Robert Trudle never seeks to amaze the reader. He offers a challenge to traditional and modern views of reality. The UFO topic is generally resigned to ridicule and pop culture. Trundle presents an insightful analysis that brings the reader into thoughtful contemplation of his/her views of reality as seen through the the established orders of philosophy, science, God and politics. The book is highly recommended. The fear and dread it leaves you with is not fear of the possibility of alien life. It's realizing the limitation of human systems of thought.

This was written by my great, great, grandfather! I was so excited about it! Finally I can read it as I do not speak German! My maiden name is Fricke and there are were four Richard Frickes that followed him: my brother, father, grandfather (who are all alive) and then his son and himself (both deceased). Who is George? We must be related!

It's forty below in the Northwest Territories of Canada - so cold the ravens won't fly & Richard can't go outside. He decides to ask his family & friends the question that became the title to this book. Their answers bring a whole other world into light. Brilliantly illustrated by George Littlechild from the Plains Cree Nation, this humorous quest of a youngster's mind during a long winter's day, brings out the silly & the insightful. Makes a lovely gift!

This is a really great book for kids who love horses - and our kids do! Now, our kids want to save all the wild horses in the world. They've read this book over and over.

Ferrie creates a refreshing, approachable, and exciting vehicle for examining the events and issues around the Battle of Yorktown. Unencumbered by patriotic propoganda, extremely well researched - reveals the issues and life as it truly was for those involved (on both sides and at all levels) in the struggle for American freedom. Highly recommended for elementary school and up!

Although I have generally found Orwell to be a politically confused thinker, 1984 stands out as one of the best and most forward thinking works I have ever read. The amount of relevance this book has today is overwhelming, considering modern government propaganda techniques and the double edged sword of technology. This story serves as a warning to all who trust the government, especially in regards to privacy issues.

Winston Smith, while not the ideal romantic protagonist, is still compelling in his own right with his inspiring (and finally tragic) fight against Big Brother. The struggle that takes place between Winston and the government in 1984 is psychologically thrilling and intense, and it is still difficult for me to put the book down each time I read it. I am particularly drawn to the character of O'Brien, who represents to me the culmination of a path that all seasoned politicians and government officials travel down.

The year 1984 has come and past, but an extreme statist government similar to the one portrayed in the novel still may haunt us in the future.

Few books I have read have captivated me as much as 1984 did. In the two days I read it I actually stayed up near midnight and it took me all the willpower I had to put it down and finally go to sleep. I would highly recommend this book to any reader and personally consider it one of the greatest political statements agains communism ever written.

George Orwell's grim tale begins after a future government's attempt to create a utopia goes awry. We start the story as it pertains to Winston Smith, a man who works in The Ministry of Truth, which, despite it's misleading names, works on the 'correction' of 'false' records. Despite his desires to fit in, Winston is at risk merely because he can remember what life was like before 'Big Brother'. He knows that much of the party's propogands is fluid fiction; he realizes that the party controls individuals by brainwashing them with lies and alienating them from each other.

Winston soon begins having a love affair with a woman named Julia. In their hatred of Big Brother, they both decide to join an underground resistance call the Brotherhood. However, the organization is not quite as Winston had conceived, and he and Julia realize just how hard it is to resist Big Brother and the Thought Police.

One of the great books of the 20th century - it is amazing how much of Orwell has entered the language : Big Brother, Thought Police etc. The story is a bleak one - "Imagine a boot stamping on a human face, forever!". Orwell intended it as a warning, not as a prophecy. As a warning, it worked - 1984 was read by every Russian dissident, about the only English book (besides Animal Farm) that can make that claim. Yet, the abuse of language described by Orwell, the way thought can be controlled by inculcating poverty of language, in a certain sense describes much of today's media - "dumbing down" actually limits the possible human response - look at the jeers and cheers on 'the Jerry Springer' as pathetic subjects explode their inarticulate rage. The nearest thing to the '5 Minute Hate' that I have ever seen. Yet, Orwell possibly made the warning too bleak (he was dying of TB as he wrote, it was his last book). You feel that while Julia and Winston Smith do ultimately betray each other, yet it was done under duress of torture, and there could possibly be forgiveness in their hearts afterwards, not the disillusion of the book. The power of human love could defeat the Party, perhaps. A book that repays several readings.

