group, 2005. 48. Print.

Rising Action:
On page 232, Gilda planned to have a séance, and then when Gilda says what she’s supposed to say, they both feel vibration on the board. Gilda says: “Who is here with us? Is that Melanie.” And surprisingly with a force, the planchette slid across the board to highlight the word yes. Which made them very excited but also felt a bit creeped out.
Allison, Jennifer. Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator. New York, United States: The Penguin Group, 2005. 230-33. Print.

Climax:
On page 255, when they get in the tower, Gilda says that her signal for something frightening, which means they have to leave, will be a scream. Once they step in, and their eyes adjust to what’s in the room, they both immediately scream.
Allison, Jennifer. Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator. New York, United States: The Penguin Group, 2005. 255. Print.

Textual Evidence:
            Explicit Clues: On pages 249 -252, Rosa, the housekeeper, says that a clue is the angel, and looks out the window. There is an angel fountain in the middle of the garden. Just then Lester finishes his meal and walks out of the room singing “angel eyes….”. They go outside and look inside the angels mouth, they see a key.
So the clue is when Rosa says: “a clue is angels”; and Lester agrees by singing with those lyrics.
            Inferences: On pages 238-239, Gilda wakes up to see Juliet sitting up on the bed talking to the air. She wonders if she is sleep talking to Aunt Melanie. Juliet says things like “I see your eyes all over the room”. I read and understood that this was a clue by reading between the lines and understanding that it had to do with Aunt Melanie and the old tower where she died.



The setting shapes the plot and idea of the book because the book is about Gilda finding out what happened to Lester’s sister and why he keeps the tower where she committed suicide locked up. The story is set in San Francisco in his house and that affects the plot.
Setting: So basically the setting is in San Francisco all day in summer.

Main Characters:
·      Gilda: Gilda is a psychic investigator who loves solving mysteries. She’s headstrong, brave, and doesn’t fear anything. She lost her dad a few years ago.
·      Juliet: Juliet is Lester’s daughter. Her aunt Melanie died 8 years ago and she sometimes still see’s her ghost. That’s mostly what her housekeeper tells her as well. Juliet was first very stubborn especially with Gilda but then loosens up and is now more outgoing than she was before.
·      Aunt Melanie: Aunt Melanie committed suicide and is in a lot of Juliet’s dreams. She had her art studio in the old tower where she committed suicide. Aunt Melanie had a mental disorder.


Cite a passage for the protagonist:
In Gilda Joyce, Psychic Investigator Page 311, Juliet wants to skip the bus ride that her and her dad planned and go to a Chinese temple. She hesitates but then thinks in her head: “If Gilda was here, she would walk directly into the temple without a second thought”. The author’s technique here is to describe Gilda from someone else’s perspective; even though this is how she is anyway.  
The characterization technique used it ‘other people’ because he uses Juliet to describe Gilda indirectly.




Theme: there are many themes in this book, so I will say a few.                      
·      Power of words: this is one of the book’s themes because Lester, Juliet’s dad, has the power of words because he creates a rule which is that Juliet is not allowed to enter the tower where her aunt committed suicide and says that it’s a rule.
·      Love: this is a theme because after Gilda’s dad died, she kept on sending him letters because she thought he would answer with a clue. Also, after she came back from San Francisco, she was weeping on her mothers shoulder because she missed her dad. This also goes for Juliet because she wanted to figure out what actually happened to her because she thought that that was what she wanted from her and so Juliet did what her Aunt, who she loved, wanted.
·      Fulfillment is another theme because Gilda fulfilled her goal of solving a mystery in the summer and figuring out Aunt Melanie’s mysterious death.
·      The last theme is friendship/working together because Gilda and Juliet wouldn’t and couldn’t have solved the mystery without each other’s support.

Reflection:
This book matters because it shows how no matter what, no matter how hard the obstacles are, you should never give up, be brave and follow your dreams. The ‘so what’ of the book is to show the reader that there will be ups and downs but it will be okay in the end and that you will always figure out your problems.
I really liked this book and I want to read the next one because it’s very interesting and suspenseful and never made me get bored. I would very strongly recommend it to my friend. This book is important to talk about because you can discuss the way the author built the story. I didn’t really see myself in this book.
I would rate it a 9/10.





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