Blog #23 – What did you read this summer?
In an effort to promote more reading outside the classroom (see blog # 17), I wanted to see what you guys had read over the summer (besides Mayflower). I am assuming that you had time to read additional stuff – being the brilliant students that you are with such wideranging interests. I’ve read a bunch of books, and here are a few:
1. The Knife of Never Letting Go and The Ask and The Answer – Parts One and Two of Chaos Walking series, this trilogy, so far, is an amazing piece of work by Patrick Ness. 
Without giving too much away, the story is somewhat like Huck Finn trying to escape the long arm of the law and his pa, but in this case, it’s Todd Hewitt and his dog. They run into a girl named Viola as Todd escapes the violent men in his hometown, Prentisstown. But the violence keeps coming on horseback through this desolate world without technology, without peace. The sequel, The Ask and The Answer, blurs the lines between the good guys and the bad guys, because Todd and Viola really don’t know who to trust, especially when it comes to the history of their land and who started this war 20 years ago.
2. Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom – When this book came out almost 15 years ago, I didn’t read it. The book was a phenomenal bestseller, touched millions of peoples’ lives, and was made into a movie. The book is about Mitch when he reconnects with his former sociology professor, Morrie Schwartz, a lively fellow who is dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease. Morrie had taught sociol psychology to Mitch in college and set him on his course to be an honored sports writer at the Detroit Free Press. While Morrie is dying and the Detroit newspapers are on strike, Mitch travels to Boston on Tuesdays to talk about life, family, death, success, and the things that matter.
– I wasn’t ready for this book when it first came out. I think that after teaching philosophy for the past few years has made me a more well-rounded individual. Also, studying Buddhism has helped me put life in perspective. And, probably the thing that has had the biggest impact on my life is my mother’s cancer. As we spent time together this summer, we talked about family, the future, politics, education and other stuff. I couldn’t help but think of the parallels (except that I’m not a famous sportswriter with a couple of bestselling books). So I read it and enjoyed it more than I thought I would.
3. Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson – This book is the first of three books on the Revolutionary War. Isabel is a 13 year old slave whose owner dies in Rhode Island on the eve of the Revolution and she and her sister are resold to Loyalists in New York City. She is thrust into the middle of intrique, abuse, and war. She meets another slave boy, Curzon, who figures later on in the 2nd novel, Forge, who Isabel helps free from prison at the end of the book.
Tell me what you read this summer, 250 words minimum, describe the book, why you picked it and whether or not you’d recommend it and why.
Due Thursday, Sept. 8.
This summer I reread the Hunger Games Trilogy, which I will probably read at least once more, in anticipation of the movie coming out on March 23.
The Hunger Games follows the story of a young girl named Katniss from District 12, one of 12 of the nation of Panem, built out of the ruins of North America. Katniss is trapped into the sadistic Hunger Games that the Capitol of Panem uses to keep the Districts under control. The Hunger Games are a televised event in which 24 teenage boys and girls are chosen, from the districts and by lottery, to fight to the death for the enjoyment of the Capitol and the misery of the Districts.
I picked this book because I like to read books a couple of times before I see the movie adaptation. I would recommend it because Suzanne Collins, the author, is an excellent writer and I have yet to be disappointed with any of her works, least of all these. The Hunger Games Trilogy really hasn’t many slow moments to speak of. Once it gets going it does not stop until the very end, and plot twists abound. If you are a fan of sci-fi and action-adventure, then this is a book for you.
I also read The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli. I read this because I became interested in the life and works of Machiavelli, who was an Italian political philosopher in the late 1400s and early 1500s, and this is almost definitely his most famous work.
The Prince is a political treatise which basically outlines the idea that a prince is justified in using immoral means to gain that which he desires. I would probably not recommend this to you unless you are interested in Machiavelli or politics. It was a difficult read, but no one can argue that The Prince is not a great work.
During the summer, I read the book you recommended us last year, The Hunger Games. I really enjoyed it. In fact I loved it and im forcing a friend from france and my brother to read it. For the people that haven’t read the book, it is a young adult science novel written by Suzanne Collins, published in 2008. It is about 16 year old Katniss Everdeen who he lives in one of the 12 districts of the capitol, and is chosen to be one of the tributes of the districts. Every districts randomly picks one boy and one girl every year and gets them prepared to fight at the Hunger Games. The day of the games, the twenty-four teens are set in an arena with the simple goal of being the only one standing at the end. When Katniss enters the arena of the hunger games, she is thrown into the biggest test of her life while facing survival, friendship, war and love. Now I really enjoyed how the book was written. I like how Collins introduces us to the games in a lot of suspense and we are only presented into subjects when Katniss is. I also like the detailing of the feelings. The emotions and psychology of the characters were well put out and expanded. In conclusion, this book was a real page turner and I couldn’t put it down. I read other books this summer for french school, Ap lang, Apush, and for entertainment but this was my favorite. I also read though an interesting book about the social life of France during the renaissance. I would recommend it. It was called La princesse de Cleves. Its written by a woman that lived in the kings court and shares its secrets.
I have been reading My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult for awhile now. I took it from my Grandma’s house when we went to London in 2009 and started to read it then but didn’t get very far and I ended up seeing the movie that summer. I found the book in my room this summer and thought I would start reading it again. I started from the beginning and I’m so glad I did. The book is extremely moving. The main character, Anna Fitzgerald, is thirteen years old and living in Rhode Island with her family. Her older sister, Kate, has leukemia and Anna was genetically engineered to be a donor for Kate after she was diagnosed. Anna was basically born to save Kate. She has many procedures done without her consent to save her sister that are extremely painful and dangerous to her own health. The story can be very controversial. The struggle between what is right scientifically, morally and ethically is constantly an issue in the book. The mother disregards her two other children, Jesse and Anna, because she is so focused on doing whatever it takes to save Kate, even if it involves hurting and using Anna and pushing Jesse away. Jesse was never paid attention to as a child because of the constant medical attention Kate needs. I would definitely recommend this book. Each chapter is told in a different perspective and there are a lot of different things going on that are not brought up in the movie.
The books I am reading/ have read.
In order
Brave new world: Aldous Huxley. I read it because it was required and was a refreshing break from the Mayflower I finished it in one afternoon (mayflower took me a few weeks). I am sure this book would be pleasing to those who suspect the government is against them and is evil and morality is on a downward spiral. I thought it was confusing and a little dark (I read for mostly pleasure and therefore don’t like to be disturbed and saddened by dark endings.)
1984. George Orwell. I read this one at camp to escape some of my more intolerable cabin mates. I found it similar to the previous book and dread the inevitable comparison essay. But I liked this one better in the sense of I felt the characters had more dept. If you have to pick between brave new world and this book choose this one I liked it enough to read it to more times.
Saga: by Conor Kostick this is a sequel to a book I read in 9th grade. I loved it and completed it in a night. It is basically the story of world of war craft becoming the government. Its characters are loveable its plot keeps you on the edge of your seat. Read it but read Epic first.
And finally the book I will probably read under my desk (not in your class of course) The Dark Mirror by Juliet Marillier. I selected it due to my interest in its setting of northern Europe in the time of clan fights and druids. I am not finished so I hesitate to make a recommendation, but I find it so far a very enjoyable
This summer was filled with, of course, summer reading and honestly I didn’t read too much other than that. With the premiere of the second part to the 7th Harry Potter re-reading all 7 Harry Potter books was a must but that isn’t too difficult. Since I basically have Harry Potter memorized it took my about a day and a half to read them and then another 2 days to watch all the movies. This was probably the highlight of my summer. I did also read One Day by David Nicholls. I really only read it because the movies was coming out and my mom likes to read books movies are based after. It was ok I like Anne Hathaway so I enjoyed it. But it reminded me of another book that I absolutely hated Rosie Dunne by Cecelia Ahem. They are both romances that take over 20 years for the couple to come together. I guess it is more realistic than the whole “Knight in shining armor” fantasy most women wait for but it still take entirely way too long for them to finally get together. I wouldn’t waste my time reading it, just go see the movie. I also started to re-read The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky but honestly I don’t remember reading it in the first place and I probably won’t end up finishing it. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is also going to be a movie so I will probably just wait and watch that. I am not usually a person who will just go and see the movie I just didn’t have much mental energy this summer to really read anything like usual.
Well, I’m going to be honest, the mayflower almost made me hate books forever. After I read it I didn’t want to look at another book for at least a week. Then when I went to answer the questions and had to go back into the book to find the answers, I couldn’t look at another book for two weeks. I finally came to the solution that as long as I couldn’t see the book it couldn’t affect me. So I buried the mayflower away in the basement, with all the other useless junk and I haven’t thought about it until now-ish, as school approaches. In the time after I got rid of the mayflower, I was able to read lots of lovely, non-educational, fluff. By the pool, at the beach, and on vacation, I got a lot of good reading done. Some titles I would recommend are….
Nightshade by Andrea Cremer- This is good if you like fantasy and love stories. Two wolves, from different packs, know that it’s their destiny to “mate” with each other. They are basically resigned to their fates when a weird human boy shows up at their school. The girl, Calla, falls in love with the boy, (0bvii) and is torn between her duty to the rest of her pack and true love. She is content to wait a little while to make this life changing decision, but then all sorts of strange things start happening and she’s forced to choose way faster than she had originally decided.
Wolfsbane by Andrea Cremer- Can you say sequel? This is an excellent part two to Nightshade. I would say what it’s about but then I’d end up giving away the ending to the first book and it would be better if everyone just read it. Cool.
I picked both of these books because I love fantasy/love triangles. Werewolves, vampires, witches, whatever. I read them all. Another good genre is the medieval/old time-y stuff.
The False Princess by Eilis O’Neal- This book is about a princess named Nalia who discovers that she has been living a lie her whole life. She actually isn’t the princess, her real name is Sinda, and she was used as a diversion to protect the real princess from an ancient prophecy. When it became apparent that the real princess was in no danger, Sinda was thrown out of the castle and taken back to the village of her childhood. Sinda discovers an evil plot to kill the queen and king and put a new royal family on the throne. She has to get into all sorts of trouble with the law and with the help of her bff back at the castle she fights against the evil forces in the kingdom. Of course, Sinda and her bff fall in love, even though its forbidden since she is now a commoner. The ending is happy. Yay.
The books i read this summer were catching fire, mockingjay, and the girl with the dragon tattoo. Catching fire was the sequel to the hunger games and i re read it this summer because it was so well done. Its more exciting because the trilogoy is being made into a group of movies though they will ot live up to the books because they will be pg-13. Cathing fire is a violent story about previous winners fighting to the death with the usual twists. Mockingjay is the 3rd book and it turns away from the hunger games and turned into a war setting. Most people will say it was the worst of the series, but thats not really a bad thing because the 1st 2 were so good. Mockingjay faces the rebels against the capitol but it is slower than the previous 2 and has about 100 pages until the main character Katniss starts fighting in the war. But it takes on a political anti war standpoint because hospitals are being destroyed and thousands of innocent people are killed in seconds throughout the book. The girl with the dragon tattoo was my third book. It was pretty slow in the beginning because it dealt with legal issues of the main character Blomkvist or something like that. He is a reporter that dives too deep in stories, but then the book turns into a thriller, mystery, revenge story about hackers and abuse. It picks pu well and hooks you but very political about abuse on women in these european countries
I also read Tuesdays with Morrie this summer, and spent a good few hours crying afterward. I checked it out from the library because my dad said he had read it and thought it was really good, and we tend to like the same things. Morrie’s story is really inspiring, and I pray that if I ever get a terminal disease, I have the courage to face it like Morrie.
Tuesdays with Morrie was the first book I read this summer, but certainly not the last. I revisited the Harry Potter series, and fell in love with it all over again. It was so much fun to be transported back to the summers I spent reading them when I was little and all the memories they brought back. Of all the books I read this summer though, probably my favorite was The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. It’s about a bestselling author who hasn’t ever told the true story of her life to anyone. The author is now about to die, and chooses a young writer to help tell her real life story. The premise doesn’t sound that great, but the book is amazing; though it doesn’t appear to at the beginning, the book ends up being a mystery. The writing is simply magical, and I found myself sucked into the world of a book like I haven’t since I was very small. The most magical part of the book, however, is that even though it is a mystery, the story isn’t ruined by knowing the end. I can see myself returning to it to lose myself in the story again and again.
Unfortunately this summer I did not read as much as my idealistic side would have hoped. Outside of APUSH I only read one book, 1984 by George Orwell.
This book takes place in a futuristic society (the book was written in the 50s, thus making 1984 a futuristic year) where the world political landscape is very different from what we know today. The main character, Winston Smith, lives in London, Oceania (one of three superpowers in this new world order). The political structure of Oceania is similar to that of Communist China. There is an powerful inner-party, which controls the country; the outer party, the group which carries out the inner-party’s functions; and the proles, the lower, working class which is ignored by the other two groups with the exception of the production of the goods necessary to keep the country running. Throughout the book Winston is seen having treasonous feelings towards his country and its almost mythical (we think) ruler, Big Brother. Winston denounces the party and seeks to find a way to destroy its evil, totalitarian might.
I didn’t particularly like this book. The outlook on the world presented here is very bleak and obviously unrealistic. Additionally, Orwell’s conclusion (spoiler alert: Winston dies) is confusing and thus does not make it very clear as to whether or not Winston achieved his goal of betraying his government through treasonous thought. Also, at one point Orwell presents his monologue on society through a book (within the plot) written by the leader of a secret organization designed to take down the party. This monologue lasts about 20 pages and bored me to a great degree. Ultimately i only absorbed about a quarter of what Orwell said in this passage.
I picked this book because it was required reading in another class, AP Lang (this really proves how much gumption I lack).
I don’t think I would recommend this book to others because it is uninteresting and though it has a good climax (which I value greatly) the rest of the plot is not really worth the effort to read. The book does, however, present the reader with a good opportunity to read what is considered a classic by literary scholars and analyze Orwell’s writing in order to gain knowledge of literary dynamics (iow kids learn about Orwell’s unique writing style).
Unfortunately for this blog entry, I didn’t read a book other than the Mayflower BUT I did read a play. The play was called Mr. Peters’ Connections and was written by Arthur Miller. This play is not nearly as millers previous play The Crucible but that doesn’t mean it’s any less impressive. The play is about a middle-aged man, Mr. Peters, who experiences his own sub conscience but doesn’t have any recollection of his memories or his life. He runs into his brother and wife who help him along the way. He eventually runs into his daughter, who is pregnant and her boyfriend is also with them. Peters is baffled by everything that is happening to him, and often goes into long rants about irrelevant things. His family and friends try to keep him on track but he loses his last shred of sanity when his mistress shows up and dies in his arms. Would I recommend this play to someone? It depends who the person is. If they enjoy theatre and complicated literature, I’m sure that they would enjoy the play. Unfortunately, this play is very complicated and hard to follow so you have to re-read a lot of times. If someone doesn’t have a lot of time on their hands or has trouble keeping track of characters, then they surely would not enjoy this play.
This sumer I read “A Brave New World”. I was really busy this summer and didn’t have very much time to read so this book was required for AP Lit. I liked it though it was very interesting and made you think about all the different things that could happen in the future. “A Brave New World” was about a utopian society gone wrong where children are grown and raised in factories. The conditions under which they are grown change depending on their future social status and jobs. Some babies have their oxygen supply limited so they have a reduced ability to learn and are better workers. After their born they are brain washed into loving what they do and their social status. Another weird part about this book is that there is a group of people (like people are now) that live on a reservation sort of like a zoo, everyone thinks their bizarre. I would recommend this book because it was genuinely interesting and different from anything I’ve ever read.
I didn’t really read much over the summer except for the Mayflower, but I did read Second Glance by Jodi Picoult when I had to borrow it from my step-mom when we went up north and I forgot the Mayflower. It took place in two different times: the past (1930s) and the present. In the past there was a young girl named Cecilia that went by Lia, and who had married a man her father had approved of and was expecting a child. Her mother had passed away years ago and Lia learns some disturbing and dark kept secrets of her mother’s past that changed her life forever. When the baby came the secrets kept hidden were revealed and not being able to hold them back any longer Lia kills herself. Fast forwarding to present day several different characters are introduced and their stories are told as a place called Pike’s Place is being demolished to build a strip mall and strange haunting start to occur around town. Rose petals rain from the sky and the ground freezes solid in midsummer and at first the citizens of the tiny New England town are alarmed but after awhile it just becomes a part of their daily life. Lia makes a comeback, though, as a ghost who is searching for her baby. She meets one of the main characters, Ross Wakeman, who falls madly in love with her. This story sounds extremely confusing but once you actually sit down and read it it’s actually quite easy to understand and follow. The book also talks a lot about how people in the 1930s sterilized criminals and people in insane asylums to try and “clean” out the population. This is a disturbing, but interesting topic and the book actually gives a lot of information on the topic. I would highly recommend it to anyone that’s into medical history or ghost stories. It’s a good read for both topics.
I read a total of eighteen books this summer. I obviously had far too much time on my hands and choose to enjoy it the best way I knew how: with books. I read everything from a concise, yet lengthy, fitness guide by the creator of P90X, to more secular fare, such as The God Delusion by Professor Richard Dawkins, to hilarious ludicrosity, namely Heaven is For Real by some obscure eight-grader.
For the sake and constraints of time and patience, I’ve narrowed the summaries of my books down to four. There are as followed.
1. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher. Beautifully written YA novel about a girl who commits suicide, and afterwards, sends out cassette tapes to the thirteen people whom she believe caused her suicide. Naturally, the tone of the book is somewhat disturbing and I just couldn’t put it down! I saw a lot of myself in the protagonist as well—the quintessential epitome of a high school student who wrongly believes he has everything under control.
2. The Four-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss. Tim Ferriss has apparently been testing people for a decade and has compiled a book about secret hacks of the human body. Yeah right. His science had me laughing as the book that was supposed to change my body into a ripped, 500-pound-benching machine was more or less a book filled with jokes. I do not recommend.
3. In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. In the sequel to his other book, the Omnivore’s dilemma, Pollan outlines how we can reverse the diseases of the Western Diet and evolve back into our rightful places on the food chain. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, making it the cornerstone of my diet.
4. God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens. The Hitch seriously goes to work as he slams all major religions in his best-selling book. Of course, in my case at least, he was preaching to the choir, but I loved it! Sadly, Mr. Hitchens had succumbed to lung cancer and will likely die within the next six months. Although it is premature, rest in peace, Chris.
This summer, other than reading the Mayflower and the required summer reading for English, I read the book Becoming Kate by Dixie Owens. When I picked this book, I was actually looking for a different book at the book store, but I happened to pick this off the shelf and read the back of the book. It was a very quick read and I must have finished it in about 3 days. This is a story about Elizabeth Lindsay, a mother and wife and she gets into a car accident. She doesn’t remember anything, and when she wakes up she appears to be in a hospital room with everyone around her calling her Kate. Kate had just woken up from the world’s first successful brain transplant. After Elizabeth had died, her brain was used in the brain transplant for Kate. Except it wasn’t as successful as the doctors had thought it was. In reality, Elizabeth’s mind and memories were inside of Kate’s eleven-year-old body. Instead of telling the doctors that when they tried to remove the memories from her old self, she befriends her physical therapist, and tells her about how she has her old memories. Her therapist then makes a connection with Elizabeth’s old family and Elizabeth uses her to see how her old family is doing. She seems in my opinion to become jealous of her physical therapist and how much attention her old family is giving this woman, just months after Elizabeth passed away. Throughout the book, she learns how to readjust to her new life, or ‘rebirth’ and she also learns how to move on from her old family. She learns that sometimes it’s best to move on, and you will still get to keep the memories. This was a very good book and I enjoyed reading it. I recommend it to anyone who wants an emotional, inspiring story.
This summer i read the house of the of the scorpion. It was actually a very freak book. It is about a little child who grows up with sister in a little house outside of a mansion/plantation. His sister always has to go work as a maid in the house all day and tells her little brother to never leave the house. Then one day he goes to the window and finds a bunch of children that looked very rich. He then tried to break out of the house due to him being sick and scared of being alone. Once he broke through the window, he started to bleed the children brought him to the big mansion where his sister work. Then they notice that they know the child and start to treat him very well and act as if they are his son. They even start to throw birthday parties and all of that for the child. Then one day the child is walking down a hall and discovers a secret passage. He then goes down the hall and spies in on a creepy medical lab. He sees the owner of the house who is a crazy 150 years old. You then find out that he and many other dead children are genetic clones of this man and that he is harvesting them for organs to prolong his lifespan. You also find out that the plantation is a harvesting a very weird drug and is using illegal slaves. Overall it was a very good book but what very startling. I would advise it to other people due to the fact that it was very entertaining and very suspensefull.
I surprisingly didn’t read as much as would have like to, but one of the books I read was The Help by Kathryn Stockett. The Help, if people really don’t know what this is about it was just released in theatres a few weeks ago. The book is I personally wouldn’t consider them to be just called maids, sadly but true these maids did everything from cooking to cleaning and pretty much raising the kids in the white household. Skeeter wants to write a story from the help, with that comes many dangers but she able to get stories coming from Abileen and Minny. This book definitely takes you on emotional roller coasters from sad, angry, surprise, joyful, just basically a lot. I’m so glad they decided to make it into a film. Now we all know that most books turning into a film can be a “plunger worthy” epic fail, but I think in this case not only was script written well, but they were able to convey things from the book very well. I would definitely recommend this book to people who are interested in the lifestyle it was like for people in the south living in the sixties. It really gets a lot of point of views and not from the obvious. I would say that every 451 pages of the book would be worth reading and I think many people who are curious of what goes behind closed doors. This book/movie definitely gets my approval for a book recommendation.
I read a ton of books this summer because I’m nerdy like that, but I don’t remember too many of them, so they must not have been that great or that interesting. The ones that do stick out in my mind, however, are Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, and Behemoth also by Scott Westerfeld.
To be honest, Wuthering Heights it just a weird book. I thought I’d read it because I had seen some quotes from it when I was reading something else and I’m trying to make an effort to read some classics to educate myself. Or something. Basically this man moves into a house and meets his neighbors who are not only rude, but extremely odd. Most of the rest of the story is a series of flashbacks as the housekeeper explains their mysterious past. It’s all very confusing, but Heathcliff, an orphan, is taken in by the family and he comes to fall in love with Cathy who goes and marries another man. Heathcliff is furious, a lot of people die, and the lives of many others are ruined. I would only recommend this book to someone who can keep up with the complex plot (which spans several generations) and who likes stories without happy endings.
Leviathan and Behemoth were entirely opposite. This series (he’s writing another one, oh boy!) was written by the same guy who wrote the Uglies series. The setting is an alternate World War One which includes futuristic technology. The British have created an enormous airship made out of a living, breathing, floating whale! Using the work of Darwin, DNA is used to fabricate all sorts of beasts to replace machines. However, this, among other events (some factual and some fiction), makes them enemies with the German Clankers who rely on machines. The story is told from the point of view of Aleksander, the young prince of Austria-Hungary (or at least he would be if his mother wasn’t a commoner) and Deryn Sharp, a girl disguised as a boy working in the Air Force. I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoyed the Hunger Games because it contains similar non-stop action.
Besides The Mayflower, I reread the Percy Jackson series and the Harry Potter series (I had to refresh my memory before movie 8 came out obviously), and my required reading for AP Lang, Brave New World (which I haven’t finished yet). I was kind of putting off my English reading till the end of summer (which is why I’m not done with it) because I didn’t want to read it in the beginning of summer and have it forgotten by 2nd tri. However, I will discuss what I have read so far. The story takes place (in my opinion) where everything is backwards. In the futuristic society of “the World State”, our first stop is a factory tour in the “London Hatchery and Conditioning Centre”. The man in charge, aka The Director (first sign of weirdness), takes a group of student on a tour of the building. So far throughout this tour, I have learned that there are no such things as parents, a home, normal birthing, emotions and much more. I have also learned that humans are grown inside bottles and are “conditioned”/brainwashed to learn what society believes are moral truths. The government controls everything, but in a bad way, so it’s a dystopia. Humans are categorized into alpha, beta, gamma, delta, or epsilon. Alpha means you’re smart tall and basically amazing at everything, while epsilon is the opposite. I would not recommend this book at all, because the way the author narrates is confusing, and it’s very strange, so it doesn’t amuse me.
This summer I read the infamous “ Da Vinci Code” by Dan Brown. The whole thing was a bit out of the usual for me. For the past few years I’ve almost exclusively read Non-fiction/Biography books about Bands, and various types of music for pleasure, but, when it came to fiction I would read all the so called “classics” as they were assigned to me by my English teachers. So, I wasnt completely ignoring fiction, I was just getting my official schooling the the histories of Punk Rock and other awesome things like that, and anyways, Id been meaning to read a “real” book for a while. So, Mid-summer, I found myself sitting at my girlfriends kitchen table, we were assembling a list of, what I considered to be, “must see movies” that she had yet to see (Fight Club, Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump etc.) When the conversation turned to weather or not I had seen the movie for Da Vinci Code. I had not, and even after reading this awesome book I really dont intend to. So when I said I hadn’t she suggest I read the book, being aware of all the hype and infamy that had surrounded the book I was interested to find out what it was all about and picked it up. Wow. The Da Vinci Code really is a great book! The pacing is urgent but not so fast that it leaves you feeling overwhelmed, the characters are life-like, and the whole thing keeps you guessing till the very end. The suspense and mystery are present till the very last page. The whole book revolves around Robert Langdon and a French cyptologist deciphering a series of clues left behind by Sophie’s grandfather, the head of a secrete society called “The Prior of Sion”, that they believe will eventually lead them to the Holy Grail. What really impressed me was how the clues were done, they were truly clever, and the entire I was just as confused as the characters in the story, and shared in their sense of accomplishment when a clue was figured out. One specifically, in a poem mentioning Issac Newton and “ a orb missing from his grave” had me totally lost, and when the answer was finally revealed I face palmed HARD. It was so obvious yet, so cryptic that I couldn’t help but be impressed. Seriously this is one great thriller and I would recommend it to anyone. Though I doubt there is really anyone left to recommend this to, it seems like I was the last person in the whoe world to read it, but thats fine, I can know share in the knowledge that the Da Vinci Code is one of those book. One of those books that invites you in and holds on to you with a vice grip. Seriously. This book is just awesome.
This summer, I read the book Looking for Alaska by John Green. Boarding school books have been my thing since I read Prep in 8th grade. I’m obsessed. And this one is particularly good and unique! This book is written from a boy’s point of view which was a nice change in the boarding school book department. He goes to boarding school looking for “the great perhaps” and instead finds a girl who named herself, at age seven, Alaska. Alaska has a rough history and a choppy life however was very fascinating to Pudge (nicknamed by his roommate The Colonel). Pudge went on many adventures he would have never even thought about doing back at home, he finally made friends and finally had a girlfriend who was unfortunately nothing like Alaska. One night, while doing some illegal stuff on campus, Alaska scurried off to who knows where after an apparently awful phone call and dies in a car accident. It was always known Alaska was going to die. But the rest of the story is how Pudge finds out who Alaska really was and what she was going after that night she died. READ AND FIND OUT WHAT HE FINDS! This was a really great book. I enjoyed it quite a bit and I actually finished it…which is always a good sign. So I highly recommend this book for all teenagers. DEAR (Drop Everything And Read)!
This summer I read a few books. One book I read was Toys by James Patterson. The main character Hays Baker and his wife Lizbeth work for a government agency to help stop the humans from interfering with them. Though they are born like humans, they are not humans at all. They are elites, a small population of the world that essentially runs everything. What makes them so special is when the world was being destroyed in WW3 they stopped it. The difference between elites and humans is huge. Elites are better looking, stronger, smarter, and faster than any human. They are augmented with special body parts that allow them to do things like run at almost 50 mph or swim for miles on end without getting tired. Hayes can do all these things and more, he and his wife are some of the best agents the government has, elites of the elite if you will. In the beginning of the book Hayes and his wife are returning from one of their most successful missions yet. When they leave the party there car is assaulted by highly trained and skilled humans, which is very odd to Hayes. He has never seen such powerful humans. He is badly injured and when he is in the hospital the doctors find out he is a human! Now he must escape and help the humans to stop the elites plan for wiping all of them out. I would recommend this book to people who like sci-fi, or action books. It has a lot of both in it. Over all I really enjoyed it.
This summer I didn’t read any books of my choice, but I read the books required for AP lang: “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley and “1984” by George Orwell. Both books were similar in the main concept, however, I enjoyed “1984” better. It takes place in London in the state of Oceania during the year 1984. The narrator, Winston Smith, is a member of the ruling government party. The government watches every single move the members of Oceania do through a device called a telescreen. Winstion has never done or planned anything against the government, but he secretly is unhappy. Most people in Oceania accept who they are and what their job is because they are brainwashed into loving “big brother”. The party controls the past, present, and future by getting rid of all historic documents. Members of Oceania don’t know what the world is like outside of their state because the government has told them that all other states are their enemies. In the beginning of the book, we find out that Winston is a rebel to the party because he secretly buys a diary and writes in it, “down with big brother.” (I won’t include any more details in case people want to read it)
It is very interesting to think about what a world like this would be like. I couldn’t imagine someone controlling my own thoughts and decisions. I found this book very interesting because I enjoy fiction novels as they cause me to think about things that I wouldn’t have ever thought of before. Although I read this book for school, I still enjoyed it and would recommend it to others.
