One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

         The setting of one day in the life of Ivan Denisovich takes place in a prison camp in Russia. It is not in the mountains, it's in the hill country.  It is very cold in the winter where the camp is located and is pretty warm in the summer.
           The conflicts of this story is how Ivan faces the cold, deals with the guards and some of the other prisoners.  Ivan faces the cold be not thinking about, trying to get warm whenever possible like around the/a stove or fire and by wearing warm clothes. I think this conflict settles under man vs. wild.  The other one are man vs. man.  It is man vs. man because he has to deal with the guards by trying not to get in trouble with them.  He also has to deal with the prisoners by not getting in fights with them and not arguing a whole lot with them.

The book that I chose to read this six weeks was Animal Farm by George Orwell. This book is about a small farm outside of a small town in England. This farm was owned by a cruel couple who were in debt. Mr. Jones the man who owned the farm was often drunk. Late one night mr. Jones had some people over and he was busy inside the house. So all his animals were called for a meeting in the barn. Ol' major the prize winning Bohr wanted to share some words with the other animals. Ol' major shared his dream and a revolution was among the animals. A few nights later Ol' major fell over died and three young pigs took over the revolution. The pigs names' were Napoleon, squealer, snowball. The three pigs led the revolution and the first step was to chase all the humans out of the farm. Once all the humans were out the animals started making rules, laws, and protection ideas. The animals were happy for once. They were finally loving Ol' majors dream. Napoleon was turning in to a human himself. He had secretly made friends with Mr. P, the evil banker. Napoleon was breaking Ol' Majors dream and laws. He killed off most of the animals except a few who went into hiding and came out a few years later when everything was over. A new family bought the farm and the Animal Farm was over. 





English   3
11/8/13
Jordan avra

Animal Farm

I have recently read a book that is called Animal Farm and it's by George Orwell. It was copyrighted on August 17, 1945 and it’s a fantasy book. It is about how animals rebel against their farm owner, motivated by a song called The Beast of England. So the book is mainly focused on how the animals survive. They create law and some animals learn to read and write. They build a windmill and then they decide to perfect it. They had to find out how to break stones without using tools. They end up finding out that they can just drop the rocks to break them. The overall theme of this book is pride because the animals show a lot of it.

The story is told in the third person or told by the author. This book is about how some animals survive after they kick their farm owner out of the farm. The intended audience is not classified for any age group; it's classified by the amount of imagination someone has, if you have a lot you will want to read this book. This book is a dystopian animal fable because the book has talking animals. The author kept me interested in the book because the animals kept on getting human-like problems. The author is friendly or simply talking about what happens in the book so I think that it’s a good way to talk to the intended audience.

The book affected me because it made me smile and it brought out the imagination in me, which I liked. I used to think that humans were the only smart animals on the earth but now I think if there were no humans some other type of animal will rise and dominate the world. I am pretty sure that if there were no humans the world would be much different. This is a book with talking animals that go through real situations so this kind of reminds me of a sophisticated version of some of my preschool books like Clifford and Winnie the Pooh.

I would like to commend the author, on how the book brought out my imagination. That was a big surprise for me. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants him or her to release their imagination.

Zac Schulwolf

11/7/13

RATING: **** 4/5

                                                Lord Of The Flies

     This book is called Lord Of The Flies by William Golding. The first copyright date is 1954. The book is fiction and the general subject matter is children surviving in the wild. A plane crashes on an unknown island and the students have to survive until a boat comes looking for them. On the island, Ralph is the leader of the boys and Jack wants to be the leader so he separates and creates his own tribe. In the beginning the kids survive the plane crash on the unknown island. The leader, Ralph starts arguing with Jack, so Jack and some kids make their own tribe. Jack's tribe starts to hunt Ralph because he does not like his rules but before they can kill him a rescue boat lands on the island and the captain protects Ralph. The theme of the book is about working together. You have to work together to survive or chaos will happen and you will never complete your goal.


     Lord Of The Flies is told by a narrator and it is in third person. I think the intended audience is for teenagers because some of the vocabulary is difficult to understand and there are a few cuss words in it. The genre of Lord Of The Flies is adventure fiction because Ralph and the kids are trying to survive on the island when some believe they have seen a monster in the mountains. Later Jack and some others created their own tribe and attacked Ralph's tribe many times to take the fire because they did not know how to make it on their own. Eventually they hunt Ralph. The author kept me interested in the book because throughout the book the author created many conflicts. An example is when Jack forgot to keep the fire going and a rescue boat passed by the island because it did not see the smoke. The author's style is partly based on his real life experiences. He was a young adult during World War II and it had a dramatic effect on him.


     The book affected me by making me feel sorry and sad for Piggy because Jack's tribe killed him. I thought that part was shocking because a couple days ago they were all friends and it was a twelve year old child that killed Piggy. Piggy was twelve years old when he died. It did not change any of my ideas because the book is fiction, and I know that none of my friends would ever act that way. In times of stress people do things that you do not expect them to do so they can survive. Whether right or wrong, I believe that would happen because I have heard of crazy things people will do in times of stress to survive. An example is a male who was stuck in the jungle and he had to eat bugs and small rodents to survive. This book reminds me of The Hunger Games because children had to kill each other to survive.


     I liked how the author described the events that happened  and what  Jack's tribe looked like with  paint all over their faces. I also thought the book had extremely good quality because the author described the characters well and had good action. My recommendation is the author needs to make the ending more exciting and tell us what happens to the students when they arrive home.


Colin Wilson
11/7/13
Rating **** 4/5
   

Catching Fire - Suzanne Collins

This six weeks, I decided to read Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins. It was first published in 2009, as the second book in The Hunger Games trilogy. It is a fictional book, based on a dystopian society set in the future United States.  It has some very obvious similarities to today's society as well as some very wild and dangerous ideas about the possibilities of how things could turn out in the future, depending on how citizens choose to behave.  Reading this book, requires an open mind, like many of the other books we are reading.  The story takes off from where the first book, The Hunger Games ended, where Katniss and Petah, from District 12, come home as the first ever joint-victors of the annual games. They are at home in their area of the country, District 12, trying to find their way forward.  Katniss is the heroine of the book and it is written from her point of view.  It is a limited perspective though because we only get to see what's going on from her point of view.  The plot revolves around the Capitol's way of managing the people in the districts to keep the country in order. The 12 districts, for 75 years now, are organized by their key natural resources and economic contribution to the Capitol.  From fishing to farming to mining and logging and engineering you see that people from each region only have exposure to what their district has as resources. The Capitol area differs from the districts in that live there revolves around government and entertainment; it is a sort of Hollywood-Washington DC hybrid.

The Capitol, which is where the country and its 12 districts are "managed" from, has just announced the next year's games will have a new and exciting twist for all the district participants because it is the 75th anniversary of the Hunger Games.  Every 25 years, they have a "Quarter Quell" Hunger Games, and this 75th anniversary will be the 3rd quarter quell, and the Capitol has something very special cooked up for the citizenry.  Katniss is on pins and needles as are Petah and Haymitch.  Haymitch is a previous Hunger Games winner with his own Demons which he battles daily through the bottle (alcohol).  Petah has continued to be a saint, baking and painting and living in his little house in the Victors Village area of District 12.  Petah, Haymitch and Katniss all live in the Victors Village houses in this second book.  Katniss has her mother and sister, Prim, living with her; while Haymitch and Petah each live alone.  Petah and Katniss and Haymitch find out that two victors (a male and a female) from each district will be going back into the arena for this 75th games.  Katniss is the only female, so she knows she's going back -- she is distressed and afraid and in usual Katniss style heads out into the woods to "think" about what this means for her and her family and all those she holds dear.  She decides that this year's games will be about keeping Petah or Haymitch alive, that is all.

I think the book really made an impression on me because it shows how too much control in the government can undermine the quality of people's lives (the pursuit of happiness which we take for granted today) and overall, can undermine how society interacts with one another.  The Hunger Games were established by the government to make people remember their wars of the past - between themselves and who had the most power -- and how they made each district sacrifice annually, one male and one female from each district to annual games that were a fight to the death.  Instead of keeping people in line by incentivizing good behavior, the book illustrates how the current Capitol's strategy to keep peace through recurring violence as punishment, despite good behavior, ultimately fails over time.  Basically, the book illustrates how overuse of "the stick" vs "the carrot" is an unsustainable way to keep a country in order and how excessive "the carrot" life, experienced by those in the Capitol who never suffer for anything, ultimately are rudderless and entertainment focused, until they have experience some hardships themselves.  

I really enjoyed the book, cannot wait for the movie to come out in November, and have enjoyed the third book, The Mockingjay, very much also.

This book has a great ending, which I will not spoil and is highly recommended by readers of all ages. (My grandfather even read the series.  He loved it too!)
  

Benji

       For my out of class book I read Benji by Allison Thomas. It was copyrighted in 1975. Benji is a fiction book. Benji is a stray dog that is very smart and is loved by everyone, and goes about his day in a routine and visits the same people every day. He especially loves these two kids who feed him and take care of him, but their dad will not let them keep Benji as a pet. Whenever the two kids get kidnapped Benji gets everyone's attention and leads them to where the kids are located and Benji rescued the two kids and was rewarded by living in a home with them. I think that the overall theme is anyone can be a hero, even if it is just a stray dog. 
       

       This story is told in 3rd person. The author writes the story centered on Benji. Benji wakes up every morning and visits the Chapman's house. There he is loved and he gets his meal. But if he his is seen by Mr. Chapman then Benji will have to go away from that house. After that he goes and sees other people like police officer, and restaurant owners. One day he finds a stray white female dog, Tiffany, looking for food. So, Benji offers his bone to her and they immediately become friends. When they go back to their house which is an abandoned mansion, strangers come in and start talking about a plan. Benji is very confused. The next day they come back again with another person. He is the leader of the group. Then, on a third day they come back again but this time they have 2 kids. The 2 kids are the Chapman's. Benji is very worried, so he grabs the draft ransom note that the kidnappers wrote and escape from the kidnappers and runs toward the Chapman's house. At the house is Mr. Chapman, Mary the housekeeper, 3 policemen, and 2 neighbors. At first the people ignore Benji, but after a couple of tries they finally see the paper. Benji runs out of the door with the group of people fallowing him, and he leads them to the kids. The kidnappers get arrested and Benji and Tiffany both get to live with the Chapman's for saving the kids. The intended audience is people who like dogs and kids. I think that the genre of this book is realistic-fiction, because I think that a dog could help save kidnapped kids. The author style keeps you want to read. I think it is very effective for the audience because it will keep them interested.


       The book made me think more about a dog's perspective. I never thought that a dog maybe having a daily routine. It made me think of my dog, that maybe she does close to the same things every day. This book fits into my personal world view because I'm around my dog, and it make me think more about what my dogs view on things are. This book does not bring up memories of books, but it does with movies, such as Cats and Dogs and The Homeward Bound.


        I thought that this was a very entertaining book. It quickly got me hooked so it was very easy to read. I would defiantly recommend this book to dog lovers and people who like animal books or movies.


Ryan Ramsay
11/6/13
RATING: ***** 5/5


     

