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The sand child / QUOTES

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The Sand Child Quotes by Tahar Ben Jelloun

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5 quotes from The Sand Child: 'Pain, too, comes from depths that cannot be revealed. We do not know whether those depths are in ourselves or elsewhere, i...

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"The sand child"-Tahar ben Jelloun // book review

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Margaret Obank reviews

Tahar Ben Jelloun's trilogy

The Sand Child, The Sacred Night & The Wrong Night

'Enfant de sable (The Sand Child) is the first novel of what is now a renowned trilogy. When published in 1985, Tahar Ben Jelloun never expected to be following it up in 1987 with its sequel, La Nuit SacrÈe (The Sacred Night), which the same year won him the prestigious French literary prize, the Goncourt, the first time awarded to an Arab author. In 1997 the final volume La Nuit de l'erreur (The Wrong Night) was published (due out soon in an English edition). All three centre on the treatment of women in Moroccan society.In France, L'Enfant de sable, the story of Ahmed/Zahra, the girl brought up as a boy, was an immediate best-seller (150,000 copies), and is to become part of France's school curriculum. At the end of the novel, several storytellers each tell a different tale to explain Ahmed/ Zahra's disappearance, and Tahar Ben Jelloun was innundated with letters from readers asking what really happened to her. The sequel came about, he said in an interview last year, not because the readers suggested it but because "if there hadn't been a story to continue, the readers would not have suggested it".

Tahar Ben Jelloun has always been concerned about the condition of women in North Africa, and the themes in his novels generally concern Maghrebi society - "the relationship between men and women in a Muslim society", the state and the law, the individual and the collective". In particular, in writing The Sand Child, he was fulfilling a need to look at the condition of women in a completely different way to the 1980s feminist literature that he felt was "rhetorical, strident and unimaginative". By making the main character a child whose life was forcibly turned against its natural course as a female, he was able to open up in the novel many of the seemingly intractable problems facing women in that society, as well as the clearly apparent one of inheritance.

For Tahar Ben Jelloun being a storyteller is both a profession and a passion that allows him to say more than just facts and events. Storytelling, he has noted, is the most basic literary principle of all time, of the Thousand and One Nights - Tell me a Story or I will kill you! A society without storytellers, without novelists, he says, is a society that has died. A writer is a witness of his time, Ben Jelloun believes, and he is concerned to "deliver some little messages that are neither political nor ideological but which will . . . allow a little more complex vision of what we are now".

In both The Sand Child and The Sacred Night, Ben Jelloun combines the rich Arab storytelling tradition with the most modern issues of our times, the question of justice and treating people with humanity and equality. By depicting his female characters in black depths of oppression and sordid ugliness and throwing them abruptly into a framework of storytellers' myths and legends he moves his readers to many emotions, to dreams and to reflections on stark, thought-provoking truths.

Ahmed/Zahra is born to a father who already has seven daughters and has decided that the eighth-born shall be a boy, come what may. The father regards his daughters as a curse, it is as if they do not exist, and of course for matters of inheritance they do not. When the eighth girl is born, the father announces to both wife and midwife that "it's a boy! . . . After fifteeen years of marriage you have at last given me a child, a boy. My first child. Look how handsome he is, touch his little testicles, his penis; he's a man!" Of course it is all lies, but the girl is forced to grow up as Ahmed. There is no way to fight her tyrant father, so she submits to the ugly, disgusting reality of her mother's worries about her breasts "which she bandaged with white linen, pulling the bands of cloth so tight, I could hardly breathe. It was absolutely vital that no breasts should appear."

Different storytellers offer their views on Ahmed's life, one saying that being an intelligent child, Ahmed will understand "that this society of ours prefers men to women". Another considers Ahmed will in due course actually become a man, while a third says he will go mad. The last insists on turning the pages of what he says is Ahmed's notebook or diary to tell a truth "that cannot be told . . .".

Submission is not the solution, and so Ahmed confounds his father by marrying a epileptic, crippled cousin and becoming a petty tyrant like him. But what always preys on Ahmed is his relationship with his father. The "decisive ordeal" that is the turning point in his life is his father's death. It makes him a semi-crazed recluse who continues to reign over his obedient sisters and sick mother, while seeing his sexual state of being as a challenge that must be resolved.

The novel works on several intertwining levels and cannot be read as a straight narrative. The storytellers have their own ways of storytelling, and include some gorgeously surrealist descriptions of what happens to words on the pages of Ahmed's diary. Says one: "I see a moth escape from the handwritten words. It carries off with it a few useless images." The storytellers control the narrative, and Zahra's story appears to come to an abrupt end when the chief storyteller disappears and apparently dies, taking with him the all-important diary/notebook. But as her story belongs to the troupe of storytellers, this allows Ben Jelloun to invite other troubadours, even from South America, to tell their versions of what happens next. He is keen to bring into his written stories the atmosphere of those oral Arab storytelling gatherings, to borrow some of their techniques of narration, and also, as Borges does, slip one tale into another. Indeed, Borges makes an appearance in The Sand Child as the blind troubadour, with the final paragraph from his The Circular Ruins appearing in the penultimate chapter.

