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Winnie-the-Pooh

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.

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The Godfather

The Godfather is a book published in the year 1969 by Mario Puzo an italian-american writer which also made one of the biggest editorials of the country in the same year.

This is a 100 percent mafia book, we can say there has not been a better mafia book in history, many books may be similar or got similar ideas, but none of them made the impact that The Godfather made. Tough there are two movies based on this book which are classified as one of the greatest movies of all time.

There are a whole bunch of characters in this book due to it’s length. I am just going to name the most important ones like the whole Corleone’s family which is formed by Don Vito Corleone, Michael Corleone, Sonny Corleone. There is also some other mafia members and others like Tom Hagen, Sal Tessio, Virgil Sollozzo… All this characters have something in common and that is the corruption and mafia deals around them, they certainly represent the mafia in the USA in the 40’s and 50’s.

This book is very long, which makes it impossible to make a short plot summary due to the many ”parallel” stories inside the book, so i am just counting on the principal plot (the Corleone’s story). The story is in the middle 40’s and starts in the wedding’s party of Don Vito Corleone’s daughter Connie. All the family is in the celebration as well as the ”friends” of Don Vito. Don took some people into his office to accomplish some desires of the party’s people, because Scicilian men always accomplish the desires of their people in their daughter’s weeding. The Don listened to the people and met a mafia man called Sollozzo. The Don sent his loyal people to accomplish those desires, and he meets with Sollozzo, the man wanted to make a drug net with the power of the Corleone, but they didn’t agree, it was to risky for the Don. Sollozzo got angry because he felt was betrayed, and tried to kill Don Vito making a huge anger in Vito’s son Santino aka Sonny, this made a huge thing because it was the mafia war. Other son killed Sollozzo and his corrupted police officer that was helping him out against the Corleone. Sonny was still angry and killed other mafia members, he made everything harder and bigger in the war. Sonny was killed and The Don tried to fix the things, making a meeting in his home. Don Vito knew there was some inflitrated who was a traitor(Emilio Barzini) he said to his son Michael that he was the traitor and he should be prepare because they would love to arrange a meeting between them two, Michael listens to his father and when Don Vito died there was a funeral where some Sal proposed the meeting, Michael sent him to death. Michael decided to retire from the mafia life after being the most powerful Don and only one, he killed the other Dons in the mafias of New York while Cony’s son was in his baptism. Michael was already an Las Vegas business man because of his brother Fredo who was sent there after Sonny’s death, before many of this happenings so he decided to be just a casino man. Just as extra stuff: Michael was a soldier in the 2WW. He was protected by the mafia in Sicily. Something interesting is that at the beginning and one of the people who asked help from Don Vito was Frank Sinatra aka Jonny Fontane, it is said he had some stuff under the water going on with the mafia.

This book is basically omniscient narrator, and in this book we can find many words that made a huge impact like La Cosa Nostra. Some words are in italian of course, also there are quite epic quotes all around the book, in my opinion specially from Don Vito.

In my opinion this book is one of the best books ever, truly recommended for everyone, even if it is long and talks about mafia and quite old stuff, is interesting, exciting and very complete of course this is a real book and not overrated at all so it might be hard to get it at the beginning if you are totally new in the mafia stuff. A book that everyone should read.

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Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban

On year 1999 J.K.Rowling published her 3rd Harry Potter book ”Prisoner of Azkaban”. This fantasy story  was for example the Winner of the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year on the same year it was published. Harry Potter is unusual teenager boy living in England with his annoying Uncle-Vernon and his family. Harry is a wizard, studying in Hogwarts magic school. Also Harry’s best friends, two other main characters, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger are in Hogwarts. Ron is an emphatic and positive boy from nice wizard family. Hermione is very intelligent and talented in magic, even her parents are not wizards. These three seems to be an ordinary real life teenagers, just with ability to do magic.

Prisoner of Azkaban tells a great story of Harry’s 3rd year in Hogwarts magic school. Harry is used to be in troubles in every year and this one wont give exception. Harry’s godfather, Sirius Black, convicted from killing many peoples, has escaped from highly-secured prison, Azkaban, and his after Harry. Even Hogwarts can’t protect Harry from Sirius, but in the end of the book, circumstances changes and new sides from many people are revealed. Harry, Ron and Hermione gots their hands on many situations and cases, for instance in time travelling and attack by dementors.

