Tuesday 8 January 2013

Literature Circles Book Review

Now that you have all read, discussed, laughed (and cried?) over your chosen Lit Circle novel, let us know what you think:
* Introduce the work: Title and author
* Summarize the novel (events and key issues)
* Describe who should read this novel and why
* Include a key passage and a visual

9 comments:

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  2. "A boy who cant stand up for himself becomes a boy who cant stand up for anything"- Baba (pg.24)

    "The kite runner" is an heart warming story written by Khaled Hosseini. The book is well written in a way that there are many themes incorporated, most importantly discrimination and the different relationships. Its a novel told by a young boy Amir, who is the son a wealthy business man. Khaled wrote this story so that we were able to see both the poor and rich and how they were treated. The story starts with Amir a young boy living in Kabul, Afganistan at the young age of 12, he described the city to be beautiful and cultured, this was before Afganistan's government was overthrown. A huge conflict in the story regarded the guilt that Amir was facing through out the story for various reasons. For starters he was afraid the reason his father didnt accept him fully because he was the cause of his mothers death at birth. This leaded to Amir mistreating his servant/bestfriend Hassan and he did that because he thought his father loved Hassan more then he did Amir. Amir called Hassan his bestfriend but never fully accepted him because of the caste discrimination, even though Hassan was always loyal and there for Amir. Due to this Amir was never able to stand up for Hassan when he was picked on and because of this it led to one of the climax's in the story and this was some of the guilt that added on to Amir. All of the guilt that Amir was facing was starting to be intolerable and this caused Amir to leave behind the only friend he really ever had. Hosseini took real facts from history and incorporated them into his own story making it even more devastating yet inspiring at the same time. It sends a really powerful message about the struggles that people in Afghanistan had truly faced which really wasnt shown in the media. This novel is recommended to anyone that is interested in historical fiction and drama. If you can handle reading a heart wrenching story which shows the pain of people that live in a third world country, who dont have the safety that we all have here in Canada. "The kite runner" really opens your eyes to the outside world and shows how lucky we all really are.

    -simran tina tanvir keren lynard

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  4. Joyti, Shelly, Haley, Darren and I read Yann Martels “Life Of Pi”. This incredible book tests the Patel family’s durability and emotions on a traumatizing move to Canada. The family of four decides to move the zoo, as well as themselves across the world, after the economy starts to fail for a fresh start and new beginnings. This action filled trip will catch your attention and keep you intrigued. This book will leave you speechless and your jaw wide open. This book most DEFINATLEY has to go on your book bucket list! If you’re into adventure and unpredictable stories, this is definitely the book for you. You should read Life of Pi because it has a surprising amount of action and suspense. You’ll fall in love with pi! It has everything from relationships and humanity to morality and religion. As Pi had said, “Isn’t just looking upon this world something of an invention?”

    I advise you to check this out:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7WBfntqUoA

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  5. Gurminder, Kiren, Swati, Aman and Aleena's review:

    The novel our group chose was Looking for JJ, by Anne Cassidy. Anne Cassidy was born in London in 1952. She started writing stories in evening classes in Tottenham and she became a full time writer in the year 2000. She specializes in crime stories and thrillers for teenagers.
    When JJ was a child she had committed heinous crime of murdering one of her friends. After serving 6 years in prison she came out a new woman named - Alice Tully. With her new job, new mother, new man and new school, Alice's life seemed pretty normal. But, the press is out there along with her real mother and the threat of her true identity being revealed is frightening. When it happens, Alice's cover is blown, it comes as a shock. Once again she has to confront her past and create a new identity.
    " Three children walked away from the cottage on the edge of town toward Berwick Waters. Later that day,only two came back. "
    Intended Audience for reading Looking For JJ would be best for older secondary school students due to its mature content. Such as murder, child abandonment and minor sexual content.

