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Several years ago I tracked down Edvard Ormondroyd and spoke with him on the telephone. He is a librarian in New England. I just wanted to thank him. He told me about his other books. I read them all. They were excellent. I especially liked the series with the time travel. They too would make an excellent movie.
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The Murrays are not willing to take her in, but are proud and consider it their duty to bring Emily up, as she is a member of their clan. Her Aunt Elizabeth brings her the New Moon, and is cold and harsh and stern. But her sweet Aunt Laura, and kindly Cousin Jimmy provide Emily with support.
In Emily's imagination, loyal friends Ilse Burnley, Teddy Kent and Perry Miller, as well as her passionate love of writing, Emily finds hope and friendliness in her new World.
Emily is often compared to Anne of Green Gables, but they hold their differances. Anne is all liveliness and hot temper and sweetness; Emily is vivid, both light and dark, with enough mystery in her to allure.
This book is beautifully written and delicate, full of subtle wit and humour, and wonderful complexity as it describes Emily's adventures while living at New Moon. Emily is spirited and charming and ambitious, and the Emily series portray a unique child developing into womanhood.
The Emily series( New Moon, Emily Climbs, Emily's Quest) trace Emily Starr's voyage through adolescence to early adulthood.
It's probably best for older readers as it contains references to sexuality and the supernatural that may be inappropriate for kids or just not appreciated by the younger reader.
I've read almost everything by Montgomery that's published(except for two books), and this is, in my opinion, the best series. Anne of Green Gables is a tour de force of a book, but the series as a whole isn't that great. The Emily series is a sheer masterpiece that's not to be missed, especially for older readers. I read it when I was twelve and read the entire series every year.. it's better every time. Don't skip this one... trust me.
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The book follows Werner's career as a U-Boat officer that starts at the beginning of WWII. He talks about the initial glory and successes of the German U-Boat campaign against the British and he follows the war as the tide changes against Germany. Werner describes reports of boat after boat being sunk and most of his fellow commanders being killed at sea and he shares his thoughts as he continues to bring his boat to sea in spite of almost a guarantee of being killed.
I can't recommend this book strongly enough. It is the BEST submarine saga that I have read to date and it is also a tribute to men who have gone to sea in defense of their country.
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I don't know how she does it! But I'm postively mesmerized by everything she's done.
Anyhoo, onto the book. Mandy is VERY VERY VERY well-written and as I've said previoulsly, its hard to believe that someone who cna sing and act as perfectly as Julie can write to wonderfull as well! Julie adds so much detail so you know every little thing thats going on in the story. You can almost SMELL the flowers and see the garden and feel the love! It's tremondous. I could read this book OVER and OVER until someone finally whacks me over the head and slaps me back into reality. If you love this book (I can't imagine anyone NOT loving this book) I HIGHLY recommened Julie Andrews Edwards' other children's novel "The Last Of The Really Great WHangdoodles", kinda sounds like something from the woman who put Supercalifragilisticexpealidocious into our vocabulary, doesn't it? 'Whandoodles' is so creative and so wonderful!!!
Bravo, Dame Julie!
BY THE WAY- further back in the comments someone said that Julie wrote this because she lost a bet to her daughter Emma Kate, she ACTUALLY lost a bet with her daughter *Jennifer*. The bet was that if Julie didn't stop swearing (or cursing) Jen would make her right a book....looks like Julie couldn't stop. :-)
GREAT BOOK, GREAT AUTHOR, GREAT FUN!
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As my title indicates, I found it highly amusing. I found myself laughing out loud a few times while reading this very short book.
The illustrations are fantastic as you can gather from most of these reviews. Most of the illustrations are funny but I might note the exception to that in the gruesome image of Kate's corpse after being struck with an ax. I think that's the only illustration taking place after the event. That proved to be an exception though. The book is very amusing and hilarious at times.
It's an anti-children's book for adults. It can be a funny remedy to the insipid and happy-go-lucky kinds of children's books. That doesn't mean this is just for parents or those particularly sick with those children's books. I think anyone with a decent sense of humor, and especially a dark one, would enjoy this.
It's short. I don't know why the information says it's 64 pages because there are only 26 letters in the alphabet. Anyway, my point is that it's just a little humorous diversion.
This hardcover edition is really great. It's high quality and just plain nice...
Not recommended for the weak of stomach.
I found this book hilarious. Gorey's children have a proper Victorian look to them which makes their scenarios that much more bizarre. Most of the drawings show the unfortunate children just before their deaths; only a few of the pictures actually show explicit death or violence.
One could read "Gashlycrumb Tinies" as an outrageous parody of children's books (of alphabet primers in particular), or just enjoy it for what it is. Either way, I think it's a wicked delight.
