Jean Brandt and Annie Dillard

Okay...so first off Jean Brandt, "Calling Home". I honestly liked this essay more than "An American Childhood" by Annie Dillard after the first read through. It seemed a little more personal to me just because we've all had that impulse to take something invaluable(like that button). Something that wouldn't be missed. I'm no thief, nor have I ever stolen anything, i can just relate to the impulse. I guess this sort of made me lean more towards this reading. However; i began a second look-over of these readings and found that after really analyzing instead of just reading i really liked "an American Childhood" the same,if not more than, "Calling Home". Jean Brandt had good structure in her writing,but as we touched on in class, the dialouge is, simply-put, unrealistic. The whole conversation between her and her mother is short and not very emotional at all. I'm just saying she could have done a little better with her choice of dialogue. So, like i said previously,after the second read through of "An American Childhood" i really found i enjoyed this reading. The way Annie Dillard stretches out the chase scene with a mix of choppy and lengthy sentences really kept the pace. She made a 10 block chase scene seem like a marathon. That is very good writing to me. I also enjoyed how she talked about how she could have ran to Panama, and how she ended her whole reading with that reference.