The Treasure of Lemon Brown

If you asked Lemon Brown if he had a treasure, he would respond, “Every man got a treasure! You don’t know that, you must be a fool!” This is one of the themes in “The Treasure of Lemon Brown” by Walter Dean Myers. I chose to write a response to this story because I liked the themes and lessons I’ve learned from it. Some of my treasures are one stuffed animal and a sort of action figure I put together when I was younger. In the beginning, Greg storms out of the house after receiving a lecture from his father, an action I can relate to. The first thing I thought when I read this was “Wow, this kid’s got some guts, to leave in the middle of the night, in a storm.” I can relate to his storming out of the house to when I roll my eyes after my mom lectures me, lock myself in my room, and lose myself in music. I often slam the door shut. I thought of many different scenarios as he reached the tenement.

He could be kidnapped, shot, get lost, anything could have happened to Greg. As the story progressed, I learned with Greg that I should value my family and friends while I have them. When I was younger, I didn’t really believe anyone close to me could die. Now, that I’m older, I know that my grandparents’ life could end any day; that my family or friends could be killed in a car crash; that I could be murdered. I learned with Greg that, if a war aroused, my brothers or father could be sent in to fight. I know now to value my family and friends. I think I’m like Greg a lot in one way. He asked Lemon Brown many times if he’s okay. When someone close to me gets hurt, or looks injured or like they’re feeling bad, I ask a lot of times to see if they’re okay. If they answer that they’re okay, and tell me not to worry, I still worry. I look over at them a lot to see if they’re okay, to try to see how to make them feel better.

To me, “The Treasure of Lemon Brown” has two themes. The first one is to value your family and friends. The second one is that every man has a treasure. I like these two themes because I can relate to them. I never valued my family much before. In fact, before I lived a whole continent away from the majority of my family. As for the second theme, I’ve always had a few toys that are very special to me. For example, there was this one toy I had every day and I took everywhere in the house until I lost it when I was around five years old. It was a huge sitting golden retriever fluffy toy. Then I got a toy tiger, which I called Cheetah. I still have it and value it greatly. There was also a toy tiger that neighbors were throwing out. It was huge like the golden retriever, but it was a tiger lying down. My parents made me throw it out again, and I remember one picture, which made it look a bit like it was a real tiger. Overall, I completely adored this story.