Aristotle & Dante Discover the Secrets to the Universe

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets to the Universe has been interesting so far. Ari, whose point of view the story is from, has a complicated life. He has three siblings, yet feels like an only child. This is due to the extremely large age gap between him and his siblings. Also, his brother is in prison, and pretty much nonexistent in his life. I am really curious to see if his older brother will play at all into the story. I kind of feel like he might, seeing how often he is brought up. Then there is his father. His father was in the Vietnam war. Ari’s father is very distant. Ari is constantly talking about how he doesn’t get his father. How his father is somewhat cold, and just doesn’t talk much. He feels like he doesn’t know anything about his father. In fact, you can see this when his father tells him that he himself has bad dreams as well. Ari relishes for a split second that his dad told him something about himself. He also says how when his dad carried him when he had the flu he wished he could carry him forever, or something along those lines. I feel bad for Ari’s whole relationship with his father. I don’t think Ari’s father intends to be distant or be a bad dad, I think he is just very messed up from the war. On the other hand of the story, there is Dante. Ari meets Dante at the pool when Dante volunteers to teach him how to swim. Dante becomes Ari’s best, and pretty much first friend. Dante is similar to Ari, yet very different. Different in how outgoing he is, he knows how to swim, different in the way his relationship is to his parents. Ari’s relationship with Dante seems to be good for him so far. It is good to have friends. Ari insists to his mom that he doesn’t want or need friends, but everyone needs a friend, it’s natural. The end of our reading left us on a huge cliffhanger, as Dante was standing in the middle of the street trying to save a bird from dying, as a car came swerving around the corner. We will see what happens in the next reading!

https://www.understood.org/en/friends-feelings/managing-feelings/loneliness-sadness-isolation/how-loneliness-can-impact-kids-with-learning-and-attention-issues