Reader's Journal #12- Memoir of a Milk Carton Kid by Lawrence Fisher and Tanya Nicole Kach

#12                                   Reader’s Journal                                     11/14/11

Dear Mrs. Zrihen,

            This week I started the book, Memoir of a Milk Carton Kid by Tanya Nicole Kach and Lawrence Fisher. A passage that really stood out to me was:

            “My first memory of life is one of light. The closed door to my bedroom made me feel caged, imprisoned. I pulled myself up in my crib and cried. Then, one of my parents must have opened the door, and I glimpsed a crack of light that both fascinated and comforted me. In a way, that first memory is a metaphor for what kept me alive for the ten dark years of captivity I endured. Despite my abductor’s repeated message that no one cared about me, despite the threats of what would happen if I tried to escape, that glimmer of hope within me never died. It was the divine lifeboat I clung to at my most desperate moments. One day I will leave here, I promised myself. One day, I will tell my story. “

I chose this passage because, from the beginning, I could tell that Tanya’s life was hard but she was strong-willed; this passage shows it. I was able to picture her life from this very paragraph. It is significant to the story because it shows the readers that even when she was a baby, her life was difficult.

I used many before, during, and after reading strategies. Before reading I thought of why I had picked this book and set a purpose. The title of this book was very similar to another book I read, The Face on the Milk Carton, so my purpose was to read this book was to compare it to The Face on the Milk Carton and for my reader’s journal. I also read the synopsis and reviews to see if this book would be entertaining.  One review I found interesting was, “My heart ached while I read this. As a survivor of child abuse, this girl's actions and reactions made perfect sense to me. This is a must read for parents and all people who are thinking of becoming parents. God bless you Tanya - your healing will take a lifetime but will be well worth it!” After reading this I wondered if this book wouldn’t be good for me but decided to give it a chance anyways.  While reading I took notes for my readers journal on my Kindle. I also made predictions. Because I never of heard Tanya’s story, I predicted that her abductor was her neighbor, Kevin Churchfield. I felt that way because he was portrayed as a creep. After reading the section, I saw if my prediction was right; however, it wasn’t. Her abductor was a security guard in her school named Thomas John Hose. Another after reading strategy I used was to look over all my notes and highlights to write my reader’s journal. 

The genre of this book is memoir because it is a true story about a “memory” of someone’s life. The main idea is a girl named Tanya Nicole Kach was abducted when she was fourteen for over a decade. This main idea is implied because it is not clearly stated in the book and you must read between the lines to figure it out. If I had to rename the book, I would call it The Abduction of Tanya Nicole Kach because it is the main idea of the story. Some details that support the main idea are, “When she was found dead, Anna Marie Callahan had been the same age as I was when Tom Hose abducted me, she resembled my appearance, and she had been subject to the authority of Tom Hose because he worked at Cornell.
“ is factual, “Hiding me in his bedroom closet allowed Tom Hose to open his usually locked bedroom door.” Is factual, and “For the entire time of my captivity, I never dared to watch television or listen to the radio…” is factual. The essential message is that a young girl, Tanya Nicole, was abducted by a man name Thomas John Hose. A cause and effect from the story was that Tanya Nicole ran away from her home, so the effect was her ten years of captivity.  One thing Tanya compared and contrasted throughout the book was how she felt with her dad and step-mom, which was useless and unloved, to how she felt with Tom Hose, which was cared about and adored.

 I identified five text features in this book. The text features I indentified were title, subtitle, illustration, headings, and subheadings. The title, Memoir of a Milk Carton Kid, helped me understand what the book would be about. The subtitle, A Tanya Nicole Kach Story, helped me identify whom the story would be about. The illustration on the cover, which was spilled milk, to me, represented how crazy Tanya’s life was. The headings, which were the chapter numbers, helped me know what chapter I was on and finally, the subheadings, which were the names of the chapters, helped me predict what each chapter would be about.

The pattern of organization in this book is chronological/time order because it is written in the order of which things occurred in Tanya’s life. The author’s purpose was to inform the readers about the harsh experiences Tanya encountered before and during her abduction. The author’s perspective is subjective to whoever or whatever Tanya does and doesn’t like because the book is written in first person point of view.