          The book that I read was "The Fault in Our Stars" by John Green.  The copyright date is January 2012.  This book is  realistic fiction and romantic themed. This book is also going to be turned into a movie in a few months! The story is narrated by a sixteen-year-old cancer patient named Hazel, who is forced by her parents to attend a support group, where she unexpectedly meets and falls in love with the seventeen-year-old Augustus Waters, an ex-basketball player and amputee.  Hazel Grace Lanscaster was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung and thyroid cancer when she was 13 and has been holding up only from a drug called Phalanxifor.  After meeting Augustus her life is starting to get back to a better ease.  It also includes all of the things they did together.  In "The Fault in Our Stars" the author believes that love is a very fragile thing and that no matter what happens you can love and be loved.
         This book is told by the point of view from Hazel.  Hazel states that after going to one of her support group meetings she meets a guy named Augustus ( Gus ) Waters.  Soon after they meet the fall in love and start doing everything together.  One of the major things they do is take a trip to Amsterdam to meet an author that they are both obsessed with, so that he can answer some of their questions about his books in person.  Although the author did not give them what they wanted the still got the results they were looking for.  The intended audience is teenage kids around my age.  This book is classified as a realistic fiction and romantic story because it could happen in real life and has real life situations.  This author reminded me of Suzanne Collins with the Hunger Games series.  Both books were very interesting to me because they would give hints about what was coming up.  Also at the end of the chapters, for both books, it has a heart pounding ending to the end of the chapter that makes me want to keep reading! It took some serious effort for me to put this down.  The author's style is a happy but sad story.  Happy because it's adorable seeing to cancer patients together and having the time of their lives.  Sad because is has an extremely emotional ending.  It is effective for the audience because it tells them that cancer victims can do just the same things that everyone else can do.  " That was the worst part about having cancer: the physical evidence of diseases separates you from other people." - Hazel.  "They just piss me off sometimes.  And I don't want to be pissed off today" - Augustus.
          This book has defiantly made me look at cancer patients and what they go through very differently.
       It didn't make me change my ideas about cancer and diseases though.  The thing that makes it fit in with my own personal view of the world is that it told me that no matter how much stress, struggles, or horrible things that happen to you you can still have hope on something good.  Ex. Augustus and Hazel meeting.  Currently this book has not reminded me of any others that I have read.
          This is defiantly one of my favorite books now!  The author did a great job on writing it.  He made me feel what the characters were feeling and experiencing.  I would absolutely recommend this book!

Riley Whitford
11/6/13
Rating : **** 4/5

Alex Rider: Eagle Strike

   This book is called Alex Rider: Eagle Strike by Anthony Horowitz. It was first copyrighted in 2003. The book genre for this would be action fiction, and this book is the third issue of the Alex Rider series. This book is about a fourteen year old boy who becomes a MI6 agent for the UK. In this particular issue, however, he is conducting his work without the help of MI6. In this book, Alex is on vacation, and someone is killed. After researching and investigating the scene Alex learns that the culprit is an international superstar, named Damian Cray. Alex learns about Cray's evil plans, called Eagle Strike, which is were Cray hijacks Air Force 1 and launches missiles from the plane. Alex eventually kills Cray, but a massive cliffhanger is revealed, where Alex learns more about his Dad. I think the theme of this book that people aren't always what they seem. One of the main characters of this book is a man named Damian Cray, who is a famous singer, but in the end turns out to be a killer.  This book is told in the third person, but you are able to here Alex's thoughts. Alex is a young spy, who learns the truth about a superstar, and hearing his thoughts makes this more enjoyable. I think the intended audience of this book is for teenagers, as the story bases around a fourteen year old. I think that this book falls into the action fiction genre, as the book centers around a spy. The author keeps me interested in this book by having plot twists. For example, when Alex had stole the plans for Eagle Strike, I thought the book was over, but then Cray took Alex's friend hostage. The authors style is very action packed, and very descriptive. I think it is very effective for this book, as it keeps me with a clear visual of what is going on. 

  This book affected me in the way that I wanted more. I really wanted the book to continue, and luckily there are more books in the series. It made me think of people differently  as in it made me think about what people are really like. This series brought up memories of a spy book I read as a very young child called Zack Powers. The book centered around a boy spy, just like Alex Rider. 

  I really enjoyed this book, and I thought the book was high quality. With all the plot twists and figurative language, I think it would be hard to make the argument that this was a bad quality. I would recommend this book for anyone 12 and up. For a 12 year old the book could be challenging, but it was a very good read. 

