Number The Stars-Louis Lowry

I read “Number The Stars” by Louis Lowry this week. I chose this book because I wanted to know why the girl on the cover looks so sad.

The story is about Annemarie Johansen, who is ten years old. She lived in Copenhagen when Nazi’s took over Denmark. She and her best friend, Ellen Rosen often thought about their life because Ellen was Jewish. And their mother was worried about them because they spent all time together. So, their mother asked to them to go to different school. As the war went severe, Annemarie and her family had to move to their uncle’s house. However, one of her sister was killed by German and….

After reading this book, I thought that I should thank that I live in peace. Also, I think we shouldn’t forget about the terrible war. I recommend this book to everyone who doesn’t experience war luckily.

Sounder-William H. Armstrong

I read “Sounder” this week. I chose this book because I wanted to know what the title of this book means.

The story was about young African American boy. He and his family lived poorly in the South with a dog called Sounder. Sounder and the boy’s father went out hunting every day and night, but they always got nothing. However, Sounder found ham one morning. The boy and his family was very happy because they could not have eaten decent food. But few days later, three white men came their house and accused his father of stealing a ham and tried to send him to prison. Sounder was obedient to him, so Sounder barked and run after him. Shockingly, one sheriff shot him. Although the boy’s mother told him to leave him to let him die in peace, the boy tried to find Sounder. However he couldn’t find him.
He continued to find him and struggled to survive.

I was very surprised that the title was dog’s name. But the story was moving. It was like watching a movie when I read this book. I think Sounder is a very good dog and I hope my dog wold be like him!

Blubber-Judy Blume

I read “Blubber” this week.

When the main character, Jill’s classmate, Linda given an report about Eskimos’ use of whale blubber, Jill and her friends began to call her ” Blubber” because she was a little bit overweighted. At first, Jill joined in bullying because she was afraid of Wendy, who decided everything she wants.
However, Jill that those mean friends are not “true” friends because Jill turned to be a target of bullying after she sided with Linda. And surprisingly, Linda also took sides with them. But Jill realized that she don’t have to get along with them and satisfied with it.

This is my second time reading Judy Blume’s book. Her story reminds me of elementary school days and it was fun to read.

News discussion

We did news discussion in last class.
I chose “Shanghai teens top international education ranking, OECD says” from CNN. (Link http://edition.cnn.com/2013/12/03/world/asia/pisa-education-study/index.html?iref=allsearch)

The summary of the article is….

According to OECD, teens in Shanghai are the best in the world in mathematics, reading and science. In mathematics, Shanghai is followed by Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Macau.
However, the math performance of most countries has not improved since the PISA tests were started.
And the reasons Shanghai did well were that teachers are well-paid and very professional. Because Shanghai government spends a lot of resources in making sure that each teachers is well trained and has opportunities to go abroad, and to learn from the best teachers.

And the key words I chose were….

OECD: Stands for Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
PISA: Stands for Program for International Student Assessment
pupil: Someone who is being taught, especially a child
schooling: School education

Also, my questions were….
1. What should we do for better education in Japan?
→ We should ban private entrance exam because we just studied for it in high school.
Teachers should be more enthusiastic.

2. What do you think of belonging to Yutori generation?
→ We can’t imagine how non Yutori is like, but we think they have strong mental.

In our group, Rie chose an article about Nelson Mandela’s death, Yuka chose Icelandic cop’s first shooting to man, Sayaka chose young girls’ child birth, and Mai chose territorial airspace problem.

It was very interesting to discuss them.

Bridget Jones:The Edge of Reason-Helen Fielding

I read “Bridget Jones:The Edge of Reason” this week.

The main character, Bridget Jones was dating with Mark Darcy, and she was going well both in private and work. However, Mark fell in love with rich blond girl, Rebecca. And Bridget was also busy at hanging out with her friends, working and so on. So they broke up.
However, Bridget couldn’t forget about Mark. And decided to go on a trip to Thailand with one of her friend, Shazzer.
They had great time at first, but their room was broken in. However, a man who is called Jed helped them and gave money and bags to put their clothes in. And another problem happened. When they got to the airport, police dog barked at Bridget’s baggage. There was bag full of white powder in the lining! Jed tried to use Bridget as a smuggler!
But she managed to come back to UK, and found out that Mark tried hard to save her. He is not dating with Rebecca any longer. And he told Bridget that he regrets that he broke up with her. And they started dating again.

It was very fun to read, and I couldn’t stop reading once I started.
I want to watch movie too.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret-Judy Blume

I read “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” this week.

It was story about teenage girl, and main characters is Margaret, who is a girl in sixth grade and just moved from New York City to Farbrook, New Jersey. And she grew up without religious affiliation. Also,Barbara, who is Margaret’s mother and Christian. Herbert, who is Margaret’s father and Jewish.

