His Dark Materials , Phillip Pullman

For those of you who have heard about Phillip Pullman you would probably have heard that he is an amazing author. Reading a couple of his books I thought he was a good author but maybe amazing was an exaggeration. However, after reading Northern Lights, The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass I realised that in actual fact he was more than good.
The triolgy follows the journey of Lyra Belequa who is only a child but she has an unknown responsibility that can hange the whole world and either bring it to hope or to destruction. She gets herself caught in sticky ends but with determination and pereseverance manages to get herself out with the help of her daemon and her friends.
For those of you who love fantasy you will love this book. Maybe The Golden Compass film wasn't all that but the book that it came from is fantastic; you have to give it a go.

Chandra by Frances Mary Hendry

Looking at the cover you can sort of guess a little about what will happen in the story. When I first looked at it I knew it was going to be about a child bride. Chandra at eleven gets married to a boy called Roop (at the age of sixteen).She is full of joy when she meets him as he seems like such a lovely boy and a caring husband. However when she goes to live with his family things aren’t as they seem.

This story is a real eye opener of what happens in some societies and is a fantastic and gripping novel.

At last the final ceremony arrived. They rose to their feet her money helping Chandra up, for she was stiff with sitting for so long. In a blare of trumpets and drums, a chorus of chanted prayers and blessings, Roop led her seven times clockwise around the sacred fire. When they sat down again, she sat on her husband’s left; she was married.

If this sounds good to you give it a go.It's short and straight to the point and has you completely absorbed.

Dracula by Bram Stoker

“Enter freely and of your own will”

These are the words written at the back of the book Dracula written by Bram Stoker. When Dracula comes into mind you always think that it’s going to be a story about a scary vampire going around killing people and then they turn into vampires and so on and so forth. However this book not only offers this but in a more original way. This story has never ending twists and turns in the plot and if your like me and enjoy reading books with suspense and thriller or maybe even a bit of horror this book is definitely for you.

I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under the lashes. The fair girls went on her knees, and bent over, fairly gloating. The was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal, till I could see in moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth. Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of my mouth and chin and seemed about to fasten on my throat.

Sounds good doesn’t it. Do you dare to read on? Go one you won’t regret it.

I like to recommend this book because it is full of misunderstanding.

This book is called high school musical 2 by Peter Barsocchini.


Goodbye, classroom! Hello, summer! But for Troy, Gabriella, Chad and Taylor, this vacation is no day at the beach; they're all working at a country club founded by none other than Ryan and Sharpay's grandfather! And with the club's annual Midsummer Night's Musical right around the corner, Sharpay's competitive instincts are sizzling. If she can manage to win the Star Dazzle Award just one more time, the country club will name it after Sharpay, and it will be hers forever. But this year, Sharpay faces some tough competition?Gabriella! To have any hope of coming out on top, Sharpay knows that she'll need a secret weapon.

She dumps Ryan and starts wooing Troy to be her new partner. Gabriella is less than thrilled that Troy has fallen under Sharpay's spell. How could he do that to her? Things are heating up on the lawns of high society. Will Troy and Gabriella realize that they're meant to be? Or is it already too late for them to sing one last song together?

I like to recommend this book because when i just read the first chapter i wouldn't stop reading it.



This book is called High School Musical by Peter Barsocchini.



This book is about a high school basketball boy called Troy Bolten. His dad is the coach of the wildcats basketball team. On New Years Eve Troy had to go to a party, he thought it would be so boring, but eventually it wasn't. He had to sing a song in the party with a girl called Gabriella Montez. He knew he couldn't sing, when he sang Gabriella sang as well, everyone turned there heads to see who was singing. Troy and Gabriella forgot there nervousness and started to sing more boldly, they realised they had a talent.



It was time for Troy to go back to his school, he had a championship to win in two weeks time. There was a new girl coming to Troy's class, Troy couldn't believe his eyes, it was the girl who sang with him on New Years Eve, Gabriella couldn't believe her eyes as well. so they decided whether to join the school musical or not . On the other hand Sharpay and her brother Ryan hated Gabriella and was part of the school musical. Troys teammates got fed up of troy having to sing so Gabriella's friends and Troy's teammates decided to break the relationship, so when Troy and Gabriella broke up every one was depressed, Troys teammates decided to rejoin Troy and Gabriella.



When the basketball championship game and the school musical Audition was on the same day Gabriella's Friends and Troys Friends planned to set a fire drill while the basketball game was on, so Troy and Gabriella sang so beautifully in front of the whole school, and they won the basketball cup and the musical, Troy and Gabriella were so thrilled.