  Callum Harralson, 

  11/6/13

  ***** 5/5

  

Parched

By Melanie Crowder

 

 

The novel Parched by Melanie Crowder, written in 2013, intertwines the lives of a boy, a girl, and her dogs in the epic drought survival game. Set in a realistic future in a once-civilized land stripped of its water and life, gangs reign and will not hesitate to kill anyone interfering or threatening their access to water. After her parents are murdered by these gangs, Sarel, a resourceful and loyal girl, must survive on her own with only her dogs and her family’s secret grotto. Musa is a boy who was enslaved by the gangs for his water sensing ability but finally escapes and runs for his life. The water vibrations draw an almost lifeless Musa to Sarel’s secret grotto, where the two work in harmony to avoid the gangs, protect themselves and the dogs, and most urgently, find water. The theme of this book is that you have to lean on one another for survival, because without Sarel, Musa, or the dogs, the others would die.

            The story is told from the point of Sarel, Musa, and Nandi, the leader of the dogs, but in third person. These three characters are brought together and must use each other for survival. Because it is mentioned in the book that the sea levels had risen and the climate had obviously changed since when the setting was first inhabited, I think the novel is set post-global warming. I think the intended audience is middle school age kids or young teens. The genre is realistic fiction because it sounds realistic but there are elements of fiction such as the futuristic setting and the way Musa can ‘hear’ water. The author tries to keep the reader interested by switching between characters and using sensory detail. The author’s style is to speak for the characters and use lots of metaphors and interesting comparisons while the voice is dramatic. The novel lacked emotion, so that was a downfall for me.

            This book didn’t really influence me too emotionally, since it was a little emotionally lacking, although it did make me thirsty. The author’s use of metaphors and comparisons for descriptions was amazing, but I think it needed a little more dialogue. The novel also shows how different life might be after global warming because the city/country where the story took place went from a fully functioning, modern town to an every-man-for-himself desert saga when the climate changed. Melanie Crowder’s descriptions and point of view of writing reminded me of Kathi Appelt, who wrote The Underneath.

            Parched had good imagery and a mildly interesting plot line, but it lacked emotion and attention-grabbing plot turns and was a little drawn-out.

 

Emily Fonken

11/05/13

RATING: ** 2/5

 

Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code

Artemis Fowl the Eternity Code by Erin Colfer was first copyrighted in 2003.  It’s fantasy and is the 3^rd book in its series. Artemis Fowl, a 13-year old mastermind is meeting up with big businessman Jon Spiro.  He wants to sell Spiro the C-Cube a secret technological advancement that Artemis has made out of fairy technology.  Spiro takes the C-Cube but the fate of fairies and humans depend on this C-Cube, so the fairies help Artemis retrieve the C-Cube.  The theme of this book in my opinion is careful what you wish for and be mindful of your actions.

The story is told from a bird’s eye view and is in the third person.  Like I said before the fairies must help Artemis in taking back the C-Cube from Jon Spiro.  They go into his tower that is thick with guards and attempt to break in…  I think the intended audience is kids around my age maybe even 10 probable 10-16 I would say so basically genius kids.  The genre of this book is Fairy-scientific-realistic fiction.  Because this could happen in the real world apart from the fairies and this book has a lot of advanced technology.  The author kept me interested in this book with a lot of suspense and action, because I really like some good action and who doesn’t get hooked on hooking suspense.  The author’s style is to throw a lot at you, but he does it in a way that gets you more intrigued ever time you read a page of it, so I think this style is very effective for the select age group he wrote it for.

This book affected me in the way that eventually you have to move on.  Because in the book Artemis is up to his usually schemes again, and gets his sidekick, Butler killed.  This is a turning point for Artemis and he realizes that while he was thinking of himself and his schemes, he got others hurt.  I’m going to think about that the next time I’m doing something that could potentially harm someone.  I don’t think that this book reminded me of any other books except for the 2 books before this.

This book, like all books by Erin Colfer is very well done and gets my kudos to Eric.  He just keeps me intrigued all the time and always sets the mood for the next book perfectly.  I recommend that you read this book insanely much because it’s a killer book and you’ll be reading it under the table at restaurants like that book reviewer that I saw on the back of a Harry Potter book one time.  It’s filled with action and friendship, suspense and sincerity, and above extreme goodness.  If you are a human you will love this book.

Daniel McCorquodale

11/6/13

Rating: ********** 10/5