V for Vendetta

Yesterday I decided to go see a movie. The only one that looked slightly apealing to me was V for Vendetta. I went to this movie not knowing much about it except that it was about "bringing true justice" to a society that’s government was dictating them. I also knew that Natalie Portman got her head shaved which I thought was cool.

After the movie was over I was amazed. It had so many similarities to the book I read about a year ago for school, 1984. They both had the same sort of big brother aspect where they were being listened to and watched all the time. Also there was curfew and kidnappings of people who didn’t follow the rules. In V for Vendetta, however, the main character V was trying to start a revolution against this government.

This movie was awesome. I loved the references to the "U.S war" causing a lot of opression. I think that everyone should watch this movie or read the book.

Technorati Tags: VforVendetta, 1984

Isabel Allende’s “The Beast”

Isabel Allende’s "The Beast" was a pretty good book. The main character is a boy and his name is Alex. His mother becomes sick so his father sends him off with his crazy grandmother Kate while his sisters go with his other grandparents. Alex discovers that he must go to the Amazon with Kate and he’s not really excited about the idea. Then he finds out that they will be trying to find a horrifying Beast that is tall and smells horrible and he is even less excited about the idea.

Early in the adventure Alex meets a girl named Nadia who has spent a lot of time in the Jungle. During this adventure Nadia and Alex become very good friends. Alex learns through Nadia how to not be afraid of the mystical jungle and also discovers that someone on the trip is trying to hurt the indians.

They get captured by the indians and are taken to a mystical village that is a very well kept secret. During this time they become a part of the tribe and venture off to the mountain of gods with a shaman to figure out how to save the tribe from the nahab (other people that are civilized).

Because of this adventure, Alex grows up a lot. He learns to appreciate food that he may not have liked before and he learns how to be more mature and responsible. This book was a really cool book. It had a sort of "coming of age" thing going on and a really interesting mystical thing once you got half way through.

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

Ever since the movie came out my friends have been talking about this series of books. I never read them when I was younger so I decided to pick up "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe". As I was reading it, I was bored. The book was way too childish for me so I guess I should have discovered it when I was younger. I didn’t like the lack of details or the fact that the animals talked. I didn’t like the idea of two kids riding on the back of a lion. The way the book was just made Narnia seem so small to me, like the size of my neighborhood. I guess it’s a good book. It was just a little too late for me to read it.

White Oleandor

One of my favorite movies is White Oleander. Recently I decided to read the book. In the movie the main character, Astrid’s mother, is an artist who kills her boyfriend and goes to prison for it. Astrid then goes through 3 different foster homes in a few years. In the book however, Astrid’s mother is a poet and Astrid goes through six different foster homes. In both Astrid is an Artist. I guess that the reason that the movie didn’t include the other 3 foster homes is because the things that happen to her are too extreme for a PG-13 rating. She prostitutes herself, does a lot of drugs, gets starved, etc. I guess that it might have also had something to do with there not being enough time in the movie. I did like both the book and movie. They have their differences but both are equally good.

“Night” by Elie Wiesel

Recently,
I’ve read Elie Wiesel’s “Night”. This book is about his experience during the
Holocaust. He spent time in concentration camps and lost every member of his
family along the way. Elie was only a teenager, he was starved, beaten and
became on the verge of losing faith in God.

Before Elie
and his family were sent to concentration camps Elie was a normal teenager in
his home town Sighet, Transylvania.  He spent his time
studying school and religion. He had two sisters and two wonderful parents.

As
people heard of the wars and Jews being taken away no one in Elie’s town
worried. Even when they were on the trains to the concentration camps noone
really knew or believed what was going to happen.

Over the
course of a year in a concentration camp Elie almost lost all faith in himself
and his god. He watched his father be beaten without saying anything. He saw
children being hung. Everything that Elie Wiesel knew before the Holocaust had
long disappeared.

Herland

        Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a good book. The
story line is very creative. It is about three men Terry O. Nicholson, Jeff
Margrave and Vandyck Jennings. Vandyck is the narrator of the story and kind of
the happy medium between Jeff and Terry’s views. The three men go on an
exploration with a group of people. As they get closer and closer to the end of
their exploration they hear more and more about a land of only woman. Finally
with some sort of evidence that there is a hidden civilization they return home
and get their own boat and plane together to discover this land themselves. 

As their plane lands on the civilization they don’t really
take note of how well built this civilization is. They come across three
children. These children climb trees and run like boys but the three men argue
on whether or not they were girls. Terry tries to bribe the girls into
assisting them but they take his bribery and run off. The three men run in the
direction of the children and come across a town. They go into the town, the
streets are empty. They turn a corner and there are a hundred women. Old women.. Terry presents them with gifts and they aren’t
flattered. Instead the women show that they want the three to follow them.
Terry makes a big fuss and they are drugged.

The three men wake up in a wonderful room. Nice beds, full
of clothes, and a bathroom. Then they knock on their door and see that there is
food and that the women, their tutors want to learn their language and history.
Although it doesn’t seem like they are imprisoned it is quite obvious that
these women do not want the men to be alone. Throughout time the men escape and
are taken back. The women explain that they are not prisoners and once they
learn the language and the history they will not need guards following them.

