ROBINSON CRUSOE by DANIEL DEFOE

TITLE: Robinson Crusoe

AUTHOR: Daniel Defoe

REWIED BY: Vidhi Sethi (12 yrs.)

The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe is a wonderful book. It starts with a father not allowing his son to become a sailor. But set on his goal, Robinson Crusoe made his maiden voyage to Hull in London with his friends. This was a big turn in his life.

Adventurous as he was, he made his next voyage with another friend of his who was the captain of a ship going to guinea in Africa. Further he went to Brazil and started living with a sugar planter’s family. He bought a plantation of his own. But when a group of them asked if he could journey to Guinea he could not resist the call of an adventure and agreed to go. Little did he know that this journey wasn’t a normal one. It would lead him to a completely new life on an uninhabited island.

Struggling for supplies with failures and successes for twelve years he began to lead a comfortable life. But one day when he saw a man’s footprint and then human skin, flesh and bones he was filled with great fear and anxiety. He tried all possible ways to make his existence a secret. Everything became peaceful once again. Twenty-three years had passed since he had come on this island.

But when one December morning he saw from his window smoke rising somewhere he was filled with dread. Soon after that he came across cannibals and after fighting with them he freed a man who was kept as a prisoner. He named him Friday as he had got him on a Friday.

Friday was a faithful and cheerful person. He told Robinson about his land and his people. But when savages, cannibals and mutineers entered into their life everything is changed. The story then goes on with Robinson capturing the mutineers with eleven other people on his side and then finally in 1686 he left the island after spending twenty-seven years, two months and nineteen days. In June, 1687 he returned to England his hometown and started leading a new life.

This book is the author's first novel and is one of the best known adventure stories in the world. It is a story which thrills all the readers alike, with wonderful events like shipwreck, a young man alone on an uninhabited island, storms, dangers, cannibals, mutineers and finally a glorious home coming.

It is a must read for young readers. Happy Reading!!!

CHARLEY by DONNA MARIE SEIM

Publication: Pete E. Randall Publisher

Author: Donna M. Seim

Illustrator: Susan Spellman

Rating: ****1/2

The best part of being a reviewer is that you get to read a lot of good books. The better than the best part is that sometimes you get to read a great book that takes you by a storm.

Well, to put in a nutshell, Charley is a simple story of a little boy, who, along with his siblings is abandoned by their father, their mother being long dead. Charley being second of the four siblings, is not yet fourteen so he is also sent to an orphanage where he is picked up by a farming family. The family is mostly kind to him, but there are some members that give him a bad time.

One fine day, more bad news reaches him. His father had died. He was now an orphan.

It is not so much with the story line that make it good, it is the narration that changes the entire look about it. The gentle way by which the emotions are expressed, the immaturity of a little kid, the angst, the troubled feelings finding their way out, the very character that does not waiver even in the face of adversity, the trust of human on fellow humans, the acceptance, the hurt of rejection, the kindness of some and the the heartlessness of others, the human want of something that you haven't tasted and then the longing to run back to the old setup, and so much more, have been described so beautifully and artfully that they appear to cast a kind of spell on the reader. The chapters are crisp and the story progresses fast.

Another character that caught attention was Charley's elder brother George, who was well aware of his own position, circumstances and sorrows and did his best to shied his younger siblings from the same plight. The altruistic nature he possessed, though still being a kid, made him act in ways that cast a shadow over his character.  But eventually, we find that he was ready to bear all that just to see his siblings happy. Not often can we find such maturity from kids.

It isn't everyday you get to read a book, a non-fiction especially, that has complete control on your emotions. Charley, the book, ends just when it must, else it would look like a Dickens' recast. The sad parts have not been over exaggerated and neither have the happy parts, though few, been overshadowed.

The culture of the early twentieth century America has been described well, the reader does not feel the absence of some information that might have been useful in the complete understanding of the story.

Yes, this book is going to find a place in my private library. It has just made a good memory that I will cherish for a long time to come.

Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney

Title : Five Little Peppers And How They Grew 

Author : Margaret Sidney

Reviewed By : Sandhya's A (11 years)

I have read many stories about families. This one is about a very poor family – five children Ben, Polly, Joel, David and Phronsie - and their mother, ‘Mamsie’. Their father dies when Phronsie was a little baby.

The children barely have enough to eat, let alone to go to school. Mrs Pepper has to earn a living through sewing for other people, so Polly has to take care of the house.  To make it easier for her, all she wants is a new stove. It is difficult to get even that much.

After a spell of measles for the whole family, Phronsie makes a new friend, Jasper, who is very rich. Is it possible for Jasper and his father to help the Peppers?

