Window (picture story) Book Review

Window (picture book) by Jeannie Baker, published by Random House Children's Books in 1993
This wordless book tells the story of a the destruction of Australian Bushland. It describes this through a set of images looking out from a boy’s window. It spans for about 25 years, the opening picture showing a mother holding her baby as they looked out into the open bushland. In each picture shows the gradual loss of outback country as it is cleared to make way for farms, then eventually become suburbs. The grown up boy moves out to the country and the last photo shows him holding his own baby, looking out into the bushland where a sign reads “house blocks for sale.” Window is an extremely detailed book, effectively describing the effects that our growing population is having on the environment. The images really do say a thousand words and really makes you think about the impact humans have on the bush. It is very similar to Where Forest Meets the Sea, also illustrated by Jeannie Baker. It also raises awareness of our environmental issues, and in snapshot images, describes the seriousness of the situation. Both of these books have a permanent effect on me and are constant reminders that we can change the world, and make it a better more sustainable place if we really focus on protecting our environment and resources.

There Will Come Soft Rains (short story) Book Review

There Will Come Soft Rains (short story) by Ray Bradbury, published by the Collier in 1950.

This is a fantastic sci-fi short story, set in the future. It is named after and based on Sara Teasdale’s poem, There Will Come Soft Rains. It is set in past tense, and is written in third person perspective. It tells the sad story of a single house, left standing after a radio-active disaster. It starts in the morning and leads through the whole day, describing the house’s programmed routine. It describes a very tragic scene, where the family’s silhouettes can still be seen against the wall of the house, white against the ash covered wall. I felt a very strong sadness and pity for the house, as it is described to have feelings and went crazy over the loss of its inhabitants. It describes how it gave up on the outside world, closing all its shutters and doors and focussing only on keeping to the rituals of life before the accident. At one stage, the family’s dog appears at the door, half dead, before it goes insane. Its dead body is carefully cleaned up by the house and incinerated. The meaning behind the story is that mankind is destroying itself with technology, and that Nature will not notice the loss of humans. It really makes the reader think and analyse it. I liked this story, because even though it’s quite tragic, it successfully evokes emotion and describes meaningful, and vivid, images.

Northern Lights Book Review

Northern Lights, by Philip Pullman. Published in 1995 by Scholastic Books.

Northern Lights was a wonderful novel, and I enjoyed Pullman's writing style immensely. It was a captivating story; just enough mystery that you had to keep turning the page and see what happens next. The novel built to a dramatic climax which didn't stop at the end of the book, making me itch to read the next in the series. As the themes and plots behind the story began unravelling, it created an interesting double-meaning to the story, focusing on the hold our beliefs have on us. The storyline was wonderful, as was the way Pullman wrote which helped create familiarity with the main characters, Lyra and her daemon, Pantalaimon. It created a feeling of closeness to them, and made the book more intriguing and helped understand the characters better. I loved the concept of daemons, and how they represented one's soul and personality. Northern lights was a great novel because it captured many different themes in the book, such as innocence and the concept of growing up, and how it changes us. Pullman introduced the idea of Dust, which represented experience and maturity. It begins to settle on people through their teenage years. This was a huge factor in the book, as the connection to humans and their daemons was what made Dust settle. The Church was against Dust, as they thought it caused sin, but really it inspired consciousness and curiosity.
All in all, Pullman’s Northern Lights was a wonderful read, and I recommend the His Dark Materials series to anyone who loves books that make you think.

Harry Potter 3 Book Review

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling, published by Bloomsbury in 1997.
This novel was intended for readers who enjoy young adult fiction. Its genre is fantasy, and the book is written in a third person perspective using paste tense.  I liked the way J.K. Rowling wrote the novel, and how she set it out. In the beginning of the novel, there are hints towards the main plot of the book. This creates interest and anticipation, and develops further along with the story. This was my favourite out of the Harry Potter series, because it kept the same style as the first two books, but presented bigger themes and became more serious, as the series seems to get darker and grimmer with each book. The good & evil themes in the story progress more, and it becomes a bit confusing which category some of the characters fit in, like Peter Pettigrew and Sirius Black. The other characters develop more as well, and some new ones are introduced like Professor Lupin.
Altogether, I liked how the series ‘matured’ as it went on, but especially loved this book because it had all the good qualities from the series. It still maintained some of the innocence from the previous books, while also being a bit more advanced so it wasn’t such a simple read; it required more thought.