Ahmed decides he has to "return to himself", but to re-educate his emotions his body has to "face adventure, on the roads, in other towns, in other places". Zahra encounters more horrors, and joins a circus as a sex-changing freak, becoming the main attraction, then disappearing. Here the storytellers take over as they refuse to accept that Zahra can just vanish. One has a particularly gruesome tale of the vicious rape and sodomy of Zahra at the hands of the circus boss which results in both their bloody deaths, while another, rejecting that as perverted, states that he found Ahmed's diary and recounts how Zahra returned to the family house, and died there a recluse. The third, a woman, invites the others to her room and tells how she has taken on the soul of Zahra.

But none of these is satisfactory, and when they meet again, they are joined by an old blind troubadour who begins a new and intricate tale of Ahmed/Zahra. For some readers and critics who expect a more linear narrative, these divergent endings to The Sand Child can seem to be endless digressions. They will be further confounded by the appearance of the final storyteller, "entirely enveloped in his worn, dirty burnous", who tells a story within a story, and who may in fact be the first storyteller returned.

The Sacred Night continues Zahra's story, urging readers to cast away the stories recounted previously and listen to the facts. And who was watching the last storyteller from a distance but Zahra herself, who now recounts her own story. Her tormented life, her father asking for her forgiveness on his deathbed and telling her to be a woman, are woven into a mythical framework, which begins with Zahra riding off on the sacred night, the 27th night of Ramadan, the Night of Destiny, to her adventures as a woman. She continually relives the ordeals of her early life, remembering that her mother, who never ever spoke, one day asked, with a desperate and ominous strength:
"That I be granted just a month or two of life after your father's death! How I would love to be able to breathe for a few days or weeks in his absence. That is my sole desire, my only wish. Were I to die before him, I would go doubly battered, horribly laid waste, humiliated . . . But may I be granted some time, however short, to utter just one scream from the depths of my soul, a scream that has lurked deep in my breast for so long, since before you were born. That scream is waiting, eating at me, ravaging me, and I want to live so that I do not die with it still inside me."

Sexual encounters, physical ugliness, with occasional sweet friendship and gentle touches from the blind Consul, are what Zahra has to deal with on her pilgrimage through imprisonment and madness as she tries to regain her femaleness. The words of the blind Consul who visits her in hospital, are appropriate here:

"Your story is terrifying . . . Your story is a series of doors opening onto white spaces and spinning labyrinths. Sometimes you come upon a meadow, sometimes a ruined old house closed in on its occupants, all long dead . . . Yet I see you, now a man, now a woman, superb creature of childhood, eluding love and friendship. You are out of reach, a being of darkness, shadow of the night of my sufferings."

In the final volume of the trilogy, La Nuit de l'erreur (The Wrong Night), the readers will hear the scream that has to come out after all that humiliation. Ben Jelloun explores the violence of revenge that is there deep inside, waiting to explode from within a woman who has been oppressed too much. He goes to another level, to say that woman too can be unjust towards man, and then arrive at a mutual relation, neither harmonious nor tender, but which could be summed up as an intercourse of power. But again, the woman in The Wrong Night is unreal, existing within the essential framework of legend, seemingly the best climate for airing brutal and uncomfortable truths.

I await with keen anticipation the English edition of this last part of the trilogy. Hopefully it will have been translated by Alan Sheridan, the brilliant translator of the first two volumes (and translator of many other French authors such as AndrÈ Gide, Michel Foucault and Jacques Lacan).
From Banipal 8 - Summer 2000
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Margaret Obank reviews Tahar Ben Jelloun's trilogy The Sand Child, The Sacred Night & The Wrong Night 'Enfant de sable (The Sand Child) is the first novel of what is now a renowned trilogy.

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"The Diary of a young girl" // book review

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Struggling with Anne Frank's The Diary of Anne Frank? Check out our thorough summary and analysis of this literary masterpiece.

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http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/communism/animal-farm.htm

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A Confederacy of dunces is a book written by John Kennedy Toole in 1963 and postumously published in 1981 by Walker Percy with the help of John K. Toole's mother.

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Eléa - Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

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Eléa - Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

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Eléa - Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

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Eléa - Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

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Extract

“The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color.”
― Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting

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Tuck Everlasting Quotes by Natalie Babbitt

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84 quotes from Tuck Everlasting: 'Don't be afraid of death; be afraid of an unlived life. You don't have to live forever, you just have to live.'

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The count of Monte-Cristo:

The Count of Monte Cristo is an adventure novel written by the French author Alexandre Dumas (French: Le Comte de Monte-Cristo). It was published in 1844.The story takes place in France.It begins just before the Hundred Days period (when Napoleon returned to power after his exile) and spans through to the reign of Louis Philip of France.The book is considered a literacy classic.

Review: Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantès is confined to a grim fortress. In jail he met an old and crazy man and he tried to escape.

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The Diary of a young girl // book cover

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Eléa - Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

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Eléa - Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

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Summary

Doomed to - or blessed with - eternal life after drinking from a magic spring, the Tuck family wanders about trying to live as inconspicuously and comfortably as they can. When ten-year-old Winnie Foster stumbles on their secret, the Tucks take her home and explain why living forever at one age is less a blessing that it might seem. Complications arise when Winnie is followed by a stranger who wