The story “The Strawberry Girl” is written by Lois Lenski. It talks about the time of the early 1900s in Florida and the Slaters who go to the newcomers' house to greet them. The newcomers are called the Boyers. The Boyers have things that the Slaters have never seen before, so the Slaters are jealous. The Slaters are jealous of the Boyers, so the Slaters let out their animals in order for animals to eat the Boyers' plants. At school, the Slaters beat up the teacher and burn down the school to get out of class. The Slaters cut the fence the Boyers just got to let the animals eat the Boyers' plants. They also try to burn down the Boyers' house. The Boyers finally get strawberries, and they make a fortune selling the strawberries and all the other fruits. The Slaters finally say sorry to the Boyers for all the chaos they caused.
Being lazy may lead us to financial problems. In the story, the Slaters are lazy, they don’t mind their animals running away and they always blame it on the animals. Even if the Slaters animals ran away and had been found, then returned to the Slaters, the Slaters wouldn't mind the animals and neither would they wash them. The Slaters only react when it is too late or when there’s a big emergency like one time the Boyer’s house almost gets on fire. We will be broke if we are always lazy, we may be sitting on the couch watching TV but if we are doing this, we are not working. Entertainment is normal, but if we do this all the time then we will have no income because we are not working. We will start to lose money by spending our money on wanted and needed things. Instead of being lazy all day, we should be hard working.
Don’t get stuck in a rut; it never makes life better. The Slaters are stuck in a rut; they never change what they are doing, and their job is always that simple. The Slaters think they have the best job, so they do not change it even though they barely make any money from it. The Slaters also know that the Boyers are planting plants and making a fortune from it, but the Slaters just believe in their own way that you cannot plant any plants in Florida, which is why they don’t make much money. We need to change because there may be new technology, and using the technology can make our lives better. If we are on our own path, we might get jealous of others who have good things. If only we change, then we might have new sorts of technology that we might never see before.
Our manners can show our personalities. The Slaters have bad manners so they do not get good communication. The Slaters treated others badly that now the people in the area know who the Slaters are and their personalities. Because of the Slaters’ personality many businesses probably wouldn’t allow the Slaters because of how they may mess up everything. Having manners are being polite, respectful and honest about things. If we have good manners then others will know we are most likely a good person and do not mean to cause trouble. Manners are part of our life and without it we may be just pests to others.
This is an interesting story that talks about the Slater family who don't have manners and always try to bother and annoy the Boyers as much as they could. This story is interesting because of how it is written but what is more than interesting is that it tells us lessons while there are strange words. The lessons are: first, being lazy is a terrible thing to do, if we are lazy we can not make money. Second, we need to change. We can not always do what we think we should do while there are already other things that can be beneficial to us. Third, our manners are just as important as business because we can not get a good job if our manners are bad. These are the themes and this is surely a great story.
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