Over the summer I only read one book. His book was 1984 by George Orwell. Even though this book was part of my summer reading and I didn’t have much of a choice in reading it, actually enjoyed it. It was kind of a look into what could have been if the communists hadn’t been stopped. People today often take for granted the simple things like the freedom to live our lives as we please. In the book everyone was constantly watched and at any time you could be taken away, and after you were gone all evidence of your existence was destroyed. It really makes you wonder is the world could end up like this. The book also brings up things that you wouldn’t normally think about. One of Wilson’s (the main character) favorite things that he finds is a small piece of blue glass with some coral inside of it. Most people wouldn’t give it a second thought nowadays but he thinks it’s beautiful. The problem is having something so unlike is “frowned upon” and he could be arrested for “thought crime”. Thought crime is basically what it sounds like, the crime of thinking. Big Brother who is the almighty leader is the only person who needs to think and everyone else can just listen. I am grateful that we live in an area where we are free to do as we please. Overall I would recommend the book because I really liked it but I also think the ending was horrible.
I read a lot of stuff this summer. I finished up the Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins with Mockingjay and I cannot wait for the movie to come out next year. The books were amazing. They are about a girl named Katniss Everdeen who lives in a future version of America after a huge war, they call their country Panem. Annually, they host a reality TV show kind of battle where the contestants have to kill each other off to win. I highly recommend the book.
Also I read The Help by Kathryn Stockett. This is absolutely one of the BEST books I have ever read. It follows two maids and an aspiring journalist who embark on writing a book about what it is really like to work for housewives in the south in the 1960’s. It is funny, sad, intriguing, it is the whole package rolled into one book. The movie was really good too, but I highly recommend this book I could not put it down.
Finally, I am in the process of reading the book called The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. So far, I am really enjoying it. It follows a writer who wants the true story behind the infamous HeLa cells. HeLa cells are the first cells ever to be abundantly cultured (grown outside the body). They were taken from a woman by the name of Henrietta Lacks who discovered she had a fatal disease of cervical cancer in the 1950’s. Also, she writes about the amazing achievements the HeLa cells have accomplished in the past 50 years like creating the cervical cancer vaccine and creating an actual video of cells reproducing that could not have been done before. You don’t have to like science to like this book. It is really good.
This summer I had limited time to read as many as I wanted to, as I love reading, but I did manage to pick up a few. Besides the required AP Language and Composition books and the Mayflower, I picked up two other books. One was Uglies by Scott Westerfield. This was a fantastic book and I look forward to reading the rest of the series (there are 4). It’s a young adult novel that takes place in a world where when a child turns 16, they undergo plastic surgery to become “pretty.” It follows Tally as she is shown what people are like when they take the surgery. It’s very well written and I highly recommend it. I really thought that they really showed how vanity affects society today in how it means the world to everyone. However this idea is quite a bit more severe. The other book I picked up was 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher. This was almost painful to read but I recommend it all the same. It follows Clay when he gets a package containing several tapes that are reasons why Clay’s Crush committed suicide. Each person the box has been sent to is a reason why. It was really emotional and heart-wrenching. I would recommend it for the way it’s written and the way it’s able to bring a few people to tears. It was pretty intense but I found myself wanting to read it again.
This summer, I read The Warrior of The Light by Paul Coelho. The book is more like a manual, but either way, I enjoyed it very much. It describes how to live in the most divine fashion possible, not necessarily to be godly, but become spiritually and physically strong. “A Warrior of the Light does not rely on strength alone, he makes use of his opponents energy too” (Paul Coelho, 3). The Warrior of The Light harvests not only off of his own energy, but the energy of others. He can use his opponents’ weaknesses to his advantages. He described how you can conquer the days goals through finding the advantages you can take from it. This may be in small amounts, like homework, dominating the part you know the most first, and than building your knowledge to do the more difficult part after; using the weakness of the homework to your advantage. The Warrior of The Light is a manual that explains rules to live by that can be related to almost every life. The book is incredible and as a spiritual mind, I would strongly recommend this book. It describes tasks that people face and the lessons learned that can be placed into ones life and related upon. The Warrior of the Light will learn from everybody else who he crosses paths with, teaching us to learn from elders we encounter. Always take advice from someone who has more years than you. The book teaches how to become a more divine soul and how there is light in everything, regardless how dark it may appear. I strongly recommend this book to anybody with a spiritual mind and the urge to explore divinity with light.
Blog #23
This summer I read The Necromancer (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel). It is the fourth book the series by Michael Scott. The books operate on the premise that pretty much all mythology is somewhat true, and there are dark forces at work trying to destroy humanity. Along with mythological beings, there are also many famous humans who have gained immortality one way or another. Some examples are: Machiavelli, Nicholas Flamel, Billy the Kid, Shakespeare, and Joan of Ark. The Series protagonists are two twins accompanied by Nicholas Flamel and Perenelle. The twins are believed to be incredibly powerful and the Flamels need their help to stop the Dark Elders. I would highly recommend these books as they are very suspenseful and imaginative. If you like fantasy, mythology, or adventure, you should read this series.
Another book I read was Digital Fortress by Dan Brown. This book is a fast paced thriller about a cryptologist named Susan Fletcher, who encounters an unbreakable code that their supercomputer cannot beat. The book is full of twists, red herrings, and murder. I could not put the book down.
Over the summer I read The Help by Kathryn Stokett. I read this book because my grandma insisted that I read it before the movie came out. I thought that it was really good. The main character, Skeeter, grows up in Jackson, Mississippi. She is different than the other girls because she wants to be a writer. All of the other girls in the town that are her age are more concerned about getting married. She doesn’t fit in well with the rest of the girls, not only because she wants to write but also because she doesn’t have the traditional views when it comes to the help. Then, Skeeter decides to write a book about the real way that the maids are being treated. Abileen is a maid, and has always been a maid. She raises white children for their mothers and tries to make them feel better about the way that their moms are treating them. Minny is another black maid who loses her job because she’s very sassy. The three of them and other maids from around the town joined together to write a highly controversial book of interviews from the maids. The book is also very historically accurate. I would recommend this book because it was really good. You can’t help but love the characters, and feel for them throughout the book. The book is not just a happy light read like a lot of my usual summer choices; instead it was sad, funny, happy, and sweet. I really loved this book and I would recommend it to everyone. Also, the movie was really good, it closely resembles the book but it is also different in some parts too.
This summer, I read The Help. It takes place in 1962 and is told from the perspective of three women; Aibileen Clark and Minny Jackson, two African American maids in white households (the “help”), and Skeeter Phelan, a 24 year old white socialite. Skeeter is very tall and rather plain, two facts that her mother reminds her of nearly every hour. Mrs. Phelan wants Skeeter to get married and live a “normal” life, while Skeeter wants to write, a passion she hides from her family. While at college, Skeeter applies for a job at a publishing company in New York City, even though she was turned down, an editor calls her and says that if Skeeter can write something groundbreaking, something really amazing, they might publish it. Skeeter struggles to think of a topic, but one day it hits her. Skeeter goes to talk to her friend’s maid, Aibileen. Aibileen is a calm and reserved woman, but is struggling to recover from the death of her son. The only part of her job she really enjoys is raising the family’s children, and once they reach a certain age, she finds another household to work in. When Skeeter approaches her and asks to interview her for a book about what it’s really like to be “the help”, Aibileen agrees. Eventually, the two convince a few other maids to be interviewed as well, including the third protagonist of the story, Minny Jackson. Minny is sassy and won’t take crap from anyone, especially her employers. Because of this, she doesn’t hang on to jobs very long. She just got hired to work for the incredibly odd Celia Rae Foote, who won’t tell her husband that she hired a cook. Once the book gets published, it causes quite a scandal in the town, and slowly the white women of the town begin to recognize themselves in the stories. Honestly, I decided to read The Help because I thought the movie looked good but was too busy to get to a theater. It is an amazing book. It was funny and incredibly sad. I couldn’t put it down, and when I finished I went into withdrawal. I highly recommend this book.