    This is an image of JJ, Lucy and Michelle from the book. Someone had turned this book into a play.
    http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2007/10/26/lookingforjj460.jpg

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  6. “His heart racing with excitement. David plucked from the foil one of the strips, in which lithium should have now been replaced with a cleaned-up form of thorium. He turned on the Geiger counter and moved it toward the strip. Eureka! The device was clicking with great intensity, and the readings of radioactivity were far greater than when the thorium had been contained in the ash. Indeed, it later was determined that David’s method purified thorium to at least 9,000 times the level found in nature and 170 times the level the requires NRS licensing.”
    Ken Silverstein wrote The Radioactive Boy Scout In 2004, an era where the benefits and dangers of nuclear technology were still under consideration and people were still deciding which side outweighed the other. Silverstein explored this issue while on his pursuit to uncover to story of David Hahn and his homemade nuclear reactor, one that was found to have been containing a purified version of thorium (a harmful radiation element) that was 9.000 the strength normally found in nature. David was an obsessive child ever since he was young, but this became more evident in how determined he was when it came to obtaining and learning all the information he did regarding nuclear technology. He would spend hours reading up on the effects and history of all the ways nuclear technology has been helpful to us, and the future possibilities scientists are exploring for it in today’s world. David was never a bright student in school, but his intelligence and creativity shined best when you look at he was determined to build his own version of a nuclear reactor. Also, David was never the safety freak, but the amount of safety he took in consideration to materials he was exposing himself was extremely absurd and dangerous. He had a basic gas mask and thin lead suit that he had stumbled upon, both of which helped him in no way against the penetrating radioactivity of the highly reactive elements. His eventual capture was a complete fluke on the cops’ behalf as they pulled David over in relation to a completely unrelated tire stealing scandal as David seemingly had matched the boy’s description. Upon being pulled over, all his radioactive elements and laboratory equipment were ceased, and his infamous shed where he had conducted all of his experiment in was completely torn down and dumped in a nuclear waste dump alongside everything else that was confiscated. It was found that David’s nuclear reactor, all though never fully functioning was emitting strong levels of radiation even up to five houses down the street. He later, after giving up his dream of becoming a chemical engineer and also on his potential to become an amazing nuclear physicist-both due to his inability to do well in school-enrolled in the military. There he had the strictest rules and regulations placed on his ability to explore the nuclear parts of the ship where he was assigned due to his inquisitively dangerous and curious past accompanied by the dangerous amount of knowledge he now held. He definitely never achieved his full potential, but at least his story was fully uncovered, one that the government tried its best to bury and hide without the knowledge and details regarding the whole event being released to the publc; the event was fully uncovered and finally released to the public almost twenty years after it’s occurrence, even the neighbours at the time never found out the complete story as the Hahn family remained very secretive about it.

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  7. People who like shows such as Breaking Bad interesting might also find this book fascinating as well, as they both hold the basic plotline of someone conducting illegal activities in there basement through self-education and obsession. Overall as a group we did not like the book however as we felt that this novel was more suited to be a short story and it was stretched by being filled with useless information and facts in order to complete it as a novel. Our rating would be a 2/5 and our final verdict would be to BURN IT.

    Pictures of David's house where his shed and all his experiments took place, as well as one of the Boy Scout's at the time can be found at the following link:
    http://gregharrisonfilm.com/radioactive.html
    Pictures of the textbook that sparked it all, his interest and latter obsession with chemistry, can be found at the following link:
    http://imageshack.us/a/img32/4649/cover8di.jpg

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  8. Title: Looking for Alaska 

    Author: John Green 



    A social outcast, Miles Halter wants to find his “Great Perhaps” .He moves from Florida to Alabama to attend his father’s former Boarding school, Culver Creek Boarding. At Culver Creek he meets two people who change his social life. He goes from having no friends whatsoever to having a clique with people he becomes close to. When he thinks he finally found his “Great Perhaps“ everything he has gained slowly slips away. “When adults say `Teenager think they are invincible` with that sly, stupid smile on their face, they don’t know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are.”( pg. 220)

    We recommend this novel for individuals who are young adults. This novel contains course language and graphic content, which is suitable for these types of individuals. Also we feel as if this specific age group could connect more than any other age group.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZEnlWIuA3U


    
- Irene , Sukhman , Gurjeet, Risham, Marinela, Mallika

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