Newsworld

In class we had a guest Todd James Price the author of New World. In the reading done in class, Todd managed to tie together two really different but really American happenings, the terrorist attack of 9/11 and the theme parks.

In class we all shared our reactions as 13 year olds children finding out about the terrorist attack and not really understanding much about it. As an international student I believe I can’t relate as much to the impact of the attack but it defiantly also influenced my life, having my mother living in the United States at the time it also became a big event for me. It was interesting to hear about all the experiences from people that were actually near by it. One thing that we had in common it was the young curiosity of how it happened how it feels and what would happen now question, which is also what the characters in Price’s piece were feeling.

Theme parks have also interested me in a not so positive way I have also really despite the idea of theme parks the fake recreation of something else, and four years ago I founded myself deciding that I was going to go live in Florida, the land of the biggest theme parks. Having gone to a few theme parks by now, I still find something really terrifying about them, it’s like an attempt to live a reality that never happened or that it is far-gone. In class I got to found out even more things about theme parks, people that actually live in theme parks. In the story there is a theme park of a destroyed land, which I found an incredible idea creating more the terrifying aspects of theme parks.

When I red the story for the first time I found the kids desire to feel 9/11 in the theme park a little bit creepy, and to an extend disrespectful and even disturbing, to look at this really important event when many people lost their life in a “theme park matter”. But after reading the story again and talking with the author and the rest of the students, I see that this is a way of representing and getting to the American audience in which theme parks plays a huge role on childhood. It represents really well this curiosity that we all had in an everyday place, a theme park.