― ms.Lee

I borrowed the complete chronicles of Narnia written by C.S. Lewis from SooIn and I finished 2stories (63pages) of 7. However, I changed this to other book to read because this book was too heavy to carry every friday. So now, I am going to write little about one story that I read in this book, "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe". It is about four children, Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy coming to Professor Digory's Estate because of the air raids in World War II. Lucy goes into a wardrobe while playing hide-and-seek in the house, and  she meets a faun, Mr. Tumnus in that world. Mr. Tumnus tries to kidnap Lucy at first, but he decids to let her go. When Lucy gets back to professor's estate, she brings other children with her to show them Narnia in the Wardrobe. But all that there is the hard back of the wardobe. At that evening, Edmund sees Lucy going into the wardrobe again. He follows her, and gets into Narnia too. In there he met Jadis, the witch. The Witch, who calls herself Queen, gives Edmund enchanted turkish delight and tells him that he is to be King of Narnia when she is gone. She talks him to bring his other siblings to her castle. He comes back to the professor's estate. One day, Mrs.Macready, the housekeeper, shows them round tells them to not interrupt when she is taking party over the house. So when they see they are coming, they go into the wardrobe. They find out Narnia there, and rescue the Faun, and with Aslan's aid, rescue Narnia from the White Witch.

If I have an opportunity to meet one character of the characters in this book and can be a friend with him/her, I would like to meet Faun, Mr. Tumnus because he is really friendly and faithful. For example, he firstly decides to kidnap Lucy so he takes her to his home and talks to Lucy about his story but they  becomes friends so he doesn't kidnap her to offer to white witch. He didn't betray her even he is in awful situation that he will be accused if what he did is revealed. I really admire his behavior and want him to be my friend. Also, he listens what others say to him very carefully, so if I am talking to him about bad situations, I will feel relieved when I am with him.

I enjoyed reading this fancy story because it made me think of imaginations of my childhood such as the world of insects and plants. Also, I liked the idea of using wardrobe as the passage between the real world and Narnia. In this story, the four children seem normal enough with their constant teasing and fighting among themselves, but when events truly matter, they come together and exemplify the highest standards of sacrifice, courage, fidelity and heroism. Both children and adults will find inspiration and role models in these four children. The lion Aslan is a mystical and almost biblical hero too. There are many parallels between Aslan and Christianity. I suspect that over many years the other six books that make up The Chronicles of Narnia will be made into movies and they will have the same type of financial and artistic success as The Lord of the Rings film trilogy had.

Around this week, I watched a movie titled "Shakespeare in love." John Madden produced this movie and it takes 122minutes long. This movie begins with a play-writer called Shakespeare living in London who is the hope of those around him. However, he falls into severe slump and roams until he finds fortuneteller. Then, he hears, "you will be genius play-writer when you find your true love" from him. Eventually, he finds one good-looking boy who comes to have an audition. That boy actually is very rich lady named Viola, and they fall in love. However, her father arranges her to marry someone different. So, he writes a play about their tragic love story into "Romeo and Juliet." Before playing that script, they joins the happy time, and prepares for play. AT Viola's marring day, she marries her arranged man. After they have a marriage, she saw a poster that today is the d-day of the play. So she escapes from the church, and acts as a Juliet. However, she has to leave the stage after that play because she already become Wasex's wife, and movie ends like this.

There are many villain characters and general characters. In this movie, the impressive characters were romantic Shakespeare, soft Viola, inhuman Waxes, and lenient viola's maid. In these characters, I mostly liked Shakespeare and I want him to be my friend because I know he has many scars in his heart so that I can solace him. Also, when I feel bad or experience heart breaking, he will understand my feeling. If I become his friend, I will give him some advices for play script. It will be great honor for me and for my descendants. Shakespeare will be teacher for my life, because he is very intelligent person, so that I can learn lots of thing from him. The biggest reason for wanting him to be my friend is my dream; I want to be an actor in future. So I can ask him to let me participate in his play script and it will be pleasure to learn lots of acting skills from him. Therefore, I really want to have a friend like Shakespeare.    

