In class we discussed a Welsh short story called 'Snowdrops.'I'm in two minds about this story. When I first read it, I didn't enjoy it very much because it was too simple and emotionless. however I read it again and rethought my attitude. The story is simple because it is written from the perspective of a six year old boy, and really its simplicity makes it a good story. If the story had been complex and full of emotion, it would not have accurately portrayed the life of that boy. Another thing the story did was highlight the differences between the adult world and the world of children. Throghout the story, the adults try to keep their world seperate from the children, in order to protect them. The main character in this book, a six year old boy displays the innocence and naivety of young children throughout the entire book, his parents do their best to protect those qualities in him by keeping things from him, such as not telling him when someone dies (in this case his teacher's boyfriend). He also has the high expectations of a child, when his teacher, Ms Webster, tells him about a certain type of flower, a snowdrop, he imagines something that looks like a snowflake, delicate and beautiful. When Ms Webster tells the children in her class that she is taking them to see the snowdrop flowers, what she really wants to do is watch the funeral procession of her boyfriend go past the school, but she can't tell her class that because they are just children. When the boy first sees the flowers, he is dissapointed by them, untill he "began to see their fragility... he imagined them standing all night in the dark garden holding bravely to their specks of white." In a way, the snowdrops are an analogy for the boy, he is the white petals and the people around him hold him up bravely. This is why he is so shocked when Ms Webster starts crying in the garden, watching the funeral, because she is one of the things that holds him up. You could say that whatever was holding Ms Webster to her stem had let her go, and if she could fall, so can the boy.
Saturday, 11 February 2012
Snowdrops
In class we discussed a Welsh short story called 'Snowdrops.'I'm in two minds about this story. When I first read it, I didn't enjoy it very much because it was too simple and emotionless. however I read it again and rethought my attitude. The story is simple because it is written from the perspective of a six year old boy, and really its simplicity makes it a good story. If the story had been complex and full of emotion, it would not have accurately portrayed the life of that boy. Another thing the story did was highlight the differences between the adult world and the world of children. Throghout the story, the adults try to keep their world seperate from the children, in order to protect them. The main character in this book, a six year old boy displays the innocence and naivety of young children throughout the entire book, his parents do their best to protect those qualities in him by keeping things from him, such as not telling him when someone dies (in this case his teacher's boyfriend). He also has the high expectations of a child, when his teacher, Ms Webster, tells him about a certain type of flower, a snowdrop, he imagines something that looks like a snowflake, delicate and beautiful. When Ms Webster tells the children in her class that she is taking them to see the snowdrop flowers, what she really wants to do is watch the funeral procession of her boyfriend go past the school, but she can't tell her class that because they are just children. When the boy first sees the flowers, he is dissapointed by them, untill he "began to see their fragility... he imagined them standing all night in the dark garden holding bravely to their specks of white." In a way, the snowdrops are an analogy for the boy, he is the white petals and the people around him hold him up bravely. This is why he is so shocked when Ms Webster starts crying in the garden, watching the funeral, because she is one of the things that holds him up. You could say that whatever was holding Ms Webster to her stem had let her go, and if she could fall, so can the boy.
My Reading History
When I was little, I didn’t enjoy reading very much, I was good at it but it was a chore, something that I had to do because of school. Then my godmother got me Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone. At first I just pretended to read it, so as not to hurt her feelings, but then one day when I was really bored, I picked up the firs book and started reading, and ever since then I haven't stopped
ROALD DAHL
When i was younger, I fell in love with Roald Dahl, I think I probably raed most of his childrens books. The first one was the BFG, which my teacher read to the class, and James and the Giant Peach was read to me by another teacher. My favorite Roald Dahl books would have to be The Witches, Matilda and Danny, the Champion of the World.Emily rodda
Emily Rodda was the next author that I absolutely fell in love with, definitely more than Roald Dahl. The first book I ever read by her was The Forests of Silence the first book in the first Deltora Quest series. They were extremely popular at my primary school, and their popularity was why I read The Forests of Silence, problem was, their popularity also made them hard to find in the school library, so I could never really read them in order, that is untill my beloved mother (swear I'm not being sarcastic there) got me ALL fourteen books, in all three sereies, in three seperate harcover books! In year seven I started reading some of her other books, particularally the Rowan of Rin series (not as good as Deltora Quest, but also good) and The Key to Rondo. Even today I can still read and thourally enjoy my favorite books by Emily Rodda.
