The novel, “Whirligig” by Paul Fleischman is about a boy named Brent who goes on a journey across America after a fatal car accident in which a girl named Lea passed away. On his journey his personality grows, and he really finds himself. This novel explores interconnectedness, the hero’s journey, unseen forces, restorative justice, and balance. In my DMs of this assignment, I tended to focus more Brent’s journey, how far he had come since the beginning of the book to how he is now. However, I did make references to balance, interconnectedness and how Brent’s whirligig’s may have affected others. In the DMs, Stephanie tells Brent how she appreciates the whirligig because it brought she and her boyfriend together and opened up her mind to new things. I also mentioned self-identity and how Brent’s interests were truly his. At the end of the story, Brent mentioned how he wanted to build a whirligig in every state. My most recent post was of the kickoff of his quest, a Pelican whirligig in Oregon. Brent’s post was fun to make because I got to be creative. Trying to imagine what sixteen almost seventeen ‘try hard’ boy would sound like in an Instagram caption was challenging. I had to think critically because I had to write something that was overconfident, slightly insecure, without being silly. This was not easy and took a bit of time to think about. Although it was difficult, it was fascinating to see the difference in the captions from his first post about the new BMW Z1 to his first whirligig on his big journey. In all, the story gives a great perspective on personality growth and I overall enjoyed the project.

Whirligig novel assignment