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catherine

Holding Up the Earth

Dianne E. Gray



Hope's mother died in a tragic car accident eight years ago. By fourteen, she has gone to seven different foster homes. She now arrives at Anna and Sarah's caring hands. She discovers Anna and Sarah's ancestors who have also settled on this land before. Reading their diaries and letters, Hope soon learns to accept her new life and settles.

Rating:4/5

My Left Foot
by Christy Brown

Christy Brown's autobiography My Left Foot, tells us about his condition of cerebral palsy. This condition is a muscle disorder. When he was young, he could not control his speech or movement, other than his left foot. He taught his left foot to paint, write and type.
Born in 1932, Chirsty Brown was one of the 22 children of a Dulin bricklayer. He played with his brothers like any other child, but at the age of ten, he noticed he was crippled. He hid away from everyone in his room and painted his feelings with a box of watercolour paints he traded for soldiers at Christmas. He then fell in love with a neighbourhood girl. There you should read on!
This book is written so well you will feel sympathetic for Christy because it's like you him so well!!

Rating: 3.5/5

Title: The Life of Pi
Author: Yann Martel
The story is about a guy named Piscine. He believes in three different religions, Christianity, Hinduism and Islam. Pi grew up in a zoo located in India. At one part of his life, Pi and his parents decides to go to Canada through the cargo ship. At this event, Pi was orphaned. He was left alone with one creature with him; a tiger. It was really sad for Pi. At the beginning of the novel Pi didn’t know what to do with an animal. However, as the story develops Pi and the tiger got along and started liking each other. The both helped each other at times of need.
From this book I learned many lessons. Firstly, I go to know that if you want to live life then you need to continue on. Pi was left all alone in a sea with a tiger. His parents and brother is dead and he doesn’t have anyone except a tiger. It was a sad moment, for many of us we wouldn’t go near a tiger, but I learned that anything can happen at anytime and you just need to make the best out of the situations. You achieve something through the struggles you go through. Also, I find it interesting how Pi believes in three different religions. Even though some society members disagree with him, Pi still continues on. Overall I liked this book for all the themes and lessons that I got to know and learn. I also liked the part of how it took in India, in Pondicherry where I visited which I found interesting.

Vol. Hrs: 27 hrs

Macbeth by William Shakepeare

Macbeth is another Shakespearean story that I have read. Macbeth goes against his moral values. To gain more power and to maintain his power Macbeth started committing cruel crimes. At the beginning of the play, Macbeth was normal, and was satisfied with what he had, however Lady Macbeth is the one who questioned his manhood, and encouraged Macbeth to start his quest for power. The first murder he did was the murder of the king who is also his cousin. After that Macbeth started planning and murdering other noblemen of Scotland. The noblemen include his best friend. As the story continues on, Lady Macbeth feels bad and guilty that she was part of killing the King. This makes her mad and soon she dies of her guiltiness. Also, Macbeth loses love to his wife as because of the overload of respect he has and the power he has. At the end, Macbeth dies.

From reading this play, I learned that gaining power with violence and immoral actions, the power wouldn’t last long, and something disastrous will follow it.

This was an okay play too. It was short and was little easy to understand.

VOl. HRS. 24 hrs.

Title:The Watcher
Author: James Howe
The Watcher is a short read but has a lot of in depth meaning to it. The story takes place in a beach setting. There three main characters; Margaret who is an outsider, who just comes to the beach and sit and just watch people. What she intently watches is families, “perfect” families. The other character’s name is Chris. He is a life guard at the beach. He can’t concentrate on his work or anything else, since he is missing his older brother. He wants his older brother to be alive and hang around with him. Therefore the thought of his brother being dead makes Chris not to be in a normal state. The last character is Evan. Even though Margaret and Chris think that Evan’s family is the perfect one, but inside the family is breaking apart. The story continues on Margaret being kept on staring at Chris and Evan. They also find it awkward that she is always watching them. Margaret wants Chris to be her guiding angel and Evan to be her brother. The reason why Margaret wants another family is revealed at the end. Also at the end, Chris and Evan are the one that rescue Margaret from a risky situation.
You might be thinking that the watcher refers to Margaret, but it actually refers to us. How many, individuals are in our society, how we all watch wrongful activities, and see people who have emotional problems, and how we continue watching every day and the way we don’t do anything about it, we continue to ignore it. continue making fun of it, and continue watching . So, overall we are watchers in this world, where the code of silence is rarely broken.
I will reccommend this book for all of you. Even though it was a little boring, the themes and the connections in our book makes it more interesting.

Vol. Hrs. 21 hrs

The Nanny Diaries
By: Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus
Pages:306

Nanny is a student at NYU who is working to afford the rent for her studio apartment. Her job may seem simple; how hard can being a nanny to a 4-year-old boy get? But when the employer is a filthy rich family living in Manhattan, and she’s in charge of their only spoiled son – Grayer X, this job can get a little bit out of hand. Apart from taking care of the X’es well-pampered son (which comes with the responsibility of feeding him, taking him to all his classes, and just generally be his second mother), Nanny also has to run ridiculous errands for Mrs. X herself. An example is getting “Lavender Water” for her parties. Along with her extremely high expectations, she never seems to get off Nanny’s case. Mrs. X has long gone crossed the line and has even called Nan on Christmas in the morning to see if she was available to work. But soon, the situation worsens when the marriage of the X’es begins deteriorating and Nanny is in the midst of it all. During this troubling time, Nanny tries to hold on to her sanity, all the while making sure Grayer is alright.