The history of these women is quite peculiar. It’s like all
the women just turned into a group of girl bearing Virgin Marys. At one point
these women had men. They had a civilization that reached to the shore and
fought with their enemies. Then a volcano erupted and they were trapped. Their
slaves tried to kill them all but the younger women resisted winning their
country back. One day a woman bore a child. She was sent to a sanctuary. She
had five children who each had five children who each had five children. This
one woman started a whole new race.

Throughout
the book the narrator starts to feel ashamed of his country and the way his
society looks at things. The women and men share how their world works with each
other. The men’s society, compared to the women’s, is vicious, full of creatures
that will harm you and it is unequal. The women are treated much differently. The
women in this land that they have built are just mothers. The only thing they
really care about is motherhood and sisterhood.

The three
men eventually get married to three of these women. Jeff is completely happy
and has no struggles. Vandyk and Terry however find it a little hard to deal
with them. These women don’t understand love before motherhood. In fact most of
their emotions are very blank. One night Terry tries to have sex with his wife.
She had the guards come in and drug him. Terry went through court and they
decided he must leave. Vandyk and his wife Ellador decide to leave with him.
They are asked to keep the location of this Herland a secret.

This book wasn’t really my favorite book. It kind of bored
me. Like the men did, I found the women in this book just too boring. I don’t
think that, in a civilization without men, women would act like this. Although
the book is not the best, I still do think it was a good book. It is an interesting theory about how a civilization without man could be. It’s better in some
ways and worse in others. You’ll have to read it to find out what I mean.

 

Stupid White Men

So I started to read Micheal Moore’s "Stupid White Men" about a month or so ago. It was a decent attempt I guess you could say. The fact is that I only got to chapter two or three because I could only read a few pages at a time before either getting bored or frustrated. Instead of the book making me angry at Bush or whatever it just made me angry in general and frustrated with politics all together. It’s not a very good read. It’s one of those really good ideas that just went wrong.

Sidetracked by Oprah?

Like M-mv, (who I voted for in the best literary blogs category of the BOBs),  I never thought I’d say "you go girl" to Oprah in regards to her book club selections and I’m not sure I’m actually saying it now but… I am not disappointed, for once.

Like M-mv, I thought she’d pick a race relations topic or a book that I’ve already read or a book that falls on the typical "must read list".  She didn’t.  She chose a book I have not read but have often thought about reading.  She chose Night for her National High School Essay Contest assignment. 

But now we have a problem.  Do we slip Herland back in the plan and read this now (and enter the contest)?  Or do we stick with the plan and simply add this to the schedule later in the year.  Or do we just skip it entirely?

One of the benefits of homeschooling is that we do not have to follow the leader.  We don’t have to do what every high schooler in the country is doing or learn what they are learning.  But, I am a firm believer in doing some of the things the "regular" kids are doing.  There is benefit in having similar experiences, which is why Michelle took both Economics and American Government over the summer – all high school kids in Florida are required to take those two classes. 

I never thought Oprah would play a role in deciding our curriculumn.  Never would have guessed.  Stay tuned as we ponder our options.

Technorati Tags: oprah, oprahsbookclub, nationalhighschoolessaycontest,

Breakfast at Tiffany’s

So I finally finished Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It was pretty much about this guy who had a crazy neighbor (Holly) that he grew to like. Holly insisted on calling him Fred because that was her brother’s name. And throughout the book, the main character has trouble figuring Holly out. She moves around a lot and keeps everything a secret.

Vampire Dreams Report

Vampire Dreams is an SAT vocabulary novel. During the book you come across a lot of hard words and you look at the bottome of the page for the definition. It seems like an ok way to study vocab. but I dont think it really worked for me.

The story is about a boy named James Weston. He lives in England with his mother who is very light sensitive. James goes to college and is working in a class for hematology (the study of blood). One day James gets jumped and robbed by two men on the street. He goes home and his mother can’t look at him because the "blood makes her sick". A man named Alistair helps him clean up that night and returns a few days later for dinner, with a friend. The weird thing about this is that his mother never has the same man over for dinner twice.

During dinner James is tested and in his mind he thinks that he has failed. After dinner as they sit around the fire his mother bites him and drains some of his blood. Then lets James drink her blood to become a vampire. Then James’ mother is very weak so she and Alistair eat the other guest. James is horrified.

The next day James wakes up in an old fashioned house like his mother’s. There’s a girl in his room whose name was Susan. After much deliberation he decides she is a vampire too. That night Adam, another vampire, takes him to a club and while Susan and Adam feed, James is once again disgusted.
James then flees England after almost killing Adam. Killing another vampire is a crime in the vampire world.

James goes to New York City where he tutors students in Biology and seems to think he is the only vampire in the city. Even the "Vampire Killer" (someone who was killing humans as a vampire would) doesn’t seem real to James.
During his time in NYC James meets a girl. And falls in love. James usually feeds on criminals after he has visions of their crimes but after a while he has urges. And, after he gets visions of the Vampire Killer and realises that people he knows are dying, including his cat, he starts to wonder if maybe he is the Vampire Killer.
I really like this book. I’m not going to give away the ending of course but I do recommend to anyone to read it.