The Evil Pigs (Animal Farm)

Oink! Did you know that pigs are evil? Not in real life of course, but in this book, it turned out to be true.

Animal Farm by George Orwell is about a farm that is taken over by animals. The boar who starts the rebellion is Old Major. After Old Major's death, every animal elects two pigs to lead the farm. They are Snowball and Napoleon. Snowball and Napoleon write seven commandments to govern the farm and all the animals agree to follow these commandments.

The commandments I can remember are:

• All animals are equal


• No animal will sleep in beds


• Every living thing with four legs is a comrade, every living thing with two legs is an enemy


• No animal will drink whiskey

After a while Napoleon chases Snowball out. Napoleon becomes a dictator and the farm's order collapses.

I believe this is a very good book even though it made me sad. I would recommend this for ages eight and above.

The Young, Chemistry-Loving Detective

  

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag and A Red Herring Without Mustard are three of my favorite books. Alan Bradley wrote these books with much flair and he's planning to add three more to the series.

The main character of this series is Flavia de Luce. She is eleven years old and has her very own chemistry laboratory. She investigates using village chit-chat/ gossip and her knowledge of chemistry.

In the first book, Flavia investigates the death of her father's former school chum. In the second, she solves the mystery of a puppeteer who dies of electrocution and in the third book, she investigates who is behind a gypsy's head injury and finds, on the way, that someone else was murdered.

If you don't like murder, I suggest that you don't read this series. Otherwise, get your copies today! And leave a comment if you want to discuss them.

The Hilarious Djinni

   

The Amulet of Samarkand (Book 1), The Golem's Eye (Book 2), and Ptolemy's Gate (Book 3) make up the Bartimaeus Trilogy. The Ring of Solomon is its prequel. These books are written by Jonathan Stroud.

The series is about the adventures of a djinni, Bartimaeus, and his master, Nathaniel. In all of these books, they save the world from one terrible being or another. In The Ring of Solomon, we find Bartimaeus helping another character, Asmira, to assassinate King Solomon and take his ring.

I think Jonathan Stroud writes with a very good style. I finished all four books in a short period of time because Bartimaeus is very funny! I would strongly recommend these books to readers of any age.

Magnifying a Drop of Water

I have a microscope at home which I decided to put to good use. Mom and I bought some slides and decided to take a look at them through the microscope. These were from a Water Life slide set.

The first slide we looked at was Paramecium caudatum. At the highest magnification (x400) it looked like a yellowish, greenish pod. According to my book, A World in a Drop of Water: Exploring with a Microscope by Alvin Silverstein and Virginia Silverstein, it is supposed to look like a slipper. At the x100 and x40 magnifications, it looked like purple streaks (it was stained).

The second slide we looked at was Planaria, a flat worm. It looked like a long yellow streak with dots inside. The third slide was Hydra (budding), and this looked a hand with four fingers.

Book Review: Haroun and the Sea of Stories

I liked Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie very much because he fills it with action, intrigue and excitement.

Haroun is a child of a storyteller. Haroun's mother runs away with another man. After his mother ran away, Haroun's father suddenly ran out of stories to tell. To cheer his father up, Haroun asks a coach driver to bring his father to the Valley of K. The valley's view will make anyone who sees it happy. After a while, Haroun finds out that his father's subscription of Story Water has run out and he tries to renew it.

Haroun is helped by Butt and Iff, a hoopoe (a kind of bird) and a water genie, respectively. Haroun has to experience a lot of adventures in order to achieve his goal.

It's a happy ending! In order to fill in all the missing bits like why did Haroun's mother run away, you'll have to read the book yourself. I strongly recommend this for all ages.

Salman Rushdie wrote this book for his son Zafar. There's a companion book called Luka and the Fire of Life, which I haven't read yet. After I have read the second book, I might review it.

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.