One day, Margaret and her parents moved from NY to NJ because Margaret’s grandmother was taking care about her too much. And in new school, her class had to do year-long project. She chosen a study on religion, because she was grown up without religious affiliation and she wanted to choose which religion to believe (Christianity or Judaism).
And she made friends with Nancy and other girls in school, and made secret club called PTS’s. And there were some rules for PTS’s. They had to wear bras when they join in, and they had to tell others if they get their first period. They longed to become a woman, and they all felt jealous of Laura, who is their classmate and looked very developed for her age.
For her year-long project, she went to Confession at church and attended synagogue. But she couldn’t decide which religion to believe. Also, she was jealous of friends in PTS’s who got her first period, and blamed God. However, she became a woman at last, and realized that she is growing for sure.

I want to recommend this book for girls, especially those who is 18 or 19 years old like me. Because you can remind of feeling you had when you were 12 to 14 years old. It was fun to read!

Picture books

We read picture books in last reading class!
It was fun to read picture books to my friends and listen to my friends.
I read “How to Grow A Dinosaur” to my friends. And my favorite picture book was ” How to catch a star” because is was so heartwarming.

Picture books reminded me of my childhood memory in England because I read a lot of picture books there!

Touching the Void-Joe Simpson

I read “Touching the Void” this week.
It was story of two young men, Joe Simpson and Simon Yates.

Summary of this story is….
Two young men, Joe and Simon liked climbing mountains. They challenged many mountains, and wanted to challenge new mountain. So, they decided to attempt Siula Grande in Peru. Also they challenged to climbed the west face of Siula Grande, which was achieved by nobody.
And they succeeded reaching the summit. However, on the descent, Joe fell out and broke his leg. There was no hope of rescue. So, Simon decided to let Joe with rope. But, Simon decided to cut the rope because Joe went out over an overhang, because he thought if he didn’t cut it, he would die too. And Simon managed to back to the camp, but felt sorry for Joe. However Joe decided to go back to the camp and….

The story was very surprising. I couldn’t believe the end. I think Joe is so generous person, and I want to be like him.

Short story

I read “A Horse Man in The Sky” by Ambrose Bierce for short story discussion in 29th October.

Main characters in this story are Carter Druse, his father, officer, and sergeant.

The story was in the autumn of year 1861, Carter Druse was sleeping at his post near a road on a high mountain cliff. Suddenly, he woke up and witnessed an enemy solder on horse at the edge of the cliff. At first, Carter lost in admiration of beauty of contras with sky and the enemy, and he almost forgot his duty to kill the enemy.
However, he remembered the last word of his father. “Do what you conceive to be your duty.” And he took his rifle and fired at the enemy.
After that, when he was asked by his sergeant whom he killed, he answered that it was his own farther.

Connection between this story and our world is the Civil War. As we can know by the year 1861, it is when the Civil War was started.

The passage I chose was the scene Carter answered the enemy he fired was his own father. Because I couldn’t understand why he thought it was his father.

Also, I asked a question to other members. “Can you fire the enemy if you were in the same situation?”
And all of them answered NO. They said that they can’t kill beautiful thing, and I agreed this opinion. Neither can I kill him even in those situation.

It was a little bit difficult to understand what this short story was going to tell, but it was very interesting to think with my friends about it!!

The Great Gatsby-F. Scott Fitzgerald

I read “The Great Gatsby” this week. I have wanted to read this book for a long time because a friend of mine said that the movie was great, but I couldn’t read this book because it was always borrowed by others when I wanted to. So I was happy to read.

Main character in this story is Nick Carraway, who is Gatsby’s next-door neighbor. And Jay Gatsby, who is a rich young man. He is in love with Nick’s cousin Daisy. Daisy was also in love with him, but she married Tom.

The summary of this story is…

In the summer of 1922, Nick got his new job in New York as a salesman and rented a house in West Egg. A next-door neighbor was Jay Gatsby, who often held beautiful parties. However people joined in his parties gossiped about him that he was a German spy, bootlegger, crook, and gambler, because he was very mysterious man and didn’t tell other people about himself.
One day, when Nick joined in his party, he was asked to arrange a reunion between Gatsby and Nick’s cousin, Daisy. So, Nick invited Daisy to his house without telling about Gatsby.
After reunion, Gatsby and Daisy rebuilt relationship. But Daisy’s husband, Tom didn’t like this although he had another woman, Myrtle. So, he made the group to drive to Plaza Hotel because he wanted to tell Gatsby to give up his wife. Accidentally, on their way home, Gatsby’s car hit Myrtle. But, the person who was driving the car was not Gatsby. It was Daisy. However, Myrtle’s husband thought that his wife was killed by Gatsby. So he broke into Gatsby’s house and….

It was very fun to read this story.
I think Tom is very foolish man, and I don’t like him!!
And I want to watch movie if I have a chance 🙂