After I watched this movie, I felt this movie is very special, it was very detailed, and shows character's mind in indirect way. I was also very surprised, because I never watched this kind of detail movie. One of the examples is ink marks on Shakespeare's fingers. I knew that inks dyed writers' hands at that period. Also, when they were playing "Romeo and Juliet" on the stage, Juliet kill herself and takes out the red scarf from her heart, it shows that there wasn't water color for blood at that period. People still cried watching the blood like that and this shows that people at that period were very naïve. Like this, these kinds of small detailed things show that period's people were like that. Characters showed their minds in indirect ways, for example, Shakespeare and Viola did not use love word, they expressed as skinship between their bodies. They had lot of kisses expressing their love, and read poems together. This movie is not like just modern movies because it has other way of showing love. However, I think this way is better than modern because we cannot find pathetic love in modern movies, modern movies use direct way to express the love, so I cannot feel uneasy and sincere love. I think this movie is the best movie I ever seen except some nude scenes. However, I love this movie.

Louisa May Alcott wrote many books, but "Little Women" retains a special place in the heart of American literature. Her warmly realistic stories, sense of comedy and tragedy, and insights into human nature make the romance, humor and sweet stories of "Little Women" come alive. This story is written in 409pages and it was easy for me to understand this book because I read this in Korean edition before. This story begins with 4 March girls, practical Meg, rambunctious Jo, sweet Beth and childish artist Amy live in genteel poverty with their mother Marmee; their father is away in the Civil War. Despite having little money, the girls keep their spirits up with writing, gardening, playing homemade plays and the occasional romp with wealthier pals. Their pal, "poor little rich boy" Laurie, joins in and becomes their adoptive brother, as the girls deal with Meg's first romance, Beth's life-threatening illness, and fears for their father's safety. The second half of the book opens with Meg's wedding. Things rapidly go away after the wedding. When Laurie admits his true feelings to Jo but she rejects and he leaves. Amy also leaves on a trip to Europe with a fussy old relative. Despite the deterioration of Beth's health, Jo makes her way into a job as a governess, seeking to put her treasured writing into print and finds her destiny as well.

There are many main characters in this story, which is a bit different from other normal books because Louisa May Alcott handled the love of family rather than a couple. However, I mostly like Beth who is really quiet but sweet. She is gentle but negative, talented at playing piano and very kind. The reasons why I like mostly want her to be my friend is that she has similar personality with me. I am also a bit negative, quiet, and talented at playing piano. Therefore, I would like to have Beth as my friend.

As I read once again and although I read this book several times, I had many new emotions in each time. Last time when I read this book, I just thought that their love is so deep but this time, I was so impressed to those four lovely sisters and their gentle mother who never frustrate in worse situation, but living more happily by giving out their breads and helping sick people. Forward, I will try to live strongly with positive attitude that I do not give up even in difficult circumstances like four sisters and their mother in this book.

The Diary of a Young Girl is a book composed of extracts form a diary written by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with her family during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands. This book has 283pages, which is not that long but not too short. Anne Frank begins to keep a diary on her thirteenth birthday, June12, 1942, three weeks before she go into hiding with her mother, father, and sister and four other people in the sealed-off upper rooms of the annex of her father's office building in Amsterdam. With the assistance of a group of Otto Frank's trusting colleagues they remains hid for two years and one month, until their betrayal in August 1944, which results in their deportation to Nazi concentration camps. Of the group of eight, only Otto Frank survives the war. Anne dies in Bergen-Belsen shortly before its liberation in April 1945.

In many characters in this book, I personally would like to have Kitty as a friend. Well... Actually, she is not a real person but is a name of Anne Frank's diary. Through I was reading Anne's diary, I also wished to have a diary like Kitty to talk everything in my mind, concerns, and troubles, as if I am talking to my best friend. In addition, I think it is a good idea to record my life down for my descendants such as my son or daughter for them to see how their mother's life was like. Therefore, I would like to have a Kitty as my best friend.