Checkmate by Malorie Blackman

Checkmate concludes the story of Callum, Sephy and their daughter, Callie Rose. For those of you who have read Noughts and Crosses and Knife-edge will know that this book does not disappoint. For those who haven’t read the books I won’t say too much to spoil it for you but just that you do not know what you have been missing. For those who love romantic novels or novels about prejudice and discrimination, then this book and the two before should have a place in your hands.

This book is called Final Cut, by David Belbin. I would like to recommend this book.
This book is about a seventeen year-old girl called Sarah Wood who is a model. She is offered a starring role in a film. Her brother Jon asks her to find him a job for him with her, so Sarah finds him a message job which you have to send messages to the director Leo Fitzgerald. Sarah is Malissa in the play, a movie star called Luke Kelly is Aidan and Brett is Matthew.
Something bad goes wrong, a camera technician called Karen dies when a camera tied to a tree falls on top of her head, not only that when Sarah and Brett are on a speed boat, it caught on fire and explodes and then when everyone is acting out a fire scene it all goes wrong, someone put petrol on the fire so it can burn faster, luckily they were all safe.
At the end Luke dies from falling of a cliff. Jon looked like Luke so Leo said he can play Luke's part. When finally the film was made, the whole world of Luke's fan couldn't wait to watch it. The film came out one month after they acted it out. Sadly at the end Brett got stabbed by a gangster.

I like to recommend this book because it is full of mystery and excitement. This book is called Holes by Louis Sachar.

This book is about a boy called Stanley Yelnats, the reason why his name was that because it spells the same way backwards and it was names after his father. Stanley was arrested of something he didn't do, the police thought he stole a pair of trainers by some one famous, bot really when he got out of school he say they hit him on his head out of the sky. So the judge gave him a choice, either go to jail or live in a boys camp which you have to dig a holes each day, 5 metres high and across. So when he stars digging the first day he was so tired, gradually the days past and he got skinny and strong.

He met a friend called Zero and they both ran away, they climbed a mountain called The gods thumb, on the top there was water and onions to eat. Next they climbed down to dig an hole and Stanley however dug out a treasure chest. It said his name on it and he gave half of it to his best friend Zero.

Recommended Reading

Girl Missing By Sophie Mckenzie

I got this book for christmas and when I started reading it I could not put it down. The story of it is amazing.

Lauren has always known she was adopted but when research for a school project turns up the possibility that she was snatched from an American family as a baby, suddenly Lauren's life turns upside down. Who's her biological parents? Are the people she calls mum and dad responsible for taking her away form her real family? She manages to get a trip across the Atlantic to America where she runs away to try and find the truth. But the reality of her kidnapping is dangerous and Lauren's kidnappers are still willing to do anything to keep her quiet.....

The Hobbit, also called There and Back Again

It has been a while since anyone posted anything. Since theres nothing new I'll just post a review on one of my favourite books. I can't remember the last time I read this but anyways...

For those who enjoy a bit of fantasy and adventure, this book might just interest you. Written by the author of the infamous Lord of the Rings trilogy, J.R.R. Tolkien, this book is filled with the main aspects of a traditional fantasy story i.e dwarves, orcs, fairies, goblins, wizards etc. The figurative language made it interesting and a game happened to be made for it too.
It made me read on and i hope it'll be the same to you too. Heres an extract from one of my favourite chapters in the book:

Riddles in the Dark

''I am Mr Bilbo Baggins. I have lost the dwarves and i lost the wizard, and i dont know where i am; and i dont want to know, if only i can get away.''
''what's he got in his handses?'' sadi Gollum, looking at the sword, which he did not quite like.
''A sword, a blade which came out of Gondolin!''
''Sssss,'' said Golloum, and became quite polite.''Praps ye sits here and chats with it a bitsy, my preciousss. It like riddles, praps it does, does it?'' He was anxious to appear friendly, at any rate for the moment, and until he found out more about the sword and the hobbit, whether he was quite alone really, whether he was good to eat, and whether Gollum was really hungry. Riddles were all he could think of. Asking them, and sometimes guessing them, had been the only game he had ever played with other funny creatures sitting in thier holes long,long ago, before he lost all his friends and was driven away, alone, and crept down, down, into the dark under the mountains.

