Category Archives: Yleinen

Glee – the Beginning is a warm-up book for the TV series Glee, which is a musical comedy about McKinley high school’s teenagers. The book was released in 2010 (same year as the show came up), and it was written by Sophia Lowell.

The main characters of this book are the Glee members Rachel Berry, Kurt Hummel, Mercedes Jones, Artie Abrams and Tina Cohen-Chang. For them high school isn’t easy. Especially when the popular kids of the school are trying to ruin all the good things they have in school. For example choir, Glee club. That makes even harder to make glee success. Glee is also known as musical TV series, where the actors and actresses sing nearly the whole time. Of course that’s a little hard to include in a book, but still you can feel the music around you almost the whole time while reading the book.

Besides the Glee members, the book is about the popular kids in McKinley high ; cheerleaders and footballers. As all of you who have ever watched Glee might now many of the footballers and Cheerios are eventually joining Glee club. But during this book almost everyone of them is trying to ruin glee members’ life. They still have their own problems. Finn Hudson the quarterback of the football team, who is dating Quinn Fabray, the head cheerleader, has a secret crush on Rachel Berry. Quinn in turn doesn’t actually even like Finn, just the picture of him together with her. Quinn’s actual love is the football team’s bad boy Noah ”Puck” Puckerman, which doesn’t quite picture Quinn’s dream boyfriend, so that’s why she is dating Finn. It was exciting to see how these relationships were before the series. And especially how the relationships move ahead.

For me it’s easy to imagine these characters because I’ve watched the TV series also. And I have really began to like them. But for a person who have never heard about glee might these characters be a little weird, at least I felt that way at first. But I’m sure everybody can find a character to identify with glee. Glee has every kind of students; latin, gay, black, white etc. And it tells about everyone’s secrets and fears which makes it easy to identify with.

The narration of this book changes from time to time. Usually one chapter is told by one of the main character; thoughts, feelings and words. Chapters were named according to the place and time were something was about to happen. Because of that you could usually guess who was the chapter about to tell. For instance choir room was often told by some of the glee kids. Like Rachel trying to train the other Glee kids look better on the stage.

I would recommend this book to a reader who likes comedy. And especially a teenager who likes to read about same kind of things are happening into her/his life. It was also easy to read at least for me, because I think the american accent the whole book is using is easy to understand because of present day’s big selection of american TV series. And even though it sometimes includes hard to understand words you eventually learn who to filter the less necessary words and you still get the main point.

The fellowship of the ring is the first part of three-volume epic novel The lord of rings. It´s written by J.R.R Tolkien. The book was published on July 1954.
The fellowship of the ring centralizes in the fictional universe of middle-earth and it takes place in the Middle Ages. The atmosphere is dark but hopeful: The hobbits mankind face multiple consequences but still they find joy and happiness in the darkness. The Harrator is in the third person and it is all-knowing. The story starts from a small village called Shire. There two of the main characters, Frodo and Sam get mission to destroy the Ring. Their journey to destroy the ring is the main plot of the book but it has multiple side plots.
The developes mainly around Frodo and Sam´s journey but stil most of the book tells about three heroes Aragon,Legolas and Gimli. They mainly fight against evil wizard Sacron´s troops but their actions are meant to help Frodo and Sam in their mission.
The book has multiple themes and probably the most important of them is the corrupting influence of power. The ring has almost chlimited powers and it seems that it is immensely difficult for many characters to resist the temptation to steal the ring for themselves and use it for their own purposes. No matter what the wearer´s purposes, good or evil, the Ring´s power always turns the wearer to evil. The story is full of examples of those who are correpted by the Ring. for example Gollom who once was a young boy named Smeagol who the Ring turned evil and obnoxious creature.
The main characters of the book are the hobbits Frodo and Sam, the wizard Gandalf the grey and the ranger Aragorn. Frodo is the ring-bearer whose task is to destroy the ring. Frodo has a great ability to resist evil. He is brave, wise and unfailingly polite. Unlikke the most Hobbits Frodo is curious about the world out of Shire. Aragon has a great amoount of power and knowledge under a humble exterior. Aragorn does a display a sort of vulnerability. Durin the story Aragorn slowly transforms into the king he is destined to become.
To my mind the highlight of this book was in the last charapter when the ring overtakes Boromir´s, who is one of the Frodo´s protectors, mind and makes him try to kill Frodo during the battle against the ores. This leads to Boromir´s death by the arrow of the ore.
The text is hard to read and it´s hard to keep up with the plot but when the story went on, the book shatched me in to it. it ended up to point where i lived within in the emotions of the book, if characters felt sad or happy, i did too.

