Book Review: Augustine Came To Kent

Augustine Came to Kent (Living History Library) by Barbara Willard is about Wolf, a boy who accompanies Augustine, the Abbot. 

Pope Gregory sends Abbot Augustine from Rome to Kent in Britain to spread the word about Christianity and God. In the book, Augustine and his followers (inluding Wolf and his father, Wolfstan) face bad weather and storms on their way. When they reach the shores of Kent, they are greeted by villagers led by Cyneog. Cyneog's daughter Fritha and Wolf become friends (and later, husband and wife).

In our Story of the World audiobook, we heard that Pope Gregory calls two Anglo Saxon boys "angels". In this book, apparently, Wolfstan is one of the boys. So he is actually from England. Wolfstan finds his old home and is welcomed by Sigwolf, the leader of the village and his kinsmen. 

Also, Augustine's mission is a success because King Ethelbert and many others agree to be baptized and leave their old gods.

My Mom assigned this book for me to read because it has some historical bits I don't know about. It's a book I would not have chosen by myself to read because the story was not written in a funny way.

If you like this book, please comment.

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.

Books I've Been Reading

The Savage Stone Age (Horrible Histories) by Terry Deary

This book gives a very funny overview of the Stone Age. I learned that Neanderthals used to suck out the brains of other Neanderthals! I also learned that Stone Age people used to bury their dead (after a while) in burrows. They used to capture mammoths by making them run into tar pits. They also used to kill bison by making them run over cliffs. (Poor bison!) The book has some very funny cartoons and it should delight audiences of any age.



Number Freak: From 1 to 200: The Hidden Language of Numbers Revealed by Derrick Niederman


Number Freak is about numbers and all their interesting nooks and crannies. It informed me that Franklin D. Roosevelt was afraid of the number 13 and that in a 9x9 Sudoku grid; no puzzle with fewer than 16 givens (number clues) can produce a unique solution. I was also amazed by the de Bruijn cycle (it's made up of 16 ones and zeroes). I am still reading this book.



The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame and the audiobook narrated by Jim Weiss (both unabridged)
I read the entire Wind in the Willows in two days while listening to the audiobook. It's about a toad's best friends who try to cure his addiction for motor cars. They failed but he got into an adventure that eventually cured him of it. The book was extremely good and I'm sure it will charm audiences everywhere.

What I Learned Today

Usborne Internet-Linked Encyclopedia of World History

Today, I read pages 362-363 (about Josef Stalin) and 370-371 (Europe at War -- World War II). I also visited the Quicklinks.

Josef Stalin was a Russian dictator who tried to make Russia more powerful. He had smallpox as a child and later, he normally had his photos retouched to hide his scars.

During The Blitz, London was bombed and there were lots of evacuees. Some of the children did not like the places they were evacuated to but some didn't mind. The children who did not like the places were very homesick.

Chemistry Matters

I did Chapter 1-2 of Chemistry Matters but I didn't finish it. I learned about purification, melting points and boiling points and some apparatus used to purify chemicals. I completed 14 problems from Worksheet 1 and Worksheet 2 of the Chemistry Matters Workbook.

Coordinate Graphing: Creating Geometry Quilts

Today, I did the Grandmother's Puzzle quilt. So far, I have finished 17 quilt patterns from the book.

Tomorrow is my birthday and my Mom baked an orange cake with chocolate icing and 5 chocolate cookies (Lu) on top.