Flipping the classroom:
It’s an interesting idea, but I don’t really like it. I’m lazy. I wouldn’t watch the videos at home because I could just figure it out at school the next day. If I was watching a lecture online I would get distracted by my email, my horoscope, Facebook, and the millions of other things I could look at if I opened another tab. You couldn’t ask questions during the lecture and I guarantee that most students will not write down their questions to ask the next day during class. Honestly, I don’t see the point of flipping the classroom. If anything it makes homework harder to do. If all schools were like this, it would be yet another thing my sister and I fought over the computer for, and not everyone has a computer or internet access at home. What if you play a sport? On bus rides to away games I’ve gotten homework done, but I don’t have a Smartphone, so watching a YouTube video would be impossible unless I was at a computer.
If our class did this, I think the whole dynamic would change, but not in a good way. The lectures turn into really interesting discussions and people ask a lot of relevant questions. Would we just be reading from the textbook in class if it got flipped? That’s not very fun.
This summer, my brother and I became “Potter Heads”. After the last movie came out, I told myself I was going to read all 7 books. As my brother did, I was not successful. I read the first one, and then I had to read other 3 books for school. Although I tried reading it when I was in middle school, I felt like it was easier to pay attention and have a better understanding of what was going on. I learned that the book are obviously better than the movies, but it was good to have the movie to see visuals when I would be confused, or just needed to visually see it. I remember saying that the first book was the worst, but that’s when I was young and didn’t really read, just skimmed. Now I can honestly say the book was not boring and it was a lot better than the movie, not movie better than the book. I am trying to erase that “Wal-Mart Harry Potter” fan title that my dad gives me. There is not more to say, because I know that you’ve and a lot of people have read this book.
While I didn’t read a lot outside of school, I am going to read the Hunger Games trilogy within the next month or so. My sister read them, and loved them. I heard so many good things about the books so it doesn’t seem like a bad idea to read. I know the movie is coming out soon, so I want to read them so I won’t be known as a “Wal-Mart Hunger Games” fan.
The Mayflower pretty much was my book this summer. Whenever I felt like reading I picked that up, read 10 pages then threw it down. I also read the Alchemist in half a day towards the end of summer. This is probably the worst book I’ve ever read. I’m not going to fluff this thing up, the book could have been written by a five year old. First off it pretty much had no plot. It was supposed to be some sort of journey or quest or whatnot, but names weren’t mentioned except probably once during the entire book. Every other page went back to talking about the moral of following your personal legend. That was in every single conversation. Every one. There was no other talking besides that. The main character, who was refered to only as “the boy” was an idiot. He got robbed three times, then gets saved later on by turning himself into the wind. This was a total left hook, up until then the book was somewhat realistic and the moral would work a lot better if the story actually could have happened. Also the story mentions he was in love at the beginning of the story, then never mentions her again. The boy runs off with some girl who spoke another language that he knew for a week then travels back to the area of the other girl and doesn’t even mention her. At the end of the book, after he receives another beating, he finds that his mentor sent him down there with knowing that he’d get beat within an inch of his life so that he could see a pyramid. There was no other reason. He could have waited a day and he’d have been fine, but for some reason never made clear he had to go then. The treasure ends up being back where he started and all is right with the world. Besides the fact that he abandoned the girl that was in love with him at the beginning of the book. This book got praise from the Boston Globe, New York Times and all those other press companies. So I’m going to say it again, this was a terrible book.
during the summer, I was very busy. Apart from reading the mayflower, which in my mind, i thought was quite a serious, educational and slightly dull book. When I went into the bookstore that isn’t closing, I think it was Barnes and Nobles, I stumbled upon Russell Brand’s book which is called My Booky Wook Which in my mind is a fantastic title because it sounds childish, and really, I am secretly a big child– roughly around the age of 5 so obviously it caught my attention. When I began to read this book, i was intrigued by how such a successful comedian, actor and upstanding person could have had such a troubled life style. What I also really enjoyed about this book was Russell’s sense of humor. Russell writes his biography as if it were him talking to a person, or a situation very similar to a one on one comedy show while at the same time, it is riddled with his struggles, his stories and how he overcame his flaws (or most of them). These flaws obviously have to do with the various drugs, alcohol, and sex addiction problems he had had. I liked this book because it gave me a real life perspective into someone else’s struggles– I like that. What I also like, is the motivation this person had within himself to overcome his problems. To me, correcting your own flaws, whatever they might be, and are willing to stay above them make a strong person. This book definitely has a fantastic message that can be taken about struggling with yourself, especially regarding finding yourself and improving yourself as a person. Very cool. I look forward to reading booky wook 2. Supposedly, Russell’s sequel which has even more inspirational, comical and very witty stories and advice.
Jacob Seid
The book I read during the summer was 2030. My dad made me read it for some reason that I still don’t know, because the book wasn’t that great. The book touched on issues that are going to be affecting our generation when we become adults, such as social security regarding the baby boomers and the curing of diseases. The book mainly focuses on a natural disaster that occurs in California; a mega earthquake that rocks the entire West Coast of America. Cancer has been cured by now, so the country is severely in debt because of old people and social security costs. Most aspects of the book were believable and reasonable, but there were some things that were a bit far fetched, such as cancer being cured. The book is written by Albert Brooks, a comedian/writer. He tries to provide a political take of the big issues we are going to be facing in 2030, but to me he seemed to get too caught up in his own fantasy vision of 2030. In between sleeping and slaving over the Mayflower for the entire summer, this book provided a small bit of entertainment, with its sci-fi humor and the regular cliches about flying cars and robots. I wouldn’t recommend this book to others, because it’s boring. The author tries to touch on points that might actually happen and tries to provoke thought about curing cancer and solving our debt crisis, but he ends up just boring me to death.
Over the summer I read a book called Hurricane Season by Neal Thomson. It is about a high school football team in New Orleans and how they survived Hurricane Katrina. It goes into a lot of detail about the situation that a lot of the players were in after the Hurricane. Many were without homes or had to be relocated. Others had homes that weren’t livable. A lot of the players had also been separated from family members. However, the team managed to come together and have a good season despite the hurricane. Besides the situation of the players, it also talks about the dificulty in scheduling games since many of the schools in the area had been devastated by Katrina. It also goes into a lot of detail about the head coach, J.T., and what kind of person he was. For instance, he took in some of the players that were left homeless by Katrina. The book had some very heartbreaking moments, but it also had some really good moments, especially toward the end.
I initally chose this book because I love football and I wanted to read something football related. I think that this book really shows how the values that are taught in football can be applied to real life, since the team had to come together during the aftermath of Katrina. Overall I really enjoyed the book, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes football or to anyone who wants to read a good book.
This summer, I barely had any time to read any books of my own choosing. I attempted to read two different books, but unfortunately my attention span was comparable to that of a hamster this summer. I did get through about 50 pages of each book though. The first was The Lying Game by Sara Shepard. I started reading it because it was recently turned into a tv show on abcfamily and I thought it might be a good book. It’s about a girl named Emma who finds out she has a twin she never knew about, but when she goes to meet her, it turns out her twin had been murdered. The murderer blackmailed Emma and told her that she had to pretend to be her sister, or she would be murdered too. I didn’t get far enough in to see what happened, but what I read was pretty good in a twisted sort of way. It was really different than the show though, so that was kind of an interesting comparison to make. The second was The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. I had tried getting into that book before, but the introduction to it is just boring to me. One of my friends recommended it and I’ve really tried to read it, but to me it’s just really hard to get into. The part I read just talked about businesses, but I have no idea where it was going with that. I wouldn’t recommended either of these books because neither one kept me interested to a point where I wanted to keep reading.