The narrator of the story is not Harry himself, it’s unknow but all the time going with Harry. Main themes is of course magic, fantasy and entertainment to the readers. Anyone can read this book, but the main target group is young people. Potter book series are also made for it’s fans, because it has lots of them who’s all the time waiting for new book. Harry Potter continued in year 2000 with the 4th book and ended 2007 when J.K.Rowling published 7th and last Harry Potter book ”Deadly Hallows”.

I enjoyed the whole book but the most from the part where Harry ja Hermione was time travelling, helping themselves to survive from challenging situations. It was so exciting, unreal and it was written good. I recommend this book for everyone who likes fantasy and enjoys spending time with books. The language is quite normal British english, but it includes many unusual words. Thats why it’s good to know the idea before reading it. Harry Potter stories are usually quite longs, so maybe this is not the first book to read in english. For me it wasn’t that hard, because I knew the story, most of the terms and I didn’t got bored while reading.

Henri,

ENA5.3

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And Then There Were None

This novel is written by Agatha Christie and it’s been published in 1939. Her career was long and productive: over 60 novels, short stories, scripts… Agatha’s works are very widely known, and respected. Her books have been sold over 2 billion copies. She really deserves her title: Best detective story writer in the 20th century.

And Then There Were None is detective story, and a very good one. It became classic right away it was published. Review of the book was positive and it became immediately best-seller. The reputation of the book travelled fast among people and they were excited about it, and they still do. The book amazes its readers over and over again, because the plot of the book is so unique and addictive. This kind of plot is called “Shutter Mystery”. It means that the criminal is one of the limited persons. These kinds of books are intense and absorbing. And Then There Were None is excellent case study of this theme.

I don’t want to ruin anyone’s reading experience, so I won’t tell detailed plot. I want, it surprises and overwhelms you just like it did for me. The main idea is well-known though not as simple as you might think. Eight persons are invited in the private Island. They don’t know who invited them. Everyone is blamed in murder. They got stranded in island. They start to die one by one or more closely murdered. One of them is the murderer and no one knows who. The plot of murders is based on old children poem and all the murders follow its verses.

The atmosphere is very tense, everyone is guilty. No one can be trusted. As an experience, the book is very distressing, but without its unique anxious tone, it wouldn’t be this addictive. Frog in one’s throat, heart beating like there wouldn’t be tomorrow, you just keep reading. One of most important factors is that you don’t know who the murderer is. Personally I love books and movies, where pieces click in right places and little by little you start to perceive a bigger picture. Well this is not one of those books. When there are only 2 persons left in island, and you still can’t figure out who is the murderer, you know that the book was successful.

But what the book wants to say? Maybe it wants to warn about concealed danger of a human mind. The main idea is too simple. What goes around comes around. Honestly I don’t know… But what I know is, it provokes huge flood of sentiments. You start to think how well organized the whole story was! First you feel astonished, then you understand genius of the story and last you feel huge appreciation towards the writer. What an imagination!!

I warmly suggest this book for adventurous persons. Warning! Don’t start reading this book during a school week because you will read it in one fell swoops. But that risk is worth taking!  If you dare, don’t read the last 30 pages. I wished I wouldn’t have. Without those pages this book would have been perfect.  So open your mind for this classic book and realize why people all over the world fell in love with it. ’Cause no great story has best before-date.

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Too Much Happiness

I read a short story collection named ”Too Much Happiness” by Alice Munro,  the collection was published in 2009. Munro is a 82-year-old Canadian short story writer and she won the Literature Nobel prize in 2013 (”master of the contemporary short story”.)

Book consist of ten short stories ( Demensions , Fiction, Wenlock Edge, Deep-Holes, Free Radicals, Face, Some Women, Child’s Play, Wood and Too Much Happiness) Length of one story is roughly thirty pages. They tell stories about ordinary men and women and some turning points in their lives, turning points which still have effect in their current life or somehow entrail in it. Stories are as short stories usually are: they tell you something but still leave you in wonder: what did that mean? Why did she say that? How can you move with your life after that? What did happen next? You crave for more.

