Books I Read Today

Hanuman, based on Valmiki's Ramayana retold by Erik Jendresen
This book gives an accurate picture of Hanuman's story and is very nice for light reading. Hanuman is a monkey who helps Rama to get his wife, Sita, back from the clutches of Ravana and his city, Lanka. Hanuman does this by using his powers to grow, jump and fly. It's a slim book with easy vocabulary and amazing pictures.

The Making of Monkey King: English/Chinese (Adventures of Monkey King) retold by Robert Kraus and Debby Chen. This book is very funny and suitable for cheeky readers. It tells the adventures of a very mischievous monkey king who came out of a big rock on top of a mountain (read the book and you'll know what I mean). He first becomes the king of monkeys, then goes on a quest for eternal life. The story is based on the legend of Sun Wukong.


How to Train Your Dragon Book 1 by Cressida Cowell
It's an extremely funny story about Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III's (also known as Hiccup) adventures in capturing and training a dragon known as Toothless. I enjoyed it because of the humorous notebook drawings and the various methods Hiccup tries to train his dragon. The book is very different from the movie. For one, he doesn't shoot the dragon down. For another, Toothless isn't a Night Fury dragon in the book. There are no lovey-dovey moments either.

Today, I also solved a seemingly difficult maze by Lewis Carroll. It appears on page 59 of The Joy of Mathematics by Theoni Pappas. You can find what it looks like here. The version I have is rotated 90 degrees to the left. Can you solve it too? If you can't, leave a comment and I can give you a hint.