Although I spent most of my summer reading time reading and answering questions about The Mayflower I did read three other books. All three novels were pretty similar books all written by best-selling author David Baldacci. The three books are titled Saving Faith, True Blue, and The Sixth Man. I would recommend all three books because Baldacci’s non-love stories are always exciting page-turners. The Sixth Man was the best of all.
Saving Faith is about a private investigator who is hired by an anonymous source to keep an eye on a woman. The woman knows information about bribes the anonymous man has been making and he wants to keep her safe. The man is bribing politicians to vote to help give money to struggling countries and when a CIA high up finds out he tapes a discussion and creates a master plan to use the tape to bribe the politicians to give the CIA more power than the FBI. The private investigator ends up with the woman and no believable story although he’s innocent. After many escapes, fights, thefts and adventures they fall in love and she is put in Witness Protection.
True Blue is about a cop who works in DC and is the little sister of the regions chief cop. She goes to jail after being framed for a crime and decides the only way to get her job back is to solve a major case on her own. With help from her sister and a lawyer she solves the case but the ending is somewhat unresolved.
The Sixth Man was an awesome addition to the Maxwell + King Baldacci series in which the two detectives track down a series murders. (Don’t want to give too much away for this one!)
This summer my dad recommended that i read THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH. I am a savvy and amateur evolutionist myself, and once my dad read this he told me it was a perfect book for me to read. This book rests on the subject of evolution vs creationism. I dont recommend this for touchy or sensitive believers in Noah’s ark and the such, because one that is just ridiculous to think that Noah’s Ark explains how animals got to all these places, and two because he really bashes creationists with cold hard facts. He is a fantastic writer who has written a series of books who indirectly related to evolution, or some that were just scientific detail books. This is his culmination, where he directly attacks the issue of evolution, using genious studies from, for example, our own MSU, professional scientists, radioactive dating, logical sequencing, and plain sense. To me he writes in a very exciting way that even the most hateful reader would enjoy. Some parts he forewarns of hard reading and the author recommends not reading them when you cant take your time. Being a world class biologist, recognized with high distinctions, he uses a lot of scientific vocabulary, but explains it to a level that most high school students could understand. I was convinced of evolution when i learned about it, also im not very religious, but this book definitely reinforces the evidence for evolution.
(By the way, he rererementions that the theory of evolution is a scientific theory, so it has been proven and has survived the rigors of scientific criticism by ACTUAL scientists. He specificly says that the theory evolution does not rely on “missing links” and that it was proved decades ago.)
Just like everyone else, I legitimately didn’t have any time to read anything fun this summer – unusual, obviously – and so read the books required of me for AP Lang: “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley, and “1984” by George Orwell. I won’t lie, I’m totally into fiction and absolutely detest non-fiction, but these books were in another universe entirely. I know they’re supposed to be classics, and we juniors are supposed to learn from them with their lessons to better our writing, but I will never understand these books as long as I live. Surprisingly, they were both kind of similar, working the whole “the world is doomed” angle, but which never bored me; somehow, the premise of each continued to creep me out. I tried to give them a chance, since I usually love the books we have to read for school, but these never reached an enjoyable point for me. Generally, I don’t like overly symbolically-depressing books, and these just had an air of drowning in despair, as if hope was never possible in these worlds. In “Brave New World,” there were a few narrators, and the book is confusingly written in the first place, which doesn’t make it an easy read. It’s about the dehumanization of the human, to the point where the government – though it controls everything, including the creation of a human and its entire life – doesn’t need to intervene because the only emotion these people feel is vague happiness. The story shows what happens when a few characters have ideas of their own, and when an outsider from “the reservation” is forced into this fake world, just to show how truly messed up but controllable it is. In “1984,” government control is taken to a new extreme when the people in this strange, cordoned-off country (Britain) are followed constantly by two-way television screens and extra-sensitive microphones. Unlike with the other book, this system is just starting to produce a new generation under this dictator regime, and though these citizens’ movements are monitored, they aren’t to the point of being “conditioned” what to think and feel yet. The story follows one man who believes not only that the world he lives in is delusional, there’s some way he can fight it and break free. The police end up catching him and he lands himself in a torture facility where he finds out everything is a lie. Essentially, free thinking isn’t tolerated, and the reader is being warned, by both books, that society is in for a rude awakening if it carries on the way it’s been going. These books made me appreciate “The Mayflower” more, so basically, I don’t recommend them.
For the first time in my life, I read Alice in Wonderland. The reason I decided to start now was because it was a big deal at the camp I go to and we planned a banquet with that as the theme. I vaguely knew of the ending before I picked it up, but even without knowing that wonderland is all a dream (yeah, spoiler alert…I apologize for those of you who have been living in a cave and didn’t know the ending), I immediately felt like the book had a very dream-like feel to it. Events seemed to come in no order at all and the writing was rushed. Truth be told, I often feel asleep reading it because it made me quite sleepy. They say a whole bunch of amazing stuff about the author and comparing him to one of the greatest in the universe on the back cover, but I didn’t think it was too special. Saying it had a plot line would be false. It had a plot blob, which is very much like a dream, so it is appropriate yet I personally prefer books with more substance. Regarding the mood, the author does a fantastic job making it random and dreamy but characters lack development and the plot blob goes all over the place, overall it’s an easy read and I would recommend it if you don’t have anything else to read.
Another book I read over the summer was Persepolis. I know it’s technically a graphic novel, but it’s quite informative and non-fiction so I hope that levels it out. I also figured it was better than saying Harry Potter, which I read for the sake of the movie coming out (the whole time I was grasping the seventh book and bawling my eyes out) and I feel Persepolis would be a better choice for the assignment. Anyways the book is about a girl growing up in Iran and dealing with all of the oppression of the government. Her family disagreed with the lack of freedom, as did she. It’s a story about growing up and the contrasts between her life and any modern American’s are gigantic. The pictures are simple but expressive, and despite the differences in lifestyle, a lot of things are relatable. Since it’s a story of basically her life, I won’t go into too many details about what happens (because I sort of have a 15 age document to read and take notes on) for time’s sake, but it truly is a wonderful book and I was compelled to keep on turning the pages. The pictures were simple, but expressive, and the book gave a completely new sense of perspective about some of the problems in the Middle East. A fantastic book, I definitely would recommend it.
Over the summer the only other book that I managed to read was Brave New World by Aldous Huxley because it was a requirement for AP Lang. I thought it was an okay book, but it wasn’t my favorite. I disagreed on many points with Aldous Huxley’s views but that didn’t keep me from enjoying the book as a whole. It was interesting in the way that it makes you question the ethics of science and genetics specifically which will very soon start becoming more relevant. The most interesting thing I found about the book though was that it actually made you think about what is the meaning of life. According to Aldous Huxley it is not simply to achieve happiness for the majority of people but that there are some things in this world that are more important than that. As of now I am unsure whether or not I agree with his sentiment; all I know is that so far it seems that in achieving more of these higher goals in life it tends to make people happier as well. I also started reading another book, however, which was a prequel to a series that I read a long time ago. I only managed to get about 1/3 of the way through it though before I stopped reading. The book is called First King of Shannara and based solely on what I have read from the other books in the series I would recommend it. The series is fantasy and has a bit of a Lord of the Rings feel to it but I have thoroughly enjoyed the series so far and I hope that I can get a chance to finish this book too.
