Reading Week #30: Children of Men

    It is the year 2027.
    The last days of the human race.
    No child has been born in 18 years.
    He must protect our only hope.

    This is a book that I read after I saw the film which came out in 2006 and is one of my favorite movies ever. I was immediately hooked by the realism and humanity exhibited in the movie, and I really wanted to read the book that it was based on. I am very happy to say that the book is every bit as striking as the film adaptation, and it is a book that everyone should read one time or another.

    However, this may not be a book that everyone should read. It is incredibly dark (to maintain all the realism of our world falling apart), and there is also a fair amount of adult content in here. I wouldn't recommend this book to everyone in our class right now, but everyone should read it at one time or another.

Reading Week #29: The Martian Again!

 Book: The Martian
        Author: Andy Weir
        Genre: Science Fiction/Realistic

        I really enjoyed this book, because there were so many unique elements to it, and the entire experience was really a refreshing look at science fiction. It follows the story of Mark Watney, an astronaut who was part of one the first manned missions to Mars in the near future, who was studying the surface with others. An unexpected storm comes, and during the fast evacuation, he found himself rolling down a dune impaled with an antenna, and the ship filled with his colleagues ascending in the other direction. He was left behind on the red planet be himself with very limited resources, and faced with the hard yet simple task of surviving.
     
        As I said this book is very different from most science fiction we have become accustom to, because it points out and explains the details of all the technology and science Mark comes into sight with. This makes the story much more believable, because it seems as though the reader is reading a story from real life and nothing is made-up or fantastical. The writing style is good (not beautiful... much like the book) and the entire story is very well told. I had a great time reading this, and despite the scientific basis that the book has, I believe everyone could enjoy reading this.

        This is answering the blog question: My favorite character is Mark, because for the most part he is the lone character in the book

Week #28: Heart of a Samurai

This week I read "Heart of a Samurai" by Margi Preus

 

  It is the true story of a Japanese teenager named Manjiro who lived in the mid 1800's, and experienced an amazing adventure. The book starts with his fishing crew off the coast of Japan who are struggling to catch fish. Suddenly a large storm interrupts them and destroys their ship, leaving them floating away from their home in the ocean. After some smaller adventures, they are found by an american whaling ship, and are rescued, not knowing anything about these knew people. Manjiro learns to love the people and sea, and is soon taken to a place he knows nothing about- America.

    The fact that this is a true story is pretty cool, and it is told in a way that doesn't have a beautiful writing style, but explains the event in a simple and interesting words. It is an easy read, and is about 300 pages long. I recommend this for anyone that wants to read a realistic adventure book.

Week #27: The Edge Chronicles

 "The Edge Chronicles: Beyond the Deepwoods" by Chris Riddell, and Paul Stewart
         This is an interesting book- I didn't actually like it as much as I thought I would. It was a very low reading level, yet it was sort of hard for me to read because I couldn't get hooked on to it at all. Being a low reading level, I think it might be better for younger kids, but at times it was kind of cool (me liking fantasy books). Something I noticed about it, is that it was making up this huge unknown world, much like the Lord of the Rings, but it doesn't captivate you the way LOTR does.That might be because the Lord of the Rings was written a very long time ago, so the writing style is different to us these days which makes it seem old and otherworldly, while the Edge Chronicles was written in the past ten years, so it doesn't have that vibe.
     
         But before I start careening off track- as you probably remember from Gavin's Book Talk, it's about a boy names Twig who lives in a world called "The Edge," and goes on an adventure into the Deepwoods to find out about his history. It is an okay fantasy book, yet I didn't particularly like it, but if you like fantasy books I would recommend trying it.

Reading Week #26: The Children of Men

    It is the year 2027.
    The last days of the human race.
    No child has been born in 18 years.
    He must protect our only hope.

    This is a book that I read after I saw the film which came out in 2006 and is one of my favorite movies ever. I was immediately hooked by the realism and humanity exhibited in the movie, and I really wanted to read the book that it was based on. I am very happy to say that the book is every bit as striking as the film adaptation, and it is a book that everyone should read one time or another.

    However, this may not be a book that everyone should read. It is incredibly dark (to maintain all the realism of our world falling apart), and there is also a fair amount of adult content in here. I wouldn't recommend this book to everyone in our class right now, but everyone should read it at one time or another.

The book:

The movie:

Week #25: Out of My Mind

   Last week I decided to read this very well written novel, and I am very happy that I did. This is a book about an adolescent girl named Melody, who suffers from cerebral palsy and is almost completely incapacitated. Because of her illness, it is hard for her to convey her toughest to her family, so that they don't know how  she is on the inside.
    Like I said, this book is very well written and overall an amazing story, that i would recommend to anyone in our class. There is not much mature content, and it is something that anyone in our class can handle. I had a very good experience reading this book, and I hope everyone else does as well.

Slice of Life:3-17-15

 Title: Of Mice and Men
     Author: John Steinbeck
     Genre: Historical Fiction

     This is not the first time I have read this amazing book, but I really hope this isn't the last. If you haven't heard about it yet, it is a historical fiction novel that is able to pack an extremely large amount of power, symbolism, and character into an extremely little amount of pages, rounding out at around 110 pages of small print.
      It follows two men in the Great Depression era looking for work, one of them short, defined and smart, and the other being tall, oddly put together, and with the mind of a child. They come to a ranch where they heard work was, and the rest of the story follows them as they interact with each other and others. The writing style is understandable, and it is also very sincere and real rather than beautiful, overdone writing.
      I have come to love this story very much, and I am sure anyone can if they want to.