''Very well,'' said Bilbo, who was anxious to agree, until he found out more about the creature, whether he was quite alone, whether he was fierce or hungry, and whether he was a friend of the goblins.
''You at first,'' he said, because he had not had time to think of a riddle.
So Gollum hissed:

what has roots as nobody sees,

is taller than trees

up,up it goes,

and yet never grows?

''Easy!'' said Bilbo. '' Mountain, I suppose.''

''Does it guess easy? It must have a competition with us, My precious! IF precious asks, and it doesn't answer, then we does what it wants, eh? Weshows it the way out, yes!''
''All right!'' said Bilbo, not daring to disagree, and nearly bursting his brain to think of riddles that could save him from being eaten.

Thirty white horses on a red hill,

first they champ,

then they stamp,

then they stand still.

That was all he could think of to ask- the idea of eating was rather on his mind. It was rather an old one too, and Gollum knew the answer as well as you do.

''Chestnuts, chestnuts,'' he hissed. ''Teeth! teeth! my preciousss, but we has only six!'' Then he asked his second:

Voiceless it cries,

wingless it flutters,

toothless bites,

mouthless mutters...

Well i hope youve enjoyed the extract, there happened to be a game for but i do recommend this book if you like fantasy or any of J.R.R Tolkien's stories likeThe silmarillion, The Lord Of The Rings,Farmer Giles of Ham and The Father Christmas Letters.

shizzle

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Asylum-Seeking Daleks!!!

I love this poem, and I hope you will too. Its irreverent and accessible attack on prejudice and bigotry in all its forms is like a breath of fresh air. Even better, click here to hear the poet reading it live. (And you can visit the poet's website here.) Now for the poem:

ASYLUM SEEKING DALEKS!
by Attila The Stockbroker

They claim their planet's dying:
that soon it's going to blow
And so they're coming here - they say
they've nowhere else to go....
With their strange computer voices
and their one eye on a pole
They're moving in next door and then
they're signing on the dole.....

Asylum seeking Daleks
are landing here at noon!
Why can't we simply send them back
or stick them on the moon?
It says here in the Daily Mail
they're coming here to stay -
The Loony Lefties let them in!
The middle class will pay......

They say that they're all pacifists:
that doesn't wash with me!
The last time I saw one I hid
Weeks behind the settee...
Good Lord - they're pink. With purple bumps!
There's photos of them here!
Not just extra-terrestial....
The bloody things are queer!

Yes! Homosexual Daleks
And they're sponging off the State!
With huge Arts Council grants
to teach delinquents how to skate!
It's all here in the paper -
I'd better tell the wife!
For soon they will EXTERMINATE
Our British way of life.....

This satire on crass ignorance
and tabloid-fostered fear
Is at an end. Now let me give
One message, loud and clear.
Golf course, shop floor or BNP:
Smash bigotry and hate!
Asylum seekers - welcome here.
You racists: emigrate!

Empire of the Sun

Empire of the Sun by J. G. Ballard

The heartrending story of a British boy's four-year ordeal in a Japanese prison camp during the Second World War. Based on J. G. Ballard's own childhood, this is the extraordinary account of a boy's life in Japanese-occupied wartime Shanghai - a mesmerising, hypnotically compelling novel of war, of starvation and survival, of internment camps and death marches. It blends searing honesty with an almost hallucinatory vision of a world thrown utterly out of joint.

The book was the subject of an oscar-winning 1987 film directed by Stephen Spielberg (and starring a very young Christian Bale).

Here is the opening of the novel:

WARS CAME EARLY to Shanghai, over-taking each other like the tides that raced up the Yangtze and returned to this gaudy city all the coffins cast adrift from the funeral piers of the Chinese bund.

Jim had begun to dream of wars. At night the same silent films seemed to flicker against the wall of his bedroom in Amherst avenue, and transformed his sleeping mind into a deserted newsreel theater. During the winter of 1941 everyone in Shanghai was showing war films. Fragments of his dreams followed Jim around the city; in the foyers of the department stores and hotels the images of Dunkirk and Tobruk, Barbarossa and the Rape of Nanking sprang loose from his crowded head.

To Jim’s dismay, even the Dean of Shanghai Cathedral had equipped himself with an antique projector. After morning service on Sunday, December 7, the eve of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the choirboys were stopped before they could leave for home and were marched down to the crypt. Still wearing their cossacks, they sat in a row of deck chairs requisitioned from the Shanghai Yacht Club and watched a year-old March of Time.

