" Joy in the morning" By Betty Smith

We read books and every time we get these feelings that the place where the story happened seems similar to a place where we have been. Sometimes we can picture in our minds what the place looks like. Betty Smith made up the whole village where the two characters lived together. Creating a town shows the ability of her to describe things so clearly that even though this place does not exist we still can picture it in our minds and get an idea of how it looks. She is very careful with the details and she is not using any real names in the whole story. She is making up all this names and she connects them so good that it gives a resemblance with the place and the people we live around. The weather and the agriculture make it easy to compare it with the weather of the real place and to find a resemblance with the invented place created by Betty Smith. The village Ferdon has weather similar with the Michigan weather. Given these detail we can have an idea on where the place might be and we can compare it to something familiar. Using these details she makes it easier for us to not go out of the reality, to not think that these places does not exist and that this story has a truth inside that is more important than just a name. By creating a town she is giving us a window where we can see from her point of view how things and how the place was like. She is trying to give us an easy way of seeing things and accepting those the way she is seeing them and accepting. If Betty Smith would have used a place that was real we might have gotten attached more to the place than to the story that was treated in the book.
The story is based on the two main characters Annie and Carl that are trying to live together and stay on a relationship that is opposed by both of the families.
As a young couple they have problems that are similar to the ones that every couple has at the present time. Their relationship is opposed from the families so they decide to protect their love and their sentiments by running away and getting married without the consent of the parents. They have economical problems that are similar to most of the problems that couples have on trying to have a life alone from parental help. And the main problem that is treated is the tolerance the way they treat each other and the respect that they have for each other. For example when Carl yelled at Annie, he felt really bad and he was sorry for what he said. He said that it was stupid of him to yell at her and he would never forgive himself for what he did. This situation is similar to the situation where today couples think to get the partner to do what you want him/her to do is by beating him/her up. It shows how diplomatic you have to be when you talk to your partner and the way you have to treat problems in order to get the best results.
Annie is living in a new place. She is trying to feet in the place. She does not want to be an outsider even though sometimes it is a good thing for her. She wants to be similar as Carl to be accepted by others for the way she is. What is most important to her is to accept herself the way she is. She reflects on herself and how important is to have a life where people treat you and respect you for the way you are and not for the way you act on being. For example most of the time Annie was worried about her appearance about her resemblance with other coeds. She was worried on being different she wanted to be the same as them. She found out that it was easier to talk to people when she did not act when she was herself. She made a lot of friends when she was herself. Being an outsider was a good thing for her too and gave her an idea of mystery. No one new her past, no one new where she was coming from. She was not judge on her actions and she was not treated badly for what happen on her past.
This is shown better on the part when Annie was going to school and she was taking a class of playwriting. No one new her very well but she was respected. She was an asset to her playwriting class. Her teacher told her how important she was to the class and how much they could learn from each others work. By being an outsider Annie had a different point of view on things. She was raised in a different environment and her experiences were different from the other student’s experiences. She had a different way on saying the truth and that is why the teacher had a good opinion for her.
Annie was different but what she valued the most was her education her desire to improve her spelling and the way she wrote. She was going to school just for the sake of learning. This was different with the other students that went to school because they were obligated or because they needed a credit.
The most important message that the book is trying to put out is to accept ourselves the way we are and to treat the others with respect because a little respect goes a long way.

Barbara Mellix " From Outside in"

Language is a tool we use to communicate with others. All around the world we could find thousand of languages. Even though there are so many languages people still communicate with each other really easy. This happens because there are people that learn more than one language or they are raised in an environment where more than one language is spoken. I personally speak four languages, Albanian, English, Italian and French. When I was a kid I was fascinated by the idea to learn a language and to understand better the people that spoke it. I wanted to know more about their culture and history. At home we speak Albanian and outside we speak English. Sometimes it is really hard to find the right word or to switch back to the language that I need to use.
There are even times when I forget that I am speaking in English and I start speaking in Albanian without realizing it. My friends ask me- “What was that? “and I respond that I did a mistake I meant to say this thing. To me sometimes is hard just to fix in my mind that I should use this language for this environment.
There are cases when I do mistakes but there are cases that are in my advantage. Sometimes I want to say something that I do not want other to understand so it is good to speak a language that others can not understand.
I wanted to learn another language but instead Barbara Mellix was struggling about the idea to use the Standard English. At her home her parents spoke both Black English and Standard English. Her mother taught her both of the ways, she taught her to use the standard English with people that she did not know and the Black English at home with people that she knew. She says that she did not want to use the Standard English, to her it felt like a strange language. She called the language of others, she did use it but she never owns it. She said that a certain age she could switch from one form to the other but for her was hard to accept the idea of using this language. She was proud of herself as the others were. When she went to college she had a hard time to express her ideas with the Standard English. She used simple expression but after she got more used to the language and explored it more she found a new way to express herself. She felt good with her achievement she could master the language and she no longer called it the language of others. Now the language was part of herself, part of Barbara Mellix that accepted herself and expressed her ideas in different ways. Every time she wrote she brought to life a new self. She explored more with her writing and every time she wrote she could get out of it a new quality of herself or a new side of herself that she might not have known.
Barbara Mellix was different then John Price. She had a hard time using the Standard English and she felt like an outsider at school. John Price was familiar with the place and he did not have problems at all with the language. He had a way in using the right words when he wrote letters to his parents and he was so good at it (that he solved his problems every time.) He wrote different to his mother with whom he had a more closeness and the letters to his father were more formal. If Barbara Mellix would write in standard English for her parent would feel more formal, if it is written in black English it would be more familiar and close to them. Barbara Mellix found herself by writing and accepting the idea of using both of the languages, but have we found ourselves?
Are we familiar of who we are? We can find more about ourselves just by exploring more on the inside of our mind and on our every day routine or in our action or responses to different issues.