All in all, this is a great novel to read; it has an interesting story line and is mixed with witty humour from Nan, the adorableness of Grayer, and a small touch of romance. Although the beginning was downright boring, the story started picking pace by the first quarter. I especially enjoyed the moments where Nanny and Mrs. X exchanged dialogue. Unfortunately, all the buildup led to a very disappointing ending; I guessed it’s just what the authors planned, but if I was writer, I wouldn’t want it to end like that…it’s just a bit sad…Anyways, I won’t spoil the ending, so if you want to find out what it is, read it for yourself. Oh, and the movie is coming out in September!!!
Rating: 8/10

Volunteer hours: 3 hrs (total – 49 ½)
s.t.e.p.h.i.e.

Title: How I Live Now

Number of Pages: 196

This book is a story about a fifteen year old, Daisy. Daisy's family life is messed up, her mother died when giving birth to her, and her step mom is driving her nuts. Because of the fear that her step mom might poison her, Daisy eats as little as possible. Due to this reason, her dad decides to send her to England to live with her cousins whom she never ever met before. When she comes to England she is very shocked because her 14-year old cousin drives and smokes! She likes her cousins immediately and her and Edmond fall in love immediately. Soon a war starts and Daisy's mom has to go to the city for some peacekeeping work. The kids have the house to themselves, something they loved. Because of several bombings and attacks, all flights were cancelled and electricity was disconnected. The kids enjoyed living by themselves with no one to look after them. But good times never last long. Soon, the government took over their house to keep the troops in their. Osbert, the sixteen year old cousin, joins the army and all the cousins need to split up. Daisy didn't want to split up with Edmond but she had no choice, she and piper, Daisy's nine year old cousin, are sent to live with this old lady. From then on their journey begins; they work in the farms just to help the war and are determined to find Edmond and Isaac, the two twin cousins. After running away from the old lady they travel to the farm where Edmond and Isaac were, their journey wasn’t easy they lived in the forest and wilderness trying to find the food and necessities. But, unfortunately this journey wasn’t worth it. They spent so long, apparently a month, but when they reached their destiny all they found was dead bodies. From then on, the book talks about how the two girls coped with this disappointment. Eventually, Daisy gets deported and Piper is left alone. Six years later the book shows how the war had affected some people. Edmond, who was alive, was a completely different person. He blamed himself for the death of several people. He wouldn’t talk and couldn’t live and enjoy his life for he has seen the death of many. On the other hand, Isaac was able to escape the war and come back home; he had to ditch his own brother because Edmond didn’t agree to leave. He wanted to live and help the others in pain. So as you can see Edmond was suffering six years later and Isaac was himself. Osbert was the same and Piper too. Different people deal with the war differently. Upon reuniting with Edmond, Daisy was quite disappointed. This was because Edmond wouldn’t talk to Daisy. After days and days of explanation, Daisy and Edmond got together. That’s where Daisy decided to live the rest of her life. That’s “how she lives now”.


I actually loved this book, it was so sad:(………very emotional too. I’d suggest everyone to read this book. I would rate this book 4.8 out of 5. This is because the part where they are travelling kind of gets boring but other then that the book is Great!!!!

Total Hours: 12 hrs and 30 mins

Title: Swede Dreams

Author: Eva Apelqvist

# of pages: 202

Plot Summary:

Calista Swanson longs to be away from her annoying twin sister and reunite with her Swedish boyfriend, Jonas, who visited her community in Wisconsin as an exchange student a few months ago. She therefore seizes the opportunity to become an exchange student to Stockholm this semester, and is determined to learn the language and culture of Sweden.

She meets very friendly people on her way there: Lena on the plane to Stockholm, her host family, and her neighbours. Much as her experience has been perfect, Jonas hasn't replied to any of her e-mails for a while now, and despite his promise that he would guide her throughout the city, they have not seen each other in Stockholm. Later on, she discovers that he doesn't want to go out together anymore, but she moves on and has a wonderful time learning about the Swedish culture and language, and meeting extraordinary people.

Through her e-mails back home in Wisconsin, she also realizes that she and her sister ought to be closer, and that she should always make choices for herself instead of relying on others' opinions.

Opinion:

I enjoyed learning more about tourist destinations in Stockholm, and discovered that even though it may not be renowned for its tourism, it has a lot to offer to visitors. Apelqvist includes thorough descriptions of the scenery there. Her comments encourage readers to learning about other cultures, about other people, and trying new things, a major recurring theme in the novel. Calista is always meeting new people and learning more about Sweden every day.

As for the actual storyline, I found it a bit dull. There is no suspense as Calista is always surrounded by warm people who would never do any harm to her. She faces almost no challenges. We do not develop any feelings for Jonas because he never appears in person, only through Calista's memories and a single phone call. We only seriously understand the sentiments of Calista and Hakan (her neighbour's friend, who would later become Calista's boyfriend) because of their heart-to-heart conversations - everyone else is a perfect family member, a perfect friend.

Swede Dreams was a good read for its descriptions of tourism in Sweden, but the plot itself was otherwise monotonous.

Main themes and subjects:

• Learning about other cultures and languages
• Meeting new people and building social relationships
  
• Tourism in Sweden
• Swedish history
• Romance

Target audience: Teenage girls

Genre: Chick lit

Rating: 3/5

Book review by Fiona T.
* 69 hours so far
Can be published in the Teen Newsletter