Students from 3e share
their readings with you through book reviews :
Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
Lyra and Pantalaimon, her daemon, live in a parallel universe from our own. The two places are similar but Lyra's world has subtle differences such as daemons, talking bears, witches, gypsy's and many more.
Daemons are, in this world,very important. They are part of you and takes the shape of an animal that reflects your personality.
After eavesdropping on an important conference held by her uncle, Lord Asriel, Lyra's dream is to go up north and see the northern lights also known as the Aurora Borealis. She also hears them talk about Dust, strange invisible particles that effect adults more than children. She is determined to learn everything about them.
Her wish could become a reality however when children start to disappear, including Lyra's friend Roger, and a very manipulative and pretty woman called Mrs Coulter appears. She will embark Lyra on a dangerous journey that will take her to the northern lights and maybe even beyond.
This is one of the best books I have ever read with an amazing plot including adventure and mystery with very human like characters.
I really enjoyed it and at no point the story was slow or boring.
My favourite character is the exiled bear king, Iorek Byrnison because he is very fair, strong and wise. An all round awesome character.
Any teenager could read this book because it has a bit of all the genres, with its primary ones being fantasy, adventure and mystery.
I would give this book a 4,5 out of 5 for the amazing plot, interesting characters and an all round great reading.
Liam P., 3e5
*****
The
Chocolate War by Robert Cormier is a young adult
novel published in 1974, which was later adapted into a film in 1988.
The
book is written from many different points of view and has many characters, which gets
you confused one in a while. The Chocolate War tells the story of Jerry Renault, a freshman at
Trinity, an all-boys Catholic high school. As Jerry quickly learns, Trinity is
a dangerous place.
Trinity high school has an annual chocolate sale,
which consists in giving each student a quota of 25 boxes of chocolates, which
they have to sell for one dollar each, but no, this year the quota is 50 boxes
each at 2 dollars each. Brother Leon which is in charge of the chocolate sale
this year because the school principal is in the hospital, recruits the
chocolate sale with the school gang “The Vigils” which is run by Archie
Costello. The Vigils give a student in the school (mainly Freshmen)
assignment’s which consist in for example unscrewing a classes tables and
chairs or things of that type. Jerry Renault, a new freshman at Trinity high
school is called in by the Vigils and his assignment is to refuse to sell the
chocolates for 10 days. But once Jerry’s assignment is over he continues to
refuse the chocolates after the 10th day, which gets brother Leon
very mad and starts to create a massive fight in between the Vigils, the school
and Brother Leon because of Jerry’s big rebellion against the “system”.
Jerry has a poster in his locker which says
“do I dare disturb the universe?” and I think that this sentence in Jerry’s
locker is actually the books theme lets say, because its all about testing
boundaries and that is basically what the book is all about. I also think that
it’s amazing how they mess & get so violent with Jerry because of some
simple “chocolates”.
I found this book really interesting and
liked it a lot because it’s the story of teenagers my age and talks about some
things we see in our everyday life at school. I really like how the author (Robert
Cormier) wrote the book as if he were a middle school student, I think this
makes the book much more realistic and entertaining for teenagers to read. I
really recommend this book and I give it a 5/5.
“Some reviewers have argued it is one of the
best young adult novels of all time”
The New York Times wrote: "The Chocolate War is
masterfully structured and rich in theme; the action is well crafted, well
timed, suspenseful; complex ideas develop and unfold with clarity."
Children's Book Review Service said: "Robert Cormier has written a brilliant novel."
Bartholome
D., 3e5
