About reading

THE CALL OF THE WILD
JACK LONDON

Jack London was an American writer born in San Francisco in 1876. Towards 1897 he traveled to Alaska driven by the gold rush, this trip inspired many of his works, such as “White Fang”, which became a movie , and “The call of the wild” whose plot is about the return of a civilized being to their original state and fighting for survival.

“The Call of the Wild” is a story of a dog called Buck, who´s kidnapped and sold as a sled dog in Alaska. Buck has to learn to survive in the lands of Alaska, which are new and unknown lands to him. During his trip Buck has several masters, but of them all, the one who wins Buck´s love and loyalty is John Thornton. Another character in the book is about a wolf that represents the call of the wild. Buck has to decide whether to continue with Thornton or answer the call of the wild.

I really enjoyed reading this book, it´s a really entertaining read. I really liked the story, although it has scenes of violence and cruel struggle but I think this makes it more realistic, since it´s set in a harsh environment for both dog and man.

Title: ‘David Copperfield’

Author: Charles Dickens

Review by Arancha Rodríguez Bernardo

MY COUSIN RACHEL

Author: Daphne du Maurier

This story was written by Daphne du Maurier and first published in 1951.

This edition was published in 1992 by Heineman elt publishing house at Intermediate level.
It is a thriller where feelings like love and economical interests are dangerously related .

Philip Ashley was only a child when his parents died. His cousin Ambrose, a rich and unmarried man twenty years older than him becomes his guardian and Philip his only heir.

When Philip is twenty two, Ambrose leaves to Italy and meets Rachel, a charming woman. He falls in love with her and they marry.
Everything is perfect until one day when Philip receives a letter where his cousin says he is very ill. When Philip arrives in Ambrose’s house he has already died.
Signor Rainaldi, the man who arranges things for Ambrose and his wife (money, business…) explains to him that the reason of his death was tumour he had in his brain.
But Philiph doesn’t believe it, he thinks there is something more, so he decides to meet Rachel and find out the truth.

What happened to Ambrose?
Have Rachel and Sr.Rainaldi something to do with it?

It is an entertaining story whose end is really unpredictable and surprising.
I definitely recommend it

Book review by Olaya Cachero Villaverde

1º D Intermediate Level

‘The Sugar Glider’ (by Rod Nielsen) is an exciting adventure book set in Australia.

In this story, a pilot called Don comes back to that country in order to spend more time with his daughter and see his ex-wife.

However, when he arrives, Paul, a friend, offers him a suspicious job: to fly a mysterious cargo from Brisbane to Melbourne. But the plane has a defect and crashes, killing Paul. After that, they will have to fight to survive in the hottest part of Australia. Don discovers that it wasn’t an accident and what they really were carrying was Uranium. So he starts to think that this was not a job for the Government and tries to return to Brisbane, where he finally meets his ex-wife and her new lover, who is a selfish and wealthy businessman.

The main characters are:

• Don Radcliffe: a pilot who returns to Brisbane hoping to rescue a failed marriage and to spend more time with his daughter Sylvia.
• Don’s ex-wife, now in love with P. Forsha. She still seems to feel something for Don.
• Judy Radcliffe is don’s daughter, aged 14. She is very intelligent and brave, always willing to take risks.
• Paul Copeman is one of Don’s oldest mates. He needs to fly “The Sugar Glider”to the Melbourne air museum.
• Patrick Forsha is a rich and selfish businessman. He started a relationship with Sylvia 6 months ago. Don hates him.

This book develops themes like: greed, environmental awareness, the Murri people (native Australians that traditionally occupied most of modern-day Queensland) and family values.

I believe that this book is worth reading because it is impossible to put it down. I enjoyed it very much, although it is sometimes a bit predictable.

My favorite chapter in this book is Accident because it describes in a very moving way Paul‘s tragic death. It is curious the way the writer expresses the character’s feelings and makes his readers get so involved with their situations.

This story reminds me of a civil war (due to all those problems related to the Murri people who demonstrated against the government ), family love (because ,despite the disadvantages, Don and his daughter keep together loving each other) and the power of truth (when Forsha’s partner realizes he’s not the honest man he pretends to be in front of her).

Title: Emergency Murder

Autor: Janet McGiffin

Genre: Thriller

Publisher: Cambrigde University Press

Level: Upper- intermediate

Summary of the plot:

The story happened at midnight atMercy Hospital’s Emergency Room. A sick woman arrived; she was called Nanette Myer and died few minutes later because of a heart attack. Her doctor, Maxine Cassidy couldn’t do anything for her.

Nanette was Dr. Hank’s wife and he couldn’t believe the death of his wife because she was healthy. Maxine ordered an autopsy of the body and a blood test, where a poison called tetrodotoxin, which comes from puffer fishes, was found.

Maxine was the main suspect because she had used this poison for her research six months before at Marquette University where she shared her lab with other collages called Virginia and Aaron.

Virginia was a famous researcher who was trying to find out the cure for leprosy.

