Water for Elephants

If someone comes up to you and says that they used to carry water for elephants, you could bet your boots they'd be lying! Just ask Jacob Jankowski who, unexpectedly, spent the majority of his years as a young man working with a traveling circus.  Jacob never expected to end up on a circus train when he left, but at that point he didn't care one bit.  Jacob actually was finishing his schooling at Cornell to be a veterinarian along with his dad when tragic events occur.  I'm not going to give away the entire book, because I want people to read it! The book puts readers through many emotions as they see the life of Jacob - we see him grow up and learn the truths about life on the road and the morals of many people along the way.

Sarah Gruen uses an interesting characteristic to separate Jacob from the other men on the train.  Jacob is Polish, and he uses his first language to separate himself from the hard life on the train. For example, Jacob's first day on the train, he must force himself to remember all the norms that the working-men live by.  Jacob is highly criticized when he says something wrong (even though he is usually asking simply questions).  On page 55, Jacob is being shown where he will sleep for the time being, and across the train, he hears a man speaking, but his host tells him to quiet down (in a rather rude manner, I might add).  Jacob recognized what this man was saying "Ojcze nasz któryś jest w niebie, swięć sie imie Twoje, przyjdź królestwo Twoje i nie wódz nasź na pokuszenie ale nas zbaw ode ztego. Amen" as our Lord's prayer.  Jacob does his best to forget about the ignorance of his host, and also says amen.  Gruen also portrays this language barrier when Uncle Al buys an elephant.  The man selling Rosie (the elephant) warned Uncle Al that she is the dumbest animal alive.  Trying to train her, the men became frustrated and treated her poorly.  However, a man working with the circus, yet not responsible for Rosie, had worked with elephants before and knew that elephants were trained in Polish.  Proving this, Jacob says "nogę, Rosalie!" Rosie did nothing.  He then said "proszę?" To Jacob's astonishment, Rosie actually lifted her leg! This goes to show that speaking to and acknowledging one's own language is not only respectful but a moral thing to do.

Happy New Semester!

Why, hello again!  It's a new year and a new semester, but with that comes new books for me to start! What's my New Year's resolution?  I don't have one, because I don't deem it necessary to have a specific day (seemingly like everyone else in our country) to start something that I want to do.  Why wait until the new year? Start right now, no questions asked. My long-term goal has been to read more books, coinciding with my 20% Time project.  I have been doing a superb job so far, but sorry that I've been such a recluse lately, alienating my blog and not updating posts.  Although I abandoned my blog over break, I did not desert my stack of  books in my room!

 Fallen by Lauren Kate




Fallen kind of took me awhile to read, but I got in finished within a day or two or Christmas break. The story is of a girl named Luce that is sent to a boarding school called Sword & Cross for (for lack of a better word to describe all of their wrongdoings) misbehaved teenagers.  We are unsure of what exactly Luce did to get into such an awful place, but we know somehow that she was destined to arrive.  Shadows follow Luce wherever she goes, and with them comes an involuntary feeling of darkness or despair, and Luce doesn't quite know why, but she fights them off (only angering them further).  There are two boys at Sword & Cross that Luce is drawn to, but she doesn't know which one to trust.  Later in the book, Luce finds out that there are angels among her, but they happen to be fallen angels.  We get this clue several times in the book when Lauren Kate alludes to angels at Sword & Cross when she takes time to do an entire lesson on angels.  On page 185, she describes a fallen angel: "there was one who crossed the line" which helps readers know that this angel did something wrong as was punished somehow. Earlier, however, one of the boys, Daniel, wrote an essay on his family for class, and Luce desperately (creepy, right?) wanted to find out this boy's secrets.  So later on in the book, Luce goes to the library to find this book and unveil Daniel's past - only to find that this book Daniel did for his 'family research' was actually a Dictionary of Angels (hint, hint). Luce does not get to read it, because when she opened the book, a part of the library started on fire.  After that incedent, the story unravels and we see who the angels are and who Luce should trust.  I'd recommend this book to younger girls who are into fantasy or love type books.  I wasn't a huge fan, but it's one more book off of my list! *Funny little side note - While I was reading the chapter when the library starts on fire, I was on my way to Barnes & Noble with my mom and there was a fire south of Sioux Falls somewhere.  I had just read a line of how the fire started when my mom said "I hope Barnes & Noble isn't on fire."  How weird would that be!? - reading about a fire in a library while a book store is on fire? Sketchy.

The Hunger Games was next on my large pile of books! Words simply cannot describe how weird, bizarre, amazing, violent, addicting, and how much I loved this book! This is a story of Katniss Everdeen in a post apocalyptic United States where the government has taken total control of the 'districts' and limits anything essential towards life.  Every year, all children ages 12 to 18 are entered into what is called The Hunger Games.  The Hunger Games is an event that 2 representatives from each district (a boy and a girl) compete in an arena against opposing districts and fight to the death. There isn't necessarily a main point to the game but to show the total control that the government has over the people... simply because they can. Katniss and Peeta are the contestants of District 12 and go through an abundance of tribulations during the games, only to find out how strong they really are.  The Hunger Games consists of an adventure of Katniss and Peeta almost defying the government, but who will stop them? The Hunger Games is full of surprises all throughout the book and I guarantee you won't want to put it down!