There were many different types of figurative language throughout the book. One was, “The apple does not fall far from the tree.” This is a cliché because it is an overused expression. Tanya wrote this when describing Justin, her abductor’s son. The tone of this book was sympathy because Tanya’s word choice was sad and seemed like she was hopeless at many points. My mood while reading was sympathetic because it was painful to hear all the horrifying things Tanya went through. Another figurative language is a metaphor, “Although he was not the most handsome, he had a heart of gold.” This was how Tanya describes Tom Hose before her abduction. The last figurative language I found was irony. I found it very ironic that Tom’s parents had conveniently fallen asleep just before police arrived at their house to question him about Tanya.

To check the validity and accuracy I went to three sources. Two sources were the websites, http://www.zimbio.com/Tanya+Nicole+Kach and http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/24/national/24missing.html. They each showed different articles, however both stating exactly what it said in the book. The last source I went to was my father. I asked him if he had ever heard of Tanya Nicole Kach and he had. He told me all about her abduction from which he had heard on the news when it took place. By checking all these sources I was able to conclude that the book was accurate and Tanya Nicole’s story was true.

While reading, I encountered five new vocabulary words, magistrate, mundane, cremated, repugnant, and seclusion. I was able to infer what magistrate meant by reading this sentence, “My father called the police. In the insanity that ensued, my mom lied to a
magistrate and secured a court order that briefly allowed her back that night with my father and me in Monongahela.”  I knew that this word was a noun because of the tense it was in and thought of words that I could replace it with. I replaced magistrate with officer, police, and official. When I look up the definition, I was correct, magistrate is an official officer. I inferred what the word mundane was by reading this sentence, “I was allowed out of the Soles Street residence on orchestrated, cloaked, and rare occasions to shop for clothing or for other reasons that would seem mundane

to most people.” I replaced mundane with ordinary and usual because I knew that Tom Hose would not what Tanya doing anything unusual that anyone could suspect him for Tanya’s abduction. The definition of mundane is not interesting or dull. The word cremated, found in the following sentence, reminded me of the word cemetery, which I know is underground, so I inferred that it meant to be buried. “I wanted to make sure that, if my body was found, I would not be cremated.” Cremated means to get rid of something (a dead body) usually by burning it. Repugnant was found in the following sentence. “Even though I found Justin’s advances repugnant, he had been the only human being with whom I could interact, other than his father, for those first four years.” This word reminded me of the word pungent, which I know means sour or bitter so I inferred that the definition of repugnant was close to the definition of pungent. Repugnant means something that is extremely unacceptable. The following sentence helped me infer what seclusion meant. “From March 1996 through about June of 2000, I was in total seclusion at the Hose residence, during which time I did not leave the house.” I inferred that seclusion meant being away from the world because it says that she didn’t leave the house. Seclusion really means in a state of being private and away from other people.

While reading this book, I was able to make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections. This book reminded me of myself because I am now the same age as Tanya was when she was abducted. This book reminds me of another book I read called The Face on the Milk Carton because they both share stories on missing and abducted children; although, The Face on the Milk Carton is fiction and this book is nonfiction. This book reminds me of the world because abductions take place almost every day. This book especially reminds me of the story of Jaycee Lee Duggard who was also abducted for a long period of time.

Although I feel very sorry for Tanya, I don’t think I would want to be her friend. She was the type of person that would never do the right thing. She would smoke at age thirteen, get into fights, and run away from home.

If I could give Tanya advice now, I would probably tell her to stay strong and that although it might seem hard, she will get through her abduction and live a perfectly normal life.

Overall, this book was very interesting although, it was poorly written. Some of the author’s sentences seemed childish and repetitive. However, the story itself was very entertaining and at some points, I couldn’t put it down. Therefore, I rate it a 9 out of 10 stars.

I would recommend this book to mostly all girls and boys in middle school and up because anyone younger would not fully understand this story.

                                                                        Your Student,

                                                                        Bailey Levy 802