~*~James and the Giant Peach is a very good book for people from the ages 9-12 to read. I choose this book because I saw the movie and I thought that is would be very good. The book was about a little boy named James Henry Trotter, who lived with his aunts and they treated him every badly. He grew a giant peach and he went inside it. He landed into a "Magical World." My favorite part of the book was when James went inside of the peach, he found some new and very good friends. He was afraid of his new friends and they were afriad of him. While they were inside of the peach, they were tryig to get to New York City. I am not going to tell you if he makes it or not you are just going to have to read it to find out. I think that the best character in the book was James because he went away for his aunts, and was attempting to go to New York. I think that he is a very brave person!~ *~By:Ashley *!~*

Whimisical, creative, silly, I would use these words to describe the fantastic story of James and the Giant Peach. James is a boy whose parents are killed by an unfortunate rhinoceros accident at the zoo. He is forced to live with his two aunts, Aunt Spiker and Aunt Sponge. They are mean to him and make him work alot. One day though he meets a magic fellow while he is working in the garden. The fellow gives him magic beans. James is supposed to eat them, but he drops them by the peach tree. In the evening James goes outside and is shocked by a huge peach on the tree. James finds a hole in the peach and he meets his new "friends". This book is interesting and very good. It is an excellent book for adults to read to kids, because both parties would get reading pleasure.

Roald Dahl displays more of his magic that everyone has seen in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" in "James and the Giant Peach." Poor orphaned James Henry Trotter lives with his mean Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker who make him do all sorts of awful chores and treat him like a slave. The boy's situation is straight out of a Charles Dickens' novel.

Then one day, the tree in their backyard grows an enormous peach -- and with this odd fruit, James makes his escape and finds friends in the form of ... GIANT BUGS!

What's highly amusing is how all the bugs (and even the nasty aunts) all make up songs about their lives and/or each other. Dahl demonstrates a wonderful wit as he makes up the rhymes.

This is a cute quick read for people of all ages!

Watership Down is a stupendously marvelous book about rabbits. It starts out when a young rabbit named Fiver, a rabbit with the gift of foresight, sees the warren they live in being destroyed, and they must leave there at once, with as many as will follow. He convinces his brother Hazel, simply because Hazel knows the truth of his dreams. They approach the Thearah, the head of the rabbits, but that does not go well. So they leave the warren, and the story is of them traveling, trying to find a home, and at last succeeding. Then they have to get does from another warren, Efrafa, that is run very militarily by a rabbit named General Woundwort.

That is a lot more to this novel than that extremely brief summary. You get to meet a grand sea gull named Kehaar. It is one of my most favoured books, and I know of none outside the fantasy market that touches its realm of invention.

The best thing about this novel is how thoroughly researched this is. This is not regular anthropomorphic fiction, where talking animals are just caricatures of humans, or they're animals without that true sense of their nature. The rabbits in WATERSHIP DOWN behave like real rabbits. I'd go so far as to call this THE LORD OF THE RINGS of this type of fiction, with talking animals. Adams has taken the real behaviour of rabbits and set them in a wonderful story. The depth of his achievement never fails to amaze me. He totally makes a believable real world of the rabbits, and from the rabbit's perspective. Besides being a great novel, this makes this work stand out even more so. All the places, including the place Watership Down, are real locations in England.

Although Brian Jacques' REDWALL series is often hailed in comparison to this, in terms of actual scope of reality, REDWALL and all its incarnations is inferiour to his in a particular sense. Not that I don't like REDWALL. Brian Jacques has a very real gift of telling a rollicking good yarn, and his series deserves everything it gets. Its just that WATERSHIP DOWN shows more craft in the sense that instead of taking animals and imposing them with personalities (which could be said of NARNIA and other heavy weights in this type of literature as well), with them losing their nature and taking on a definably human one, Adams did not go to that extreme. He balanced them with ultimately human traits necessary for the story, but still in keeping with their animal nature, with them behaving and acting like real rabbits. This is why I love this particular novel so much. It achieves a balance of animal and human qualities, of which so few stories in this particular genre attempt to achieve, which really creates a deficit in this facet of literature. Of course, not all these stories are trying to achieve that balance, or need too, because they are aiming for an entirely different point and are using anthropomorphic fiction as its vehicle, and that's alright. (Case in point: George Orwell's ANIMAL FARM, which is as every bit as good as this, although it is so for entirely different reasons.) It gives anthropomorphic fiction a new height and goal to shoot too:

1. To take an animal, for purpose of a story, and with human traits and failings let us get to know the character and its surroundings.

2. To take the character created, and to keep it in keeping with its real species. If it's a bear or an otter, have the bear and otter behave like real bears and otters. It makes the fiction so very much richer, although naturally it will confine the work in certain aspects.

The interaction between the rabbits and human society is an excellent treatise in its own right on man's dominance over nature. It gives a very interesting view on how animals interact and deal with us. They are two separate societies, and each must deal with the other. Of course, the humans have the overall hand. That is why, indeed, the rabbits led by Hazel and Fiver must forsake their home warren in the first place. On the Notice Board (name of the first chapter "The Notice Board") there is a notice which reveals the humans will make a shopping mall or something like that in that location. Although this may seem strange, the only other books that I have read that gives a very interesting animal perspective on human society is in quite a different setting, with largely comic overtones. The HANK THE COWDOG books, a children's series greeted with enthusiastic response from both children and adults, gives a perfectly delightful view of human society from an animal's perspective. They are written by John R. Erickson (I'm proud to say I hail from his home state of Oklahoma, though now I am far removed from there).

In conclusion, one of the books I love and respect the most. His depth of invention is amazing, his achievement, although in a much different setting, parallels the achievements of Robert Jordan and J. R. R. Tolkien. This is one of those books I wished I had written (as H. G. Wells said of Sinclair Lewis' BABBITT, and, perhaps more importantly, Stephen King said of William Golding's LORD OF THE FLIES, another debut novel). I bought a hardback copy of SHARDIK, a novel of similar magnitude (or so they say.) I haven't read it yet. They say it topples this book, and if that is the case, Mr. Adams is even more so a truly remarkable writer of novels.

The book Watership Down by Richard Adams has great description. Although it may not sound that exciting, a bunch of rabbits crossing the countryside, it's an amazing adventure. Think of the Redwall series, now subtract weapons, a castle, medieval time, and just one problem to face. It's Redwall with a twist of reality and nature. For instance, the rabbits can only kick in defense instead of wielding swords and shields. Richard Adams presents lovable/lovable and hateable characters that you're sure to get attached to. The use of difficult plant names will have you stumbling threw the beginning and flipping back to the Lapine Glossary can get strenous, but the strengths far outweigh these weaknesses. The strengths, as you may have guessed, are the description and characters. You may not want to start this book unless you plan to read for a while.

I loved the book, through the slow beginning, you'll find a great novel, and an instant classic. If you believe this as well, you'll love the sequel-Tales From Watership Down.

The rabbits have to get through a forest, swim a river, and get through a warren full of man-set traps and snares. Sure it is tough going, but they'll get through it, now for the rest of the book,you'll have to find out for yourself!

To be strictly honest, I must say that when I first started reading Watership Down, I braced myself for a boring, dragging story about some rabbits. However, 2 chapters into the book and I was hooked. For the two and a half hours it took to read straight through it, I forgot food, sleep, and my own humanity. I became engrossed with the lives Richard Adams created for these rabbits: their culture, their deities, and most of all, their struggle for life and survival. This book contains all a fantasy could ask for: a mystic that sees the future, a strong capable leader with the brains, and a strong capable leader with the brawn. It also has a fast-paced, action filled plot; keeping the reader constantly wondering what will happen next. The book opens in a large thriving community of rabbits, called the Sandleford warren. Fiver, the mystic, has a terrible vision of destruction heading for their home. Being undersized and thought insignificant, his brother, Hazel goes to speak for him. Naturally, they are not believed and are almost arrested. To escape the impending doom, a small group of rabbits leave the warren and embark on a journey to find a new home. On the way they meet friends, enemies, havens and hell. Who knew the lives of animals could be so interesting? Meet the strange rabbits whose nature has been twisted and deformed, a sadistic dictator who knows no reason, and hold your breath as the rabbits brush with death several times. See the human world through the eyes of animals; discover what our cars, actions, and even our cigarettes mean to them! I admit you might feel at first, disinclined to pick this book up, but once you're done, you will reap its rewards.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

The book I read was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl. The year it was published was in 1964. The main characters are Charlie Bucket, Grandpa Joe, Agustus Gloop, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregarde, and Mike Teavee. This book is about Charlie Bucket who wants to get a golden ticket in a Wonka bar so that he and four other children can go inside Wonka's factory. Unfortunatly, he can't even afford a candy bar! So one day when he was walking down the street he found some money in a gutter, which was enough to buy a candy bar! So he bought a Wonka bar and what was inside? A golden ticket! This was the last golden ticket. Now he gets to go inside Wonka's factory! The moral of the story is to live your dreams and don't give up. Charlie learns that being spoiled gets you nowhere, because all the other children get such as shrunk or sucked up a pipe. Charlie changes because he gets to own a big chocolate factory in the end. I gave this book a five out of five.

Fact: Roald Dahl is an amazing author with tons of great books under his belt.
With that said, if you're going to embark into the world of Dahl, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" has to be your first read. While I do think some of Dahl's other books such as "Matilda" or "The BFG" are better, "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" shows the brilliance of Dahl.
Most of us know the general story of this book. A young, poor boy who wins the oppertunity to tour the Wonka factory, discovering a magical world hidden within it's walls. You have to know a story is good when it inspires not only a movie, but a candy company.
I love how this book paints each charecter and scene without overloading the reader with details. The reader feels like they are right beside Charlie, touring the factory with him.
At the end the real reason to the tour is explained in a touching way that leaves the reader feeling that no matter what your background may be, anything is possible if you dream big enough. And if you ask me, this is a message every kid needs to hear these days.

Would you ever want to go inside a chocolate factory? Well, if you would, read this book, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roal Dahl. I thought this was a great book. It's one of those books that you just can't stop reading. There are pictures of the really good parts of the book but not very many. In this book, Charlie is a poor boy who lives in an old shack very close to a chocolate factory. The chocolate factory is called The Wonka Factory. It has been closed down and reopened a long time ago and now Mr. Wonka is putting five golden tickets in ordinary chocolate bars. Five winning chocolate eating kids are allowed to go into the factory. Their names are Charlie Bucket, Violet Buriguard, Varuca Salt, Mike Teevee, and Augustus Gloop. What will happen when one by one they start to disobey Mr. Wonka's rules and disappear from the factory? If you want to find out what happens to Charlie, then read this book!!!

George Orwell's Animal Farm is a superb animation of the Russian Revolutioon. The book is amusing and interesting; it includes a comic element as it synonymously demonstrates the evolution from the proletariat revolution to a totalitarian government led by the swine of the society. Orwell successfully simplified the not-so-simple theory of class stratification and Karl Marx's proposed solution of communism. Orwell's method of conveyance is incredibly inventive. He uses satire in the form of a fairy tale to share his indignation for ideological doctrines that would, if allowed, lead to the eventual destruction of a society. Each character in the story is representative of someone who was involved in the Russian Revolution. Old Major is Marx, and inspires the proletariat revolution by motivating the over-worked animals and educating them on the ways of the human beings, who represent the bourgeoisie. Orwell's creativity convinces the reader that the animals on the farm are intellectual beings, revolting against the tyranny of the humans. Animal Farm offers itself as an example of a responsible criticism of Marxism. The story gives us a peek at the Utopian vision, and then offers a long look at what results from using a Marxist approach at achieving it. I strongly reccomend this book, as it is entertaining and educational. Orwell succeeded in creating a fairy tale that evokes both sadness and laughter, while causing us to feel sympathy and even empathy for the working class animals. The book escapes complexity, but its message does not.

If you know zilch about the history of the late, unlamented USSR, skip this book, you're not going to get it. The more you know, the more you're bound to admire one of the 20th century's great satires---maybe its greatest. Capitalism, Communism, Lenin, the October Revolution, the Interventions, Stalin, Trotsky, Beria, the KGB, Hitler and the Fascist invasion---all these and more are in there. Orwell savagely attacks the Communist system as it turned out in fact in the USSR, not as it was originally envisioned. Along the way, the various foibles of human nature and fatal tendencies of ruling classes everywhere are held up to his pitiless examination. I will not give a runthrough of the story, but the idea is that animals, representing the working class, overthrow people, representing capitalists, and establish a workers' state---called Animal Farm. Overall, Orwell leads to the question: haven't we gone beyond our abilities to control technology and scientific knowledge ? Our political skills have not kept pace.

Since Orwell completed his novel in 1945, the last section of the book, about what would happen to the Soviet Union under Communist plutocrats, was necessarily speculation for him (not for us). In some ways, ANIMAL FARM turned out to be uncannily correct, but in others, passé, because we know what happened thanks to our 57 years' hindsight. Orwell did not predict the rise of the satellite states in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, nor did he see that the building of heavy industry would be co-opted by the armaments race, bankrupting Animal Farm and ultimately bringing it down without a war. But the pigs eventually did turn into humans (i.e. workers became capitalists). Because Communism has crumbled, especially in the former USSR, people may feel ANIMAL FARM is no longer relevant. That would be wrong. We can't justly distribute resources or maintain the planet's environment. Think of the billions of impoverished people, massive pollution, the unending ecological destruction and the menace of genetically engineered everything. Now, more than ever, it seems that our world is an Animal Farm. When we protest, it is made perfectly clear to us---all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others. The Pigs, Dogs, and Sheep are always with us. If you don't understand what I'm talking about, read this book.

Animal Farm is an easy-to-read book,and on th surface it seems like it's about animals.Pigs and horses and moles fill the story.It definetely looks boring to a person who's older than 13 and who's looking for depth in books.But,as I said before,it just seems boring on the surface , however no reader can deny how deep the book really is.Obviously it's about the Russian Revolution and what happened afterwards,and it's a must to read about Soviet Union in order to understand the book thoroughly. Surely it's possible to see the power fight among the pigs and relate it to real world,but that's not understanding it as a whole.After you read about the Soviet Union,you'll have a different enjoyment figuring out who's who.For example Napoleon the pig is representing Stalin,and Snowball the pig is representing Trotsky.Overall,first read about "the" revolution and what happened afterwards,understand who did what,and then read this fabulous book.You'll definetely have fun and a strange smile will form on your face after you read the last line.