In every short story there is a different main character, men and women, young and old. Unitive author is that they all seem ordinary people living their ordinary lives: families, friends and nice jobs.

Book’s characters have different kind of situations. Storie’s themes are heavy: murders, violence, dishonour, adultery and pure evilness. Even though the themes are harsh and it seems that incidents are so far away from your own life, author has made it sound like it could happen for all of us. Things are told so delicately but still straight. To counterbalance there are a little bit lighter themes also:  hard relationships, normal circuit of life and misunderstandings. All these things mixed with love and continuation of life. My favorite short story was ”Free Radicals” which tells story about an old woman who has just lost her husband and man who comes to this woman’s house and tells that he has murdered his family, they have this strange ”kind-of-conversation” where turns out that this old lady isn’t so pure either.

Book’s narrator is an omniscient narrator in the most of the stories but some of the stories are told by characters. All the stories are told in the way you get to know the character as much as possible. Even though stories consentrate mainly on some incidents, there is happening so much more: sometimes the character looks back or time goes on and sometimes they just think their lives generally.

I kind of like the book. I usually read detective stories so this departed from them. It was refreshing to read in english, it brought challenge and it was nice to know that i was reading the book just like the author has wrote it.

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The title of the book: Horrid Henry Rocks

The name of the author: Francesca Simon

 

The book`s main character is Henry. He is an adolescent. He hates everybody and that is why he fights and screams almoust all the time. Henry doesn`t respect neither adults nor teachers. He doesn`t have manners. He doesn`t seem real and I think that he is merely stereotype. He doesn`t grow or develop during  the novel.

The novel contains a four separate and different stories. The first one tells about a crossfire between big brother and his little brother. Henry smudges Peters drawings and hides Peters stuffed animals. The second story tells about a crossfire between Henry and the girl next door. Henry steals Margaret`s biscuits and disturbs Margaret`s and her friends sleepover. In the third story Henry`s teacher asks the pupils to write an autobiographys. Henry hates writing and that is why he steals and spoils Margaret`s autobiography. The fourth story tells about the evening when Henry and his family go to ”The Daffy and her Dansing Daisies” show. Henry hates Daffy. In the show Henry wins in the raffle and he has to go on the stage with Daffy. It was Henry`s worst nightmare. Everyone was looking at him and of course he didn`t  know any stupid Daisy songs. Henry sang as loud as he could The Killer Boy Rat`s song. Two security guards ran on the stage and grabbed Henry. I think that the story take place in the town and the events took perhaps one week. The stories are disconnected with each other.

The narrator in the story is an outsider but in the some parts of the story Henry tells his story himself.

The main theme of this novel is a difficulties of the puberty. Henry`s life is very lonely because he behaves so badly. He hasn´t got friends for example. I think that he is depressed and distressed. The message of this novel is that the adults will have to understand their kids better and help them if they have problems in their manners. The adults have to give time for their children.

The first story in the book is the best one because it tells about quarreling between siblings. It is an eventful part of the book. I recommend this book to you and everybody. The language is quite easy to read but it isn`t too easy.  I learned new words and I notised that I undestood the book very well.

 

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Lord of the Flies

Lord of the Flies is a renowed classic by William Golding, published in 1954. It’s his first novel, and has received multiple awards, for example the Nobel Prize. The book may be described as allegorical novel, since it tells a story about group of British boys who have stranded on a desolated, trophical island. With no grown-ups on the island, they tried to establish rules and goals, which didn’t work out for the boys and they became literal savages.

Ralph was one of the main characters, being the protagonist. He was voted to be the Chief and make the important decisions. Ralph expected to be rescued shortly, and not to be on the island forever. They decided to make a fire and keep it up the whole time for the passing ships to see them. However there was a large difference between the boys and it became impossible for Ralph to keep the boys together and do the things agreed in an assembly.

Piggy was another important character. The rest of the boys didn’t place much value on him: he was obese, had an asthma, accent, specs and avoided physical labour. Yet he had very valuable opinions and was a dear companion of Ralph. Also his specs were the only way a fire can be lit.

Jack Merridew can be called the antagonist: he and the rest of the choir were the Hunters, fetching meat for the others. He felt as if the island was a game, and didn’t want to be rescued as badly as Ralph. There was a clear conflict between the protagonist and the antagonist: Ralph favoured common sense and keeping the fire going, whereas Jack preferred the brilliant world of hunting together and exploring.