This book has helped me realize that I am one of the few who have so many privileges like an education and 3 good meals every day. It reminded me of another book I have read, called Little Women. I am sure that there are many more gems like this book yet for me to discover.

This book is an abridged version from the Classic Starts series. I am sure I will enjoy the original just as much.   

Heidi by Johanna Spyri

Title: Heidi

Author: Johanna Spyri

Type read: Abridged

Publication: Tiny Tot Publications

Price: INR 50

Review By: Vidhi Sethi (10 years)

Heidi, one of the best classic kidlit books of English language is a wonderful story. It is about an orphan little girl named Heidi who is brought up by her maternal aunt, until Heidi is four. When her aunt gets a good job, she leaves her in her uncle's house.She is very happy in the beautiful  Swiss Alps. Her only kid companion is a herds boy named Peter.

But after sometime, her aunt comes back and takes her away to Frankfurt again, where Heidi is sent to school for the first time. She is very unhappy with the new city life and becomes very thin and sickly. She also meets Clara there. But for her health, the doctor advises that she must go back to the mountains to get well. She is extremely happy to live with her grandfather in the Swiss Alps again.

 

It is truly a beautiful story. It is best for young readers. 

Have a good time reading!!!

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Title: WutheringHeights

Author:Emily Bronte

Publication:Peacock Books; Price:Rs. 95; ISBN:978-81-248-0009-6

Having learnt from my teachers as it being one of the best classics English literature could possibly gift and having read its abridged version as a child, I could not resist myself upon seeing this complete and unabridged version of ‘Wuthering Heights’ at the World Book Fair’12 in Delhi. And so my romance with the classics of English literature begins once again.

‘WutheringHeights’, a complex piece of artistic literature is a narration of events relating to two households Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights, by a certain Mrs. Ellen Dean, inscribed as the diary entries of a certain Mr.Lockwood.

In1801- Mr. Lockwood, a tenant at Thrushcross Grange, went to meet his landlordand his sole neighbour, Mr. Heathcliff at Wuthering Heights and found the atmosphere of the house quite dismal, with the residents including an uncultured lad, a beautiful but bad natured young widow and two servants apart from Mr. Heathcliff himself. He had to stay there for that night as it had started to snow and he could not go back to his own residence. At night, in the room he was made to spend the night, he saw a strangs set of books containing labels, Catherine Earnshaw, Catherine Linton and Catherine Heathcliff. He also had a nightmare where he encountered Catherine Linton telling him that she had been roaming on this earth, all alone and cold!

A confused Mr. Lockwood, upon reaching Thrushcross Grange asked his housekeeper, Mrs. Ellen Dean to tell him what the events that had happened actually meant and who were the three Catherines.

She began her narration that many years back the Wuthering Heights had been the property and abode of the Earnshaws. She was the servant employed to play with the children Hindley and Catherine Earnshaw. One day their father brought home an orphan, an uncivilized creature, whom he named Heathcliff and whom he loved more than his own children.

Heathcliffgrew to be a real devil, basically wanting to gather and possess all the property he possibly could, but he loved Catherine dearly. Though even she loved him much, she married Mr. Edgar Linton of Thrushcross Grange. Mr.Linton and Mr. Heathcliff could not get along with each other at any time in their lives.

In due course of time, Hindley Earnshaw gets married, his father dies, his wife too dies leaving behind a son, Hareton. Isabella – Mr. Edgar Linton’s sister fell in the trap purposely laid by Heathcliff as revenge against taking away Catherine and also as a scheme to finally be the owner of Thrushcross Grange. Isabella fell in love and married Heathcliff. Mrs. Catherine Linton kept losing her health over her divided love for Heathcliff and Edgar (Heathcliff basically, for they lovedeach other dearly, and Edgar, a little for he was her husband). She leaves behind a daughter, also named Catherine (or Cathy, as her father fondly callsher) and leaves for her heavenly abode. Ellen Dean and Mr. Linton bring up young Cathy in the most protective and loving manner in which they possiblycould.

Meanwhileat Wuthering Heights, Isabella is oppressed, tortured and she finally runs away to the south where she has a son, Linton Heathcliff. She dies young and her sickly son is brought up by his inhuman father, merely as a tool that might fetch his father the ownership of the Grange if he might inherit it one day. Hindley Earnshaw gambles and loses all his land to Heathcliff and Hareton is left a pauper after Hindley’s early death.

Heathcliff makes young Cathy Linton his prisoner and trickily gets her married to his son. He gets his son to write a will that after him, all his property will got to his father, Mr. Heathcliff.