Thinking of his unsettled dreams, and puzzled by their missing sound track, Jim tugged at his ruffled collar. The organ voluntary drummed like a headache through the cement roof, and the screen trembled with the familiar images of tank battles and aerial dogfights. Jim was eager to prepare for the fancy-dress Christmas party being held that afternoon by Dr. Lockwood, the vice-chairman of the British Residents Association. There would be the drive through the Japanese lines to Hungjao, and then Chinese conjurers, fireworks and yet more newsreels, but Jim had his own reasons for wanting to go to Dr. Lockwood’s party.

Knife Edge by Malorie Blackman

The intensely moving sequel to Noughts and Crosses.

Sephy a cross,one of the privileged ones in society gives birth to a daughter who has a nought father.
Jude is a nought.The bitterness inside him blames Sephy for the losses in his family and has absolute hatred for her kind.
The sequel to the Romeo and Juliet like Noughts and Crosses takes a different turn unlike the prequel Knife Edge is the book of Hatred and if you thought there was a lot of hatred in Noughts and Crosses think again because that was the book of love.
Sephy has a baby Callie Rose and decides to live with Callie's grandmother Meggie McGregor Callum and Jude's mother.However now that the truth has come out about Sephy's life will she be able to cope and how will Jude take it that Sephy is living with HIS mother.

This is as exciting as the first book and I highly recommend it to everyone.

John Hegley

I was lucky enough to spend two hours on Saturday evening at the Stratford Circus (just between the Theatre Royal and the Stratford Picturehouse) listening to the poet JOHN HEGLEY perform loads of his poems to a delighted audience (one of whom was also my 7-year-old son, Thomas, who even performed one of the poems himself when John Hegley picked him out from the audience and asked him).

One of the poems Hegley performed was a variation on one of his most popular - essentially a simile poem about NEED. What I love about this poem is not only the wonderfully original approach he takes to composing similes, but also the fantastic way in which he subverts the conventions of RHYME to give the poem a rhythm that is typical of his idiosyncratic style.

Here is a previous version of the poem:

I need you like a novel needs a plot.
I need you like the greedy needs a lot.
I need you like a hovel needs a certain level of grottiness
to qualify.
I need you like acne cream needs spottiness.
Like a calendar needs a week.
Like a colander needs a leek.
Like people need to seek out what life on Mars is.
Like hospitals need vases.
I need you.
I need you like a zoo needs a giraffe.
I need you like a psycho needs a path.
I need you like King Arthur needed a table
that was for more than just for one.
I need you like a kiwi needs a fruit.
I need you like a wee wee needs a route out of the body.
I need you like Noddy needed little ears,
just for the contrast.
I need you like bone needs marrow.
I need you like straight needs narrow.
I need you like the broadest bean needs something else on the plate
before it can participate
in what you might describe as a decent meal.
I need you like a cappucino needs froth.
I need you like a candle needs a moth
if it’s going to burn its wings off.

Click here to visit the poet's website.

And click here to listen to the poet perform his poem, 'Jesus Isn't Just For Christmas'...

Noughts and Crosses

A thought provoking love story that adds racism and prejudice into it is a recipe for an engaging book.Winner of the Lancashire Children's book awards Noughts and crosses is definitely a book that I would recommend.
This book is about a black girl Sephy daughter of the most respected politician and about a white boy, Callum who is one of those in an under privileged society.Yes in this book the black people are in charge and the white people are not.
Sephy and Callum are childhood friends and say that even through thick and thin they will stay together.However the hierarchy gets too tough for some to handle and so the question is through thick and thin, will Callum and Sephy still remain Friends?
This book offers so many twists in the tale so for someone who doesn't like a soppy love story but one with a lot of strong emotions and twists and turns, this is the book for you.

The Breadwinner

Recommendations come at a highly profound cost. Seeing as everyone has a certain view of the world and how everything goes about it. Recommending a book with true emotion and depth is everything a person needs to relish themselves into, and that is exactly what I'm
doing.

The Breadwinner caught me from the first moment I read it. This book follows the life of Parvana, a young girl living in Afghanistan during it's Taliban rein and the difficulties that the ever increasing war has brought upon her. Her family care about and love her, but one Taliban abduction left her life torn and shattered in a way that no teenage girl would ever imagine. Her father.

Between the time that it took for the family to hit realisation, and the time it took them to understand, they had already fallen into the state of poverty. Minutes seemed like hours, and hours seemed like days.

But as time ran out for hope and wishes, someone had to do something. Parvana, with a heart of stone and a mind of matter, had to be the one to lift her life up.