I was so impressed to this book and to Anne Frank. Although she lived boring life and could not enjoy the normal and universal things, she still was open-minded and was always bright even under unfavorable conditions. I reflected on myself during I was reading this book. On the contrary, I can enjoy my life and get anything I want. This plot is very similar to the Japan empire period. We had to find shelter to avoid the Japanese soldiers. Hence, this book came to my heart deeply. When I asked my grandmother about the Japan empire period, she seemed so sad when she was talking to me. I am very surprise and feel unhappy that there were people who suffered same pains as my grandma in the far away nation, Germany. Why did we suffer pains under this ‘war'? This is a serious problem for us who live in a world with good possibility of the war. We should not remain the ‘war' for next generations and make the peaceful world to make no more person like Anne, the girl who died in her young due to the war.

I started to read a book for 30minutes everyday. The first book that I read for independent reading was book called ‘Holes', written by Louis Sachar. This book was generally short and easy for me to read, so I read quickly through 240 pages that were whole pages, because I liked the unique skill of Louis Sachar that evolves two summaries in same chapter. The story begins with the introduction of camp green lake, which allude that the main character Stanley is going to stay there. Many events happen to Stanley and Zero due to the fate. Stanley is just a regular kid until he finds responsibility for a crime that he hasn't commit. He learns about a curse that has been in his family for several generations. He goes to camp green lake in a worst situation, which is very cruel, dirty, and dry. He needs to do hard labor that is to dig holes everyday. He meets strict warden and friends in the camp. One day, Stanley and Zero run away from the camp and survive without water. Finally, they break the curse; find the treasures of Kate Barlow and friendship.

There were many characters in this book, which drove me crazy sometimes because I couldn't remember all names of the boys, but two impressive main characters were always in my mind when I was reading it. Stanley and Zero are the two characters that I liked most. Not only because they were main characters but also because they showed impressive friendship in this book. They were always being kind and caring for each other. For example, when he escaped from the camp and Stanley did the same to find Zero in the desert because he was worried if Zero was placed in serious situation. When Stanley found him, he shared some old pudding-peach called ‘Spoolish'. It was surprising that Zero shared the last one and gave that entire bottle to Stanley. Also, they shared some onions from the mountain but not fighting to get all of onions to survive. These show how close they are and helped them to survive in the desert. Their decisions opened the doors to break the curse too. Moreover, Zero dug Stanley's hole when Stanley was sent to the Warden for stealing Mr. Sir's sunflower seeds even he didn't do it. From that day, Stanley taught Zero how to read and Zero dug holes for Stanley. This shows how they are close and friendly. Furthermore, Stanley saved Zero and other boys in the camp. The camp was running without any government's permissions. The Warden claimed boys to do a hard labor. When the chief law enforcement officers came to the camp, Stanley's lawyer said that he was innocent and that he could go back to his home. Stanley had a chance to get away from there quickly, but he didn't leave without Zero. That shows their friendship is not over. I admire the strong friendship between Stanley and Zero. Hence I would like to have them as my friends.

I liked this book because the unique way of author's writing captured my mind as I mentioned in the first paragraph. Also, some unrealistic factors in the book like a curse, fate, and green lake camp made this story more interesting to read. After I read this book, I thought the message and the purpose of this book.

I don't think he wasted his time and energy even though he suffered from extremely hard work. He became mature and patient through experience in the camp. Also, he became a courageous person. He showed his bravery by stealing a water truck to get water for Zero. Before he comes to camp, he was very timid and he didn't try to fight against a boy bullying him who's even smaller than him. So this was a good experience for him to change his personality. I think the message of the story is that we can't get away from our destiny. If something goes wrong, you need to solve the problem rather than just trying to get away from it. This book also tells us about the importance of keeping a promise.