This is my comparison essay between My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother and Thank You Mr.Falker, by Patricia Polacco.

My Comparison Essay

In life, don’t let people make you feel bad about yourself by their actions. My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother and Thank You Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco, are both similar books. They are very similar in the beginning, middle, and end of the story. Each book has a character/s that make the protagonist (Tricia) feel bad about herself in different ways.

In the beginning of the book My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother Tricia’s brother had said to her, “Bet I can pick more blackberries than you can” That shows how Tricia’s brother was very competitive towards her. To show how determined he really was, it says “We both picked berries for most of the afternoon. Well, he upped and did it! He not only picked more berries than I, he set a record that wasn’t even challenged for the next ten years.” In Thank You Mr. Falker it shows how people made Tricia feel bad about herself because when Tricia was in first grade her classmates had said to her “Tricia, what are you looking at in that book? She would tell them back “I’m reading.” That also shows how all her classmates would really bother her and try to make her feel bad.

   

In the middle of the story My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother it says “That night I ran straight for the merry-go-round. We must have taken fifty  turns on that carousel. But then my brother got off! I stayed on. I went around and around.” That shows how much Richie made her feel bad so she had that much determination to do that. In Thank You Mr. Falker there was a boy named Eric who bullies Tricia a quote from the story that proves that is “He got all the other kids to wait for her on the playground, or the cafeteria, or even the bathroom and to jump out and call her “Stupid!” or “Ugly!” That really made Trisha doubt herself and made her feel bad about herself.

In the end of the story, My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother, it shows how no one should let another person make them feel bad about themself by their actions. One example from the story is “And I’m four years older than you…Always have been and always will be, he sneered.” That shows how Richie (the older brother) was trying to tease Tricia. My final example from Thank You Mr. Falker is “But one day at recess, Eric followed her to her secret hiding place. “Have you become a mole?” he laughed. And he pulled her out into the hall, and danced around her. “Dumbbell, dumbbell, maggotty old dumbell!” That really made Tricia mad and upset. It shows in both stories how a character/s were always trying to bother the main character.

In conclusion, Tricia learned that in life, you shouldn’t let people make you feel bad about yourself by their actions. In Thank You Mr. Falker Eric at first had an effect on her because he would tease her about that she could not read, but by the end of the story she really could defend herself from him because by then she could read. Also in, My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother Tricia learns how to defend herself.