From this on, several crisises occurred which ultimately led to the total collapse of the British boys’ moral, common sense and brotherhood. Most important one was the scattering to two camps: Jack’s party and Ralph’s party. It is evident that Jack’s party was all about hunting, savagery and having fun. On the other hand, Ralph stuck to his guns and refused to act like a savage, tried to convince everybody that the fire was the most important thing. Following after this, on the heat of the moment, the boys together commited one of the bloodiest acts, which I wish to not spoil. Towards the climax, killing continues, more gruesome acts are done and it seems that all the British knowledge and morals the boys had, vanished on the island. Fast-approaching climax is bloody, warsome, exciting and devastating.

Even though William Golding managed to create very interesting and compelling plot, still his language and the milieu are very beautifully written and described. He doesn’t outright take the reader into excitement and folly, there were also some very harmonious moments and at first the island seemed like a nice place, where I longed to be at. At times, the boys experienced the great feeling of truly belonging in a group, and they had certain goals, aiming to accomplish them. Lastly, the island and the story are convincing and very realistic, despite being fiction.

Story is told more like looking trough the characters’ eyes and expressing their thoughts, portraying the events by how they see. That’s why there are many hidden meanings and if not reading carefully, reader may misunderstand a point. Sometimes the narrator is omniscient, revealing major details which the boys have no idea of. William’s writing style is very pleasing, and he succeeded in creating a rich world and great characters.

In conclusion, I am grateful for reading such an awesome book. Lord of the Flies deserves its place as a classic. The theme of the book is the disintegration of the boys’ little society and darkness of man’s heart. I felt compassionate for the characters, and couldn’t understand why the story reached such a tragic climax. Afterwards, it seemed like the boys were having a game, but without adults and took it much too seriously.I will keep the book close to my heart, since the questions Lord of the Flies raises, are very relevant to this day.

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L.A. Candy

L.A. Candy is a fiction trilogy and I read the first one of the series which was published in 2009. The trilogy is written by Lauren Conrad who is an American television personality, author and fashion designer. She has been in reality shows such as the Hills and Laguna Beach and in my opinion the books were inspired by them. In this book we get to follow the life of Jane Roberts who is the central character and her friends.

At the very beginning of the book two friends, Jane Roberts and Scarlett Harp move to Los Angeles. They need to get out of their comfort zone and do something different with their lives. Jane has an internship in Fiona Chen’s office who is the hottest event designer in Hollywood. Scarlett starts to study in the USC college. The girls are very different. Jane is delicate and fragile and she always thinks before she does something. She is also crazy about decorating and fashion. Scarlett on the other hand is the brave one who always protects Jane from all the bad. Jane seems to believe that there is something good in everyone. Scarlett is the exact opposite from her best friend because she could not care less about fashion and looks. Still somehow she manages to look gorgeous.

The girls are new in the big town and they try to find out what life is like  there. They meet a couple of new guys and somehow they end up in a club where they are asked to contact Trevor, appreciated reality show producer, if they would like to star his upcoming reality show. The girls hesitate first but after a few days they call him and let him know that they are in. What could be a better way to make something happen in their life? Jane and Scarlett don’t even know what they are getting into. Soon the whole Los Angeles will know who they are and they want to know every little detail about them.

Everything advances quickly and soon the girls notice that their whole life is being shot. If they for example want to date a guy, it is not going to be a private relationship. The cameras follow them and two other girls to work, to clubs, to restaurants, to school.. It’s like they have no private life. In the end of the book Jane gets to see that it is not always a good thing when you get distracted with Hollywood lifestyle and glamour.

The language used in the book was very easy to read and the storyline was easy to keep up with. I liked the book because even though it was fiction it really could be true. None of the occurrences were over the top. This was only the first part of the series and the end of this book left me the feeling that i really should read the other ones as well. I usually don’t read this kind of books but this was a very positive reading experience.

Like I said in the beginning I think that the books were inspired by the author’s own experiences in reality shows. You could see the similarity in them. Lauren Conrad tells in one interview the following: ’’It also tells of what it was like during The Hills, some stories are basically behind the scenes on The Hills …’’. If you have ever watched the Hills and liked it, you are going to like the book also.