The book that I read is Black Beauty and it is written in 1877 by Anna Sewell. Black Beauty is a very old story about a black horse, who travells around the England during her life. The story is narrated from Black Beauty’s perspective. It is a novel.

Anna Sewell has written this novel beacause she wants to tell  people about animals welfare and how to treat them kindly, respectly and sympathetically. The book represents its genre very well. Black Beauty is very good book for them who wants to find out what horses life includes, for example pulling heavy carriages and galloping. Anna Sewell’s book Black Beauty is one of the best selling books of all time, and it also made an affect on me.

Main characters are Black Beauty, Farmer Grey, Squire, John Manly, Ginger and Merrylegs.

Black Beauty tells about a horse’s lifestory  from its  youth to grown up. Anne Sewell is trying to accomplish better animal rights and their welfare in this book. That might be one big reason why she has written this novel from horse’s perspective. Author describes people, things and  places very exactly in this book. Narrator is inside in this story and for example horses can speak to others, but occasionally she is external. There are horses, farmers, grooms,families and riders in this book, which makes the story interesting, versatile and attractive. Events in this book are in chronologial order, so this is quite easy to read, understand  and follow the plot. In this book is even  little bit horror for example when The Black Beauty is in the horse stable, it starts to burn and they all start to panic.

Writer takes a stance on animals welfare, health care and their future. She also tries to get readers convinced that animals need a better treatment.

I would give rating 8/10 to Black Beauty, because it is a stirring story about loyal horse, who gets sometimes bad treatment from cruel people. Its a  book that everyone should read.

The book I read was Winnie-the-Pooh and it’s written by A.A. Milne. Winnie-the-Pooh was first published in 1926. The Book is illustrated by E.H. Shepard, you can find his drawings easily from Google. The book contains ten stories: Winnie-the-Pooh and some Bees, Pooh goes Visiting, Pooh and Piglet go Hunting, Eeyore loses a Tail, Piglet meets a Heffalump, Eeyore has a Birthday, Kanga and Baby Roo come to the Forest, Expotition to the North Pole, Piglet is Entirely Surrounded by Water and A Pooh Party. 

I have seen all these stories as Disney’s filmed versions, so they were familiar to me. One story is about twenty pages, so they seem like bedtime stories. Stories are in chronological order, but narrator doesn’t tell strict times when something happens. Every plot comes out at last from the story’s name. In Winnie-the-Pooh and some bees Pooh is trying to steal honey from bees. Pooh goes visiting tells how Pooh went visiting Rabbit, and get stuck on Rabbit’s burrow. Pooh and Piglet go Hunting is story about fool Pooh who erred his own footsteps, and thought it was Woozle or Wizzle. So they tried hunt it whit Piglet. Eeyore loses a Tail is Winnie-the-Pooh story that I know the best. Poor Eeyore has lost his tail, and Pooh found it from Owl. Piglet meets a Heffalump tells how Piglet is trying to catch a Heffalump, and digs a trap for it with Pooh. They put honeypot in the bottom of the pit as a lure. Hungry Pooh goes after honey, and gets into the trap. In Eeyore has a Birthday, Eeyore has a birthday like the name of the story tells. Kanga and Baby Roo come to the Forest tells how Kanga and Roo came to the forest, and how the others didn’t like the idea first. In Expotition to the North Pole Christopher Robin wants to find the North Pole, and goes search for it with his friends. Finally Pooh finds the North Pole. Piglet is Entirely Surrounded by Water and so Pooh and Christopher Robin rescues him and so Christopher Robin organizes a party for clever bear who saved his friend; Pooh Party. 

Main characters are certainly Pooh Bear, Piglet, Christopher Robin, Eeyore, Rabbit, Owl, Kanga and Roo. Their traits are the same as we all know from Disney’s animations. Pooh is charming but fool and Piglet is as small as always. Christopher Robin is clever little boy, Eeyore is melancholy, Rabbit maybe little bit annoying, Owl is smart and Kanga is worried about Roo all the time, like mothers should. As we all know, characters don’t grow, even though they have birthdays.

The book starts when Christopher Robin asks narrator to tell stories about him and Pooh. Narrator is unknown, but knows what characters feel and what happens around the forest at the same time. The text was easy to read, it didn’t contain hard words, but sentences were really long. It was hard to keep up when sentences just went on and on.