~James Creelman, Class of 2024

A challenge answered

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” 

~Barack Obama

Nothing with meaning comes without challenge. Under the white sky forced me to think deeply in a way that I didn’t know existed. At the end of the story, I figured out that tackling a genuine classic was totally worth it. Reading “Under the White Sky” pushed me to read in a way I’ve never done before; the tricky words made me stop and think about what was happening, and it made me reconsider the main ideas in a more careful way.

Reading “Under the White Sky” really made me step up my reading game. The tough words and tricky phrases made me stop and really think about what was going on. By the end of the book, I saw that taking on a classic like this was totally worth it. The pressure to made the reading slow and tough. But after a few chapters, I found my rhythm. I learned to budget my reading time and accepted that I was diving into a classic for study, not just leisure. It was hard work, but taking on the challenge paid off in the end.

“Under the White Sky” by Elizabeth Kolbert really got to me. It talked about how humans are messing up the environment and what we can do about it. It made me feel worried but also hopeful that we can fix things. The book made me think a lot about how our actions affect nature and why we need to take care of it. Even though it didn’t change everything I think, it made me believe more in protecting the environment. It reminded me of other books I’ve read about nature, like the ones by Rachel Carson and Bill McKibben. It showed me how books can make a big difference in making people care about the planet. In “Under the White Sky,” the big idea is how what people do affects nature and what that means for us. It shows how our actions, like climate change, mess up the environment.

The book makes us think about how we should take care of the Earth better. In stories and facts, it tells us why it’s important to look after our planet. This theme matters in stories because it makes us think about how we treat nature and what we need to do to fix things.