With extreme circumstances and a brave heart, Parvana soon realised that life was for living, and she was never going to give it up.

Losing the life you had before was never going to be easy, but;

Dressed as a boy in the market, I soon found out that I was not watching the life of this poor young girl, I was her.

Parvana is the breadwinner in the market.

And The Breadwinner is a truely amazing insight into what happens in places of war and anguish.

Capturing the life of an eleven year old girl, Deborah Ellis is one author that I have to say, may wonder into a topic which none other has tried to explore before. The minds of children and young adults are hard to capture and maintain, but Deborah achieves this with no extra help or power. The trilogy carries on, and I can't imagine why anyone wouldn't want to carry on reading. Since reading this in year six, I have always been aware that someone out there is always less better off than I am, and I can not recommend it enough.

Avenging Angel

I like to recommend this book which is called Avenging Angel by David Belbin,

This is a review about it:

This book is about a boy called Angelo who was riding his bike and suddenly he saw a car coming so fast towards him but he was too late, the car knocked over his bike and he fell on the road with his bike on top of him, and car drove away. It was a hit and run accident. All Angelo said before he died was the word 'blaze'.

His sister Clare cannot rest until she finds the truth who ran over him, so she tells her friend PC Neil. He finds two suspect, one of them had a colour green car that Angelo was killed with and the other had the same colour car and there was a bike shape mark on the car but when both of them was in court they both was proved innocent.

After two weeks she saw a group of young gang of Angelo's friend and one of them name was blaze, so she finally found the culprit.

Love is...

Here is a poem by Liverpudlian poet, the late Adrian Henri. When you read it, look closely at the wonderful (and original) use he makes of METAPHOR in the poem. Metaphor is something lots of students find difficult - unlike similes, which are easy. But you could do worse than look to this poem to teach you all you need to know about metaphors. And about love too... (Oh, and the picture is of a couple of manatees: can't animals love too?)

Love Is...

Love is feeling cold in the back of vans
Love is a fanclub with only two fans
Love is walking holding paintstained hands
Love is.

Love is fish and chips on winter nights
Love is blankets full of strange delights
Love is when you don't put out the light
Love is

Love is the presents in Christmas shops
Love is when you're feeling Top of the Pops
Love is what happens when the music stops
Love is

Love is white panties lying all forlorn
Love is pink nightdresses still slightly warm
Love is when you have to leave at dawn
Love is

Love is you and love is me
Love is prison and love is free
Love's what's there when you are away from me
Love is...

'Carrie' by Stephen King

I like to recommend a book and film called 'Carrie' by Stephen King. Here is my review on the book:

The book is about a girl called Carrie White, who is no ordinary girl. She has a gift called 'Telekinesis' this enables her to do things with her mind. The story starts off with Carrie in school in the school showers, something unusual happens, all the girls mock her. A girl called Christine Hargensen was the main ringleader and the starter of all the other girls mocking her. Another girl called Sue Snell who was part of this shame felt sorry for Carrie. Later in the story Sue Snell asks her boyfriend Tommy Ross to ask Carrie to the school prom. This is Carries dream, she rejects at first then she finally agrees. She tells her mother, her mother is an absolute freak she is so religious.

And throughout the story you would learn that on several occasions her mother has sent her to a tiny cupboard, which she calls the prayer cupboard. Carrie begins to prepare for the prom; she makes her own prom dress. Only of she knew the prom would take a decidedly macabre turn on that horrifying and endless night. Christine Hargesen and her boyfriend Billy Nolan switched all the prom winners’ cards to make Carrie and Tommy win prom king and queen. When they were going up to the stage, Christine and Billy were hiding underneath the stage with a rope in their hands leading to a bucket on the ceiling full of pigs blood, the blood splattered all over Carrie. Everyone started to laugh; to their horror she stood up using her gift she locked all the doors and windows of the prom hall. She set the entire hall on fire causing everyone to scream for his or her lives.

After everyone was burnt Carrie left, leaving a trail of pigs blood. As she was going home she was causing destruction all the way. She went home destroying everything as she entered; her mum was sitting in the kitchen with a knife. Carrie told her mum she was going to kill her, her mum said lets pray and began reading religious things. Carrie killed her mum then took her body to the prayer room and the whole house collapsed upon them. In my opinion Stephen Kings imagination is vast, he knows how to engage the deepest sympathies of his readers. This book is a horror book, and it can truly make the flesh creep and cringe.