The Obernewtyn Chronicals (Isobelle Carmody)
I have read a lot of books, probably well overa hundred by now, but none, except for a few, tend to make any lasting impression on me, I can be reading a book and think it's really good, but most of the time I'll look back on the book and wonder why I got so excited about it. This is not so with The Obernewtyn Chronicals. I first started reading them in year seven, and I remember I got up to about the fourth book, The Keeping Place, when I got bored with the series and stopped reading it, the books got too long, too complicated and too hard to read (what a stupid year seven I was). Just recently I started reading them again, and I just love them now, I think I had to grow up a little before I could really understand the books, and it didn't help that I had to wait five years for the sixth book, but that book, The Sending, did eventually come out, and now I've read all six available books and am eagarly awaiting the seventh. (you may have noticed that there are eight books in the picture above, the fifth book was split in two). I love this series because it's complex and compelling, and so different from most of the books written for young adults today, it's not just a soppy romance novel masquerading behind the fantasy genre.The Hunger Games Trilogy (Suzanne Collins)
I first read The Hunger Games in year eight, the year before we studied it in school, my reasoning back then was, I'd heared it was good, so I wanted to read it before school ruined it (no offence Mr Harrison because the books ruined themselves). This is one of those books that when I first read it, it was the most amazing book ever, but looking back on it now, I really wonder why I liked it so much. The first book was ok, but the second was a bit unnecessary in my opinion and the third book is frankly the most depressing book I have ever read IN MY LIFE. It's as though the author sat down and thought "they want me to write another book but I'm out of ideas, hmmm I know, I'll kill everyone!" Anyway, pointless ranting aside the reason these books are on this list is because they basically started a tradition between me and my friends. Whenever one of us finds a book worth reading, we spread the word and share the books with eachother, so that we can all read it, talk constantly about it for weeks and rant about how the movies are completely wrong! We've shared lots of good books together like The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clair and Divergent by Veronica Roth.Tess Gerritsen (crime fiction/ medical thrillers)
It's only recently that I got into the crime fiction genre, and Tess Gerritsen is resposible for that, already I have over ten of her books. What makes her books better than most, and especially her medical thrillers, is that for a while, Gerritsen was a practicing doctor, so she actually knows what she is talking about. Most of her books feature the same characters, Detective Jane Rizzoli and Medical Examinar Maura Isles (otherwise known as The Queen of the Dead). *sidenote, don't watch the tv series Rizzoli and Isles, is sucks and the characters are not like the book characters at all* (and again with the ranting) I'd highly recomend Tess Gerritsen to anyone and thanks to her, I've dicovered a whole new genre of compelling thrillers.The Maze Runner Trilogy (James Dashner)
I absolutely LOVE this trilogy. I discovered the maze runner throgh one of my friends and I immediately fell in love with it. It was compelling (i really like that word don't I), thrilling and you never knew whether or not a griever was waiting for you just around the corner. The second book was just as good, if not better and even more unpredictable. The third book is not out in Australia yet (much to my dismay) but if the ending of the second book was anything to go by, this third book should be amazing. These books are part, sci-fi, part post-apocalypse thriller, part psychological thriller, part action novel with just a dash of romance thrown in. Now, I'm a hopeless romantic at the best of times, but when almost every single young adult, and even adult novel has more romance than any other genre, it's nice for once to read a book where love isn't the main theme.
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