The detective who run the the case was called Grabowsky and with the help of Maxine they found a lot of interesting clues together. Because of this reason Maxine was attacked three times. Her life was in danger.

Nanette was wearing strange clothes and she had been seen talking with some people in a rough neighbourhood the day she died. The reason of her behaviour was that she was getting information for her university degree watching “street life”.

Finally, Maxine discovered that Nanette was killed by Virginia because she found out that Virginia was doing illegal experiments with homeless people.

Personal opinion

In my opinion, it is an entertaining book because it starts with a death and you don’t know who the murderer is until the end. This made me want to read more and more until I finished it.

I read it quickly because ,apart of being unpredictable, it had few pages and the vocabulary wasn’t very difficult. Moreover, between Maxine and Grabowsky there is an affectionate romance that I liked.

In conclusion I like it so much and my mark is a four. I recommend it to all the people who like thrillers with a little bit of love.

Sandra Álvarez Artime 1º E

(1st year intermediate level)

Review by Ángela Fernández Fernández-Avello

“The Thirty-Nine Steps”

By John Buchan. 1875-1940

Oxford Bookworms Library

Stage 4

The author was a Scottish writer and politician who served as General Governor of Canada, and also worked as a correspondent in France for “The Times” when World War I began.

The main character of the book, Richard Hannay, is inspired by his close friend Edmund Ironside, an adventurer he had met in South Africa.

This is a thriller and adventure book, it tells the story of an adventurer and traveler who has just arrived in London from Africa and discovers an enormous secret about events that will lead to the First World War, having to escape from his enemies as they want to kill him.

He goes all over Great Britain trying to hide from them, he stays for a while on the Scottish moors as the police is chasing him too (for a murder he did not commit).

The book is very entertaining; it describes very well the main features of the characters and the place where the story is developed. The story has lots of action and is very surprising.

I recommend it because reading it is very enjoyable. It is so exciting that you will not want to stop reading until you get to the end.

Elena Álvarez Martínez        Group: L     (1st year intermediate level)

BOOK REVIEW

INTEMEDIATE LEVEL

“In the Shadow of the Mountain”, written by Helen Naylor is mainly an adventure novel, although it contains features of romance and drama genre with intrigue and mystery.

The story is set in United Kingdom and Switzerland. Clare Newton is a British journalist who one day gets a call notifying her that her grandfather´s body had appeared in a glacier in Zermatt, Switzerland. After this, she discovers that there was a big mystery around her grandfather`s death and she decides to travel to Zermatt to bring home the body of her grandfather and to investigate his death.

During her stay in Zermatt, while she tries to collect some information, she meets Bruno and Ulrich Grunwalder, who will help her to know more of her grandfather’s life and death in Zermatt.

The story of mystery, love and adventure that Clare lives in Switzerland, changes her way of seeing life and her linkage with her grandfather.

In my opinion, “In the Shadow of the Mountain” is well worth reading because in general it´s an interesting an unpredictable novel. The Personalities of the characters change with the plot and you discover the mystery and get to know the characters bit by bit. The plot keeps your attention just to the end.

  I think that the best part of this book is the mysterious atmosphere and the way that the book grips you, but, I especially like Clare´s personality and the love story she lives.

From my point of view the worst part of the novel is the end. I was expecting an overwhelming and breathtaking story at the end, something more surprising than the real end of the book.

In conclusion it is a highly entertaining book for fans of intrigue and love stories and I definitely recommend that they add this book to their collection.

Check your general understanding of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid by doing this exercise. Just click on the picture.

These diaries entries have been written by  intermediate students from 2ºC, 2ºE and 2ºH. After reading and discussing on The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, they got to work on their own diaries. They invented new characters, different from their personal ones in order to write these extracts. So, ‘all characters and events in these entries are entirely fictional’, aren’t they?

 Looking for funny?  Well, this book is funny; Diary of a Wimpy Kid is hysterical.

The book is about a boy named Greg trying to get through his life. He has an older brother and a younger brother. The older brother makes his life miserable. But the way he gets through it is by playing with his friend Rowley.

This book is really good for intermediate level readers. The reason why is that the book has pictures on every page. The words don’t fill up the whole page. What really catches my eye is that the lettering is in a normal kid’s handwriting.

Now let’s get back to the story. Greg’s older brother is always playing tricks on him. And his younger brother calls him Bubby. Oh, did I forget to mention? His elder brother’s name is Rodrick and his younger brother’s name is Manny.Once when Manny drew on Greg’s door, Greg told his parents but they thought it was cute. When Greg gets in trouble, let’s just say it’s not cute. Remember how I said Rodrick always plays tricks on Greg; well, the worst one was on the first day of summer vacation. Rodrick woke Greg up at 6:00 AM and told him he slept through the whole summer vacation.

Want to know more… Read diary of a wimpy Kid.

 Some useful links on the Diary of a Wimpy Kid:

A quiz.

The Diary of A Wimpy Kid microsite.

Big television debut.

Video from the movie.