The content of "Gulag Archipelago" is quite extraordinary. Solzhenitsyn includes countless anecdotes of prisoners and their families in various phases of arrest, interrogation, imprisonment, slave labor, death, or release. He buttresses these stories with statistics, and with his own personal narrative of his years in the Gulag. The information in this book is simply staggering, not only for the cruelty and evil it describes but also the folly. The Soviet government murdered indiscriminately across all lines of race, class, and gender. In many cases, it murdered the most brilliant and productive members of its society--the very people who could have built it into something great.
Many people take umbrage with Solzhenitsyn's style, which involves a lot of ranting and run-on footnotes. Personally, I find his narrative interesting and invigorating. Solzhenitsyn's narrative is vigorous, untrammeled and loaded with sarcasm. While many find this gimmicky or uncultured, it helped buoy me through the unbearable sadness of the book's subject matter.
Obviously this book isn't for everybody and it requires a considerable degree of fortitude to get through it. But I think it is essential in all our lives to read this book or one similar to it.
Like other great men, Solzhenitsyn's early life gave little indication of the monumental importance he would one day achieve. But one day, while serving as an officer in the Soviet army during WWII, something happened to our author that happened to so many others under the Soviet regime: Solzhenitsyn was arrested for insubordination, sentenced to eight years, and thrown into the gaping maw of the Gulag prison system. Unfortunately for the memory of the 'Great Father' (read Joey Stalin), this obscure army officer lived to tell the tale of all he saw and heard during his imprisonment. The result is the voluminous three volume series presented here in translation. 'The Gulag Archipelago' serves as both an indictment of the evil Soviet regime and as a memorial for the untold millions who died in the camps.
The overarching theme of this book is the process, from start to finish, of internment in the Gulag system. Starting with the dreaded 'knock in the middle of the night,' the author traces the nightmare of incarceration through the interrogation, the sentencing, the transportation to the prison camps, the grinding work conditions of the camps, and the eventual release into eternal exile or tentative freedom. Solzhenitsyn repeatedly delves into historical analysis, biography, journalism, philosophical musings, and literature to present his account. What emerges is page after page of heartrending suffering that is nearly incomprehensible to any sane human mind. The endless accounts of cruelty sicken the soul and should strike anyone who thinks communism is a great system of government deaf and dumb.
Volume one begins the harrowing odyssey into madness, outlining Solzhenitsyn's own arrest, the endless waves of people that fed the prison system, the interrogation procedures used to elicit false confessions to meaningless crimes, the dreaded Soviet criminal code containing the notorious 'Article 58' under which millions went to jail as political prisoners, the disintegration of the Soviet legal system to what basically amounted to a rubber stamp type of sentencing, and the transportation of prisoners via train to the eastern reaches of the Soviet empire.
Volume two deals mainly with camp life, with all of the trials and travails a person faced and how people struggled to survive. It is here we learn about Stalin's canal building projects and the thousands who died to fulfill the sick dreams of a ruthless sociopath. We see the horrible rations prisoners were forced to survive upon while having their ears filled with disgusting propaganda about how their work was important in helping to create the worker's paradise. The second volume also contains a history about how the gulag system emerged and how it spread, a discussion about loyal communists who so internalized the party belief system that they refused to believe Stalin sold them out, and chapters about the different types of people confined to the gulag (trusties, thieves, kids, women, and politicals).
Volume three focuses mostly on prisoner defiance of the terrible conditions in the prisons, discussing escape attempts (especially Georgi Tenno, a hero to the human race and indefatigable in his disobedience of the Soviet authorities), and outright prison revolts where the entire population of a prison banded together against the common evil. We then see Solzhenitsyn's release into exile and his ultimate 'rehabilitation' after the death of Stalin and the rise of Khrushchev and his 'moderate' reforms. The series ends with a call for more investigations into Soviet atrocities committed in the gulags.
No summary could completely outline the scope of this book; so enormous is the amount of detail held in these pages. The reader is tirelessly assailed with the names of those butchered under the hammer and sickle. Predictably, most of the blame for these murders falls on Comrade Stalin, author of the kulakization pogroms, the endless political purges, and the continuous sufferings inflicted on the various peoples under his control. Always referring to this beast in the most insolent and sarcastic tones imaginable, Solzhenitsyn rightly calls Stalin 'Satan.' Hitler was a mere schoolboy when held up to the unholy terror of the 'great' Dzhugashvili.
Still, one gets the sense of the majesty and power of the great Russian people in these accounts. Nothing will keep these people down for long. Everything the camps threw at these many of these wondrous creatures failed to break their spirit. They figured out how to lessen the back breaking labor of the camps, learned how to stay alive on rations barely fit for a dog, struggled to escape the chains that bound them to the death camps. Although the author laments the docility of those serving sentences, there are enough tales of bravery and defiance to warm the most cynical heart.
I highly recommend reading the unabridged version of 'The Gulag Archipelago.' There used to be an abridged version of some 900 pages floating around, but only the 2000-page edition brings home the full scope of the evils of communism. Accessibility is a problem, but stare into the eyes of Yelizaveta Yevgenyevna Anichkova on page 488 in the first volume and tell me her memory does not deserve an effort on your part to read every page of one of the most important books ever written.