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Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone

The book Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone is written by J. K. Rowling and was published in 1997. Said book is the first part of the Harry Potter saga. The main characters are Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. They are all eleven years old and are in first grade of Hogwarts school of magic. Harry and Ron are wizards and Hermione is a witch. They don’t know each other until they meet in hogwarts and become friends. As the book continues they all learn new things in the magical world, for instance new spells. Harry is still the most important character in the book. He is ”the boy who lives”. The evil lord Voldemort killed Harry’s parents when Harry was a baby. He tried to kill Harry too but failed and lost his powers. It left a lighting bolt shaped scar in Harry’s forehead. Characters felt so real and believable that I myself started to believe in magic a little.
           In the beginning of the book Harry lives with his aunt and uncle in England unknowing about the magical world. Harry’s aunt, uncle and cousin are non-magical people or ”muggles”. When Harry is eleven he finds out that he’s a wizard when he gets an invitation to Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry. Professor Guirrell who teaches defence against the dark arts, tries to steal the philosopher’s stone for lord Voldemort so that he could resurrect. Harry, Ron and Hermione end up in a big adventure when they try to stop professor Guirrells actions. In addition the sorting hat choses Harry in the house of Gryffindor. There he meets the headmistress Minerva McGonagall. Harry also meets and immediately converges to Hogwarts principal Albus Dumbledore. Harry hates throughout the whole book professor of the potions Severus Snape.
The book begins in the summer and lasts the whole school year.
           The narrator is all-knowing and stays that way the whole book. The book is fictional and magic is it’s main theme. I think it’s written because the story touches everyone at all age. This book started the world-wide Potter phenomenon. The books message is that everyone can make it in life even though it may not feel like it right now. When Harry lives with his aunt and uncle he is bullied and discriminated little boy and nobody knows him. In the magical world Harry finds out that everyone knows him and his lightning bolt shaped scar.
          I liked everything that happened to Harry in Hogwarts. Every chapter about hogwarts were interesting and exciting. The least I liked the beginning of the book where there mostly just sorted out things. I would recommend to all who has watched Harry Potter movies to read them also as books. Books take movies deeper to the world of Hogwarts. The book was familiar to me because I had read it a couple times in finnish earlier. It was still a bit confusing that in this english version many characters had a different names then in the finnish version. Probably book would have been hard to read if I hadn’t known about the story a little beforehand. Entirely the book was magnificent!

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Moominland Midwinter

I write this book review of a book Moominland Midwinter. I chose this book because when I was younger I liked this book very much and now when I`m older I still like this. I don`t enjoy very much reading books but I think that this book is really hearth-warming and lovely. This book is written by Tove Jansson.

The characters in the book are Moomintroll, Little-My, Too-Tick, Spook and Great Gold. Relationship between Moomintroll and Little-My is interesting because Little-My is vivacious and Moomintroll is peaceful. Too-Tick lives in winter under the ice and he is clever and quiet.  It`s great   see how characters come closer and take care of each other. Characters didn`t seem at story real but they had very much human feature.

Story begin when Moomintroll wake up in the middle of winter. It`s new to him because Moomin`s always sleep at winter. Moomintroll is only who wake up and later Little-My wake up also when squirrel waking up her. Story tells how Moomintroll see winter and how new and exciting that is for him. One of my favorite parts of the text is when Moomintroll ask “What this snow?” and Too-Tick answer about that “sometimes it is white, red, blue, yellow, warm and cold­ – Moomintrovery is very astonished about snow and winter.

Book`s plot happened in Moominland. The plot tells about  the winter and the end of the story tells about the spring. I think that this book is a beautiful grow up story and it also reminds us to be always brave. And it tells about friendship and remind to us research the world and things what happened around us.

My favorite part of this book is when the spring comes at the end of story and another Moomins  wake up. Moomintroll have seen something that no one in his family have ever seen. He tells what he has experienced and what he thinks about the winter and the strange things what happened during the winter.

In this book language was easy to read and I understand almost everything of it. Of course dictionary get help when I didn`t understand text

It was new to me read english book, but it was also learning, I learned new vocabulary, of course it`s take more time but what is the most important, I also learned something.

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