This summer, I had to read the Mayflower for this class and to be honest, I didn’t read many other books besides it. However, I did plenty of other reading, but it was more of the non-educational sort. I read the newspaper every day, which I think is kind of unusual in today’s world. It helps me stay up to date on news throughout the world. The newspaper also allows me to keep up with my interests, such as sports teams. This summer I enjoyed following the Detroit Tiger’s run of success. I prefer to read the news in a newspaper because it is more portable than reading it online. The newspaper is also a much better short-term reading option. During my extremely busy summer, I never really felt that I had time to sit down and start a book. However, the newspaper allowed me to read for a short amount of time. I could just pick it up and read it for five to ten minutes, and when I had something to do, I would just be able to walk away. In my opinion, some people, especially those my age, are ignorant of the world. They don’t get the news from a newspaper, and when they are online, they aren’t interested in looking up what is going on in the world. I believe that is that case because when I am online, I would much rather go on Facebook than cnn.com. I would definitely recommend that more people read the newspaper so that they can be more aware of world events.
A book that I read over the summer is Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. I picket this book because someone recommended the author to me. They told me that his writing style was action-packed and interesting. So I picked out one of his well-known books. The book is about a kid named Brian who takes a private plane to Canada to go visit his dad. On the way, the pilot gets a heart attack, and dies on the spot. Brian manages to crash the plane into a lake, and survives the crash. However, he is stranded alone in the middle of nowhere somewhere in the Canadian Woods. He is left with no supplies but his clothes and a small hatchet that his mother gave him before he left. He has to build his own shelter and gather his own food to survive. He manages to build a small place to stay out of wood, and makes his own harpoon to catch fish and a bow to hunt the animals lurking in the woods. Not only does he need to survive, but he also needs to find a way to get himself rescued. I would recommend this book to anyone looking, especially if you like books dealing with nature and survival. The author describes the things Brian does in the book so well, that it seems like after you read the book you could go into the woods on your own and survive. It captures your attention from the moment you open the book until you finish it.
Could you please put the assignments on the board. I don’t remember being told that there was a blog.
This summer I read the book No Talking by Andrew Clements. The book is about a class of really chatty fifth graders; two people in the story a boy and a girl decide to have a contest to see whether all the boys in the grade or all the girls in the grade can go a day without talking. When all of the really chatty fifth graders stop talking, all of their teachers are extremely shocked. Some teachers try to make them talk and some teachers make lessons out of their not talking. The ending was pretty good, not to much of a surprise though. I picked this book because it was sitting on the shelf up north and I was excessively bored. Also it was the only book on the shelf not about the history or wildlife of Michigan. I would recommend this book to other people, but not to anyone over the age of ten. This is due to the fact that it was very clear while I was reading that this was a book for elementary school students. I would recommend it to them because it had a cool writing style and was unique as far as stupid children’s stories go. Besides being unique the story also had a good ending and discussed very interesting problems that come up while not being able to talk, like having to present a project.
In all honesty I didn’t read anything this summer. However I did read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo during the school year. It was a very interesting book. I chose the book because I heard the book and movie were both good. It was slow for a moment but once you continued to read you automatically find yourself unable to put it down. In the beginning of the book you meet Blomkvist a disgraced reporter/publisher of a political magazine. He is sentenced to prison and is also asked to do a job for a wealthy business owner and a powerful man Henrik Vanger. He is supposed to write a family autobiography on the Vanger’s family and the family’s personal and business life as well as solve the disappearance of Henrik Vanger’s niece that he once took in Harriet Vanger. Blomkvist is also assisted by a socially and mentally unstable Lisabeth Salander who is a private investigator. They team up to try to solve the case of the disappearance of Harriet. They ultimately find out that Harriet’s father Henrik’s brother used to perform sexual acts Harriet and her brother Martin, and use to make them to do sexual acts to each other. Once Harriet’s father died Martin decided that the acts should continue. Though Harriet no longer lived in the tragic setting of her family home and moved in with her uncle, she decided she no longer wanted to even see Martin. Martin continued his sadistic acts and began killing numerous amounts of women and girls, keeping them locked up in his dungeon for months on end. After being exposed for his sick acts, he killed himself. Blomkvist and Salander then found out that Harriet was still alive and she and her cousin had switched names, and Harriet had moved on with her life. Harriet visited her uncle but both of them decided that publishing the truth of the family would be disgrace to their family name and the truth never came out. The book was truly amazing I would recommend it to people late 20s and up.
Over the summer, one of the books I read was called The God Box, by Alex Sanchez. It’s a book I originally picked up because Borders was closing and the book was 75 cents and had a cool cover but I really really enjoyed it. Its basically a story about acceptance, mainly accepting yourself for who you are. It follows a young man who has been dating a girl for a long time now, in his high school in a small town in a Bible-belt state. He’s deeply religious, as is his girlfriend and the rest of the town. Enter new kid: Manuel. He’s Mexican, openly gay yet strongly Christian, and deeply irresistible for said young man, Paul. The book is pretty much a finding-yourself type story, but it was beautifully written and very emotional. Definutely worth it, I’ve read some more of the author’s books but this is probably my favorite, as it is less love-story-ish and more coming-of-age-ish.
This summer, i read Scar Tissue, the autobiography of Anthony Kiedis, the frontman of the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I started reading it based on a recommendation from a mysterious man named Rake Jzeppa. It is an un-put-downable, head-over-heels account of Anthony’s life from birth to Arcadium. Kiedis spares no details in his accounts of his drug binges while the rest of the band fears for his life. The second book I read was Seal Team Six by Howard Wasdin. Seal Team Six is an account of a sniper on Seal Team Six, the squad that is the elite of the elite– the ones that the government sends in when a mission absolutely cannot fail. Wasdin tells detailed accounts of his selection process, which made even the most seasoned soldiers look like weekend warriors. The second half of the book is his account of his tour in Mogadishu, where even the most trivial task ran the risk of death. He adds an emotional element where the Navy conditions him to kill other humans while feeling nothing but recoil, and how he was denied permission from command to save a boy’s life who was suffering from Gangrene on a leg thet was blown off by a land mine. I cannot recommend either of these two books enough.
I managed to really surprise myself this summer…by reading next to nothing. In retrospect, I wasn’t the best with utilizing the small bit of time I had out of my busy schedule, but it’s still a bit staggering when you compare to the summer between seventh and eighth grade, during which I read fifty books that I hadn’t read before.
However, “next to nothing” is still something. During the summer, I picked up the first three books in the Guardians of Ga’Hoole series by Kathryn Lasky. I had read the first one in middle school, but didn’t remember it. And since the movie came out not too long ago, I had some catching up to do.
If you’ve ever read the Warriors series by Erin Hunter, Guardians of Ga’Hoole is slightly similar. Guardians of Ga’Hoole takes place in a society of intelligent owls, free of human influence. Soren, a young barn owl and the main character, falls out of his nest one night and is kidnapped by owls from Saint Aegolius Academy for Orphaned Owls, an organization that seeks to rule the various owl kingdoms by brainwashing other kidnapped owls and using mysterious “flecks”. Soren, with the help of new friends, needs to find a way to escape the Academy and seek help from the titular Guardians of Ga’Hoole, peacekeeping heroes of lore who wage war against injustice and aid the aidless.
The reading level for Guardians of Ga’Hoole isn’t very high–perhaps mid or late middle school level–but the plot is interesting, if a bit predictable. For fans of animal high fantasy, this is a decent read.