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Anne Shirley is a twelve-year-old girl who is brought to Green Gables only to find they were expecting a boy. The Cuthberts however, are one over by this queer, imaginative girl with bright, red hair and decide to allow her to stay.
Green Gables is a lovely, little farm just outside of a small town on Prince Edward Island called Avonlea. It is surrounded by fields and forests, which hold many surprises for adventurous Anne.
Throughout this book Anne's fierce temper and wild imagination often get the better of her, but she usually manages to squeeze out of these scrapes.
Anne's melodramatic nature and fiery temper keeps you interested as you read this marvelous book.
Montgomery's humorous writing style gives life to the characters so that you feel like you are meeting them in person.
I think that this was a wonderful book filled with humor, drama and tears. I would recommend this book to anyone that has ever had a dream and loves a good book.
This book portrays a stunning sketch of Canadian History and Culture in the late 1800s to early 1900s. The character personalities are so real and so amazingly "human" that one cannot help but fall in love with them. You really get a taste of PEI in its glory.
This story is set in Avonlea, Prince Edward Island (Canada), a fictional settlement which is really Cavendish, Prince Edward Island, the place where Lucy Maud Montgomery, the author grew up.
The main character is Anne Shirley...and eleven year old, enigmatic, imaginative, sparkling, highly intelligent orphan who is sent to Green Gables, a farmhouse in Avonlea, under the impression that she was to be adopted by a pair of elderly siblings, Matthew and Marilla Cuthburt. But, apon arrival to Green Gables, Anne discovers that there had been a horrible mistake...the Cuthburts never wanted a girl...they wanted a boy who could do the chores and help Matthew with the farm. Anne was was in the "depths of dispair". Matthew, on the drive home from the train station had taken a great shine to Anne and had his heart set on keeping her, regardless of any mistake. Marilla, however, was not so easily enchanted. She agreed to let Anne stay at Green Gables on trial, to see if she would behave herself and lend a helpful hand to Marilla. After the trial, Anne is welcomed to Green Gables and flourishes under the love of the Cuthburts and all Avonlea folk. Anne, however, has one big problem. Her Hair. It is a hopeless shade of carrotty red and Anne felt that it was the ugliest hair anyone could imagine. She was extremely sensitive about it and she was horribly embarrassed about it. On her first day of school, Anne's hair was made fun of by Gilbert Blythe, the smartest and handsomest boy in school. "Carrots! Carrots!" he said. Anne's temper got the better of her and she was so angry she broke a slate over his head. After that, for many years, she snubbed Gilbert every time he spoke to her and he developed a boyhood crush on her.
Ah, but to keep this review interesting and the book mysterious, I will stop telling you the story and begin reviewing. The characters in the book are so well-defined that it seems to you that you know every character personally, like an old friend or neighbour.
And by all means, don't let the age recommendation fool you either...this book can be read by all ages alike...and I have no doubt that this book will still be my avid favorite at the age of 85.
The book is not boring, contrary to many opinions of those who read the first chapter of small print and historical settings. The discriptions will place you right into the heart of the story and you find you will laugh and cry while reading this story. Every time I read it I cry at a certain part which I'm not sure if I should reveal to you for fear of spoiling the good parts in the story, but it is dreadfully sad. If you read the book, then you will know what part I am talking about. The one saddest part in the whole story.
Although this book has some old ideas and ways of expressing them, you will learn a great deal of Canadian history through them and there's no doubt in my mind that this book will still be popular decades and most likely even centuries to come.
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This book is full of adventure and witty humor. it is a fictional novel that is mostly about survival as Mrs. Frisby, a widowed mother, tries to find a way to move her house without having to make her son Timothy, who is very sick, come out of the house into the cold. So she goes out looking for help and finds it in a group of super-smart mice that escaped from a laboratory named the Rats of Nimh. This pack of lab rats devise a plan to move Mrs. Frisby's house.
This novel is for young adults from the age of 9 to 15 years. This is because the story talks about death, some humor kids might not understand. There is also one point of violence where the farmers cat, Dragon, attacks the rats. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, has some parts where teens will like, in some of the witty plans the rats come up with to move the Frisby household.
This book is written in third person. It has Mrs. Frisby whos husband died and was left to take care of her children. When moving day comes her son Timothy gets very sick and can't go outside or his condition might get worse and he could die. So she gets help in the Rats of Nimh and they come up with a plan.
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh, is a Newberry Medal award winner jam-packed full of adventureand survival. This book is definatly not for children under 8 or 9 years old.
This was just a great story and I read it at exactly the right time of my life. When my son was smaller I looked in every used book store and library I could find for a copy. I wanted him to read it so much. Unfortunately time has marched on and he is now 16 and probably will not be interested in reading it. But, I am going to get a copy any way.
I heartily recommend this wonderful book for the preteen set.