Soon, sickly Cathy’s husband Linton Heathcliff and her father Mr. Edgar Linton (who had been suffering long) slip into eternal slumber. And this was the present state whenHeathcliff, the present owner of both the estates, Hareton Earnshaw, the uncivilized fellow Lockwood had met and Mrs. Catherine Heathcliff, the youngwidow of Mr. Linton Heathcliff lived at Wuthering Heights at the mercy of the old crook Heathcliff.

Very soon Lockwood leaves the Grange and moves to London.

In1802- Mr. Lockwood had another chance of visiting Thrushcross Grange where he finds that Ellen Dean has shifted to Wuthering Heights. He goes there to meet her and to settle some pending transactions with Mr. Heathcliff and finds that Heathcliff has died and thus now young Catherine is the owner of the two estates and very soon she and Hareton would be tying the knot and moving to the Thrushcross Grange, for she liked that place better and because they thought that Wuthering Heights was now haunted.

And thus the book closes on this peaceful and happy note.

Through the entire story, we get a good number of pieces that require a thought. Generations after generations, the same mistakes are repeated. As a famous quote goes, “Every generation thinks that it is better than the previous and wiser than the next” and the proverb “love is blind” comes true through this text. It was the baseless, blind yet tender love of Mrs. Catherine Linton for Heathcliff that ultimately destroyed her. Her sister-in-law, Isabella, even after having a lot of intelligence about his character, thought the entire world was against her and that her love was divine, married the rascal and suffered much. Young Cathy also believed that her love for the junior Heathcliff was pure and would pay little heed to anyone showing the the light of realitythat existed in life.

In the story, Mr. Edgar Linton comes across as a perfect gentleman, a good son, a caring brother, a really awesome husband (it is mentioned that no mother would tend to her only child as Edgar tended to Catherine) and a perfect father (the example is the bringing up he gave to his motherless daughter).

Another thing that comes in view is the human greed and selfishness. It has been there ever since and shall remain till human race exists. Heathcliff is shown to be a greedy man whose sole intention in life was to own the two estates mentioned in the book and he could go to any length to achieve his aim. He ruined two proper families, apart from his own, of course, to fuel his ambition and in the end he barely survived for six months after fraudulently gaining the ownership of the Grange, to enjoy the fruits of his wickedness. The question arises that if the grave is our ultimate destination and that all we do/make shall remain behind,why do we indulge in all sorts of wrong deeds, schemes and frauds?

A beautiful pattern can be seen in the way Mrs. Catherine Linton, born and brought up at Wuthering Heights cherished her old home more than the Grange; Isabella having spent her early years at the Grange found the Heights worthless. Young Cathy also decided to shift back to Thrushcross Grange upon her marriage to Hareton, for she loved that place much better.

The beautiful scenery, the vast open moors, the parks, the holy influence of the Church and the bible, colourful and picturesque description of the seasons, the varied facets of human nature, the deep running emotions and feelings of people that undermine all the rigid rules that are laid down by civilized society and of course the exuberant description and narration of the events, make‘Wuthering Heights’ a must read for those who want to cherish English literature in its pristine and the most beauteous form.

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

And here comes the last leg of BANG! The Literary Challenge, the SPECIAL PRIZE. Here the lucky winners were supposed to send the review of any book they had recently read....

So here's a book review by AMAN ARYA. Read on...

Title: Great Expectations

Author: Charles Dickens

In this book Charles Dickens weaves a beautiful story about a boy named Pip. The challenges faced by Pip in his narrative like poverty, cold and contemptuous treatment of him by Estella, the girl he loved and wanted to marry and the irony of his good fortune. The author has taken  great care to distinguish between  imploring the voice of Pip, the narrator with perspective and maturity while also imparting on how Pip, the character feels about his life as it actually happens.

The main theme underlying the story is quite simple-affective, loyalty and conscience is more important than social status, advancement and class. Pip learns his lesson, by exploring his ambition and self-improvement-ideas that quickly become both the thematic centre of the novel and the psychological mechanism that encourages much of the protagonist's development. Ambitious and self-development take three forms in Great Expectations, moral, social and educational. These motivate Pip to better his behavior throughout this novel. Being-treated hard, Pip desires self development. In love with Estella, he longs to become a member of her own social, ambitious class. Encouraged by Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook, he entertains fantasies of becoming a gentleman. Also, he desires educational improvement. This desire is deeply connected to Estella. A full education is the requirement of being a gentleman, or so he believes. As long as he is an ignorant country man, he cannot win the love of the woman, he desires to be with. Ultimately through examples of Joe, Biddy and Magwitch, he learns that social and educational improvements are irrelevant and that conscience and affection are to be valued above social standing. The story ends on a happy note with Pip encountering Estella in a ruined garden, learning the fact that her mask of cruelty had been replaced by sad kindness and they end up leaving the garden hand-in-hand.

An enriching novel, a must read if you are a book lover!!