Animal Farm By George Orwell

Do you ever stop for a second and think what domestic animals thought of us, human beings, what hatred they had in their mind for us because we kept them and made them work in farms? This book is a fable all about how the animals of Manor Farm stir up a rebellion against humans and capture the farm. It all started with the old pig called Old Major giving everybody an inspirational speech one night on how miserable their lives are at the farm with humans. The major also made a rebellion song called The Beasts of England. After some weeks the Major died, but the rebellion continued quietly with the pigs leading, until one day they put it into action and kicked out the humans. The animals celebrate their victory and change the farm’s name to Animal Farm, and the farm has a happy and successful year ahead with a good harvest with Snowball, the pig, as leader. When Snowball was leader, he wrote the Seven Commandants, he brought such wonderful tactics into action when the owner Mr Jones attacked the farm again, but an evil plot was hatching in the mind of Napoleon, the evil pig. Napoleon trained these nine fierce dogs to send Snowball off the farm for ever. Then the most evil act occurred -- Napoleon held a meeting in which he said whichever animal had to confess something should confess it now. However, Napoleon set the dogs to go off with the heads of whichever animal did confess.

Napoleon also broke the Seven Commandments, but every time he broke a commandant his followers would add an extra word to the Commandments and nobody would notice. Whenever an animal would get old or get ill Napoleon would kill them, for e.g. the devoted and very hard working Boxer (the horse) got ill and Napoleon sent him off to the knacker’s. At the end there was a very shocking surprise (which I am not going to reveal to you).

Review time: the book is pleasant in the first few chapters then goes evil. You get really angry at the last chapters because they’re way too cruel and it’s not happy -- it’s sad stuff. At the end of the day, this book tells you that whoever is in charge ends up behaving like cruel humans. So this is not a great book for small kids, you have to be above 10 to read it, but it is a book with a lot of twist and turns.

Unhooking The Moon By Gregory Hughes

This book is a very sad book. So, if you’re the more emotional kind of person please do me a favour and keep a pack of tissues with you before you start reading. It all started in the small town of Winnipeg, Canada, where two kids Robert and Wazhashnoons (Bob and Rat) lived with their father (sadly their mother died in a car crash). They were like a normal family going to school and office, making friends and dancing to the latest rap music of the latest rapper, Ice. One thing about Rat was not normal -- she could make crazy predictions and she used to have fits which included spasms, saliva dripping from her mouth, etc. One day, she predicts that their dad is going to die (and her predictions are accurate because she once predicted that something bad would happen to her friend Felicia and the next day they came to know that Felicia had been strangled. Once, she predicted their dog was going to run away and the next day the dog was gone, it had left at night).

The day of Bob and Rat’s school play their dad did not attend the play and when they returned home -- lo and behold! Their dad was dead on the kitchen floor.

Bob and Rat didn’t break into tears because they weren’t the emotional type. Now they had to plan a trip to New York where they would find their uncle (Bob only agreed to the trip because he didn’t want to be put in a home). So, they started off by train to Toronto and started cycling their way to the American border. Now, Bob and Rat are on a trip where they make new friends like Tommy the hustler, Ice the rapper etc. On the way, they made a friend called Joey – a drug dealer – who took them to New York and promised Bob and Rat that he would return in a day or two after finishing his work, but Rat is eventually caught by the police and taken to a home.

So, now Bob, Joey, Tommy and Ice go to rescue Rat in New Jersey (where her home is). It turns out that the home is a very dangerous one and Ice and Tommy get badly hurt in a fight. Joey has found out about Bob and Rat’s uncle, who is the head of a company called Exocome. When they try to enter the office building the guards stop them and don’t believe that Bob and Rat are the nephew and niece of their boss, Jerome Debiller. So, Joey, Bob and Rat have to force their way in and Joey gets shot by a guard. Joey tells Bob and Rat to go on and find their uncle. Eventually, they find their uncle but at the same time Rat falls into psychological shock.

Bob is sixteen now and Ice was sentenced to six years in prison, Tommy and Joey are in hospital.

This book is actually very sad though in this review it may not seem so sad. This book is confusing, it’s hilarious and sad at the same time and that’s why this book is a good one and has become one of my favourites. But I think the author should not write such a such a sad book.