Summer Reading Project: Stuck in Neutral (Entry 1)

7/5/14

For my summer reading project I have decided to read the story called Stuck in Neutral, written by Terry Trueman. In this story the major characters are:

·         Shawn McDaniel- the 14 year old boy with disabilities who feels his father wants to kill him

·         Sydney McDaniel- Shawn`s father, who is also a writer who won a Pulitzer Prize for his poem

·         Lindy McDaniel- Shawn`s mother, works part time but mainly works with Shawn

·         Cindy McDaniel- Shawn`s sister, a very caring person

·         Paul McDaniel- Shawn`s brother, a very protective sibling

The setting of this selection is located in the city of Seattle, Washington in an average middle class home and in one section of the story the setting takes place in Shawn`s school. The conflict presented within the selection is that Shawn is a kid with disabilities and feels his dad wants to kill him (because he wants to put Shawn out of his pain from his disabilities). With Shawn`s disabilities he isn’t able to communicate with his father (although he thinks and is as smart as an average human being, maybe even smarter), he isn’t able to tell his dad not to kill him and that he isn’t in any pain.

I predict that Shawn`s father will kill him because Shawn`s dad has become infatuated with a man named Earl Detraux who killed his own son, Colin who had disabilities and said he did it out of love and to free his son from pain. Since Sydney McDaniel loves his son to a great extent and since he can’t communicate with or protect Shawn forever then he will put Shawn to rest and out of his pa

When I first began to read I had many questions and was curious to think as: Why would a man want to kill his own son? I soon realized that he would only do it out of love and to save his son from his pain, he would never do it if Shawn was not disabled and going through so much. I couldn't make connections to this book because it is nothing like I have ever read or seen before.