My Book Report

Sweet Valley Twins
Title: Todd Runs Away
Author: Jamie Suzanne
Publisher: Bantam Books
Date Published: March 1994
Number of Pages: 136

Todd Wilkins, Elizabeth Wakefields' sort-of-boyfriend was the school's basketball team's star. His dad was also a basketball player when he was in school but a knee injury had made going professional impossible. Thus, Todd's dad was rooting for his son to live his dream, to one day be a professional basketball player. Todd himself liked basketball, although sometimes he felt pressured by his dad. He was expected to be nothing less than perfection. When Todd was chosen by their teacher to attend a creative-writing class, his first thought was to drop out of the class so he could have more time practising his foul shots. After much persuasion from Elizabeth he decided to go for the first class before calling it quits. He was very surprised that the class was fun and exciting, and the teacher, Mark Ramirez, thought he was the most talented in the class. Mark Ramirez taught the class that the most important essence in creative writing was to have a real tough decision to be made by the character. Todd portrayed his tough decision between playing basketball and his new passion in writing. Todd finally got caught up between the two when his performance in basketball dropped, and his dad kept accusing him that the team's lost was his fault because he did not practice enough. Pressured, Todd decided to run away. But Elizabeth found out about his plans and told his dad about it. His dad realized that he was expecting too much out of him and allowed him to make his own decision. His decision was to do both, write and play basketball. And then they lived happily ever after.

What tough decision did you have to face today? Or yesterday? Or tomorrow?