Read the excerpt from Grendel.I was safe in my tree, and the men who fought were nothing to me, except of course that they talked in something akin to my language, which meant that we were, incredibly, related. I was sickened, if only at the waste of it: all they killed—cows, horses, men—they left to rot or burn. I sacked all I could and tried to store it, but my mother would growl and make faces because of the stink.
Consider the passage and theme.Ria was thrilled when her doctor removed her cast. It had only been a month, but the inconvenience of wearing a cast and using crutches had been a constant challenge. She had learned that her high school, while accessible, was not easy to navigate with crutches. The stairs were treacherous, and the elevator was slow, but what bothered Ria the most were the entrances. Since her high school sat on a hill with a wide, concrete stairway to the front door, all of the ramps were at entrances far off her usual course.Fortunately, Ria made some new friends venturing to and from the ramps. She noticed that these friends were upbeat and determined, and they had more interesting things to discuss than the minor inconvenience of a ramp. Still, when the student council asked for suggestions about a class project, Ria submitted a proposal for a front-entrance ramp instead of the high-def scoreboard she had once prioritized.Theme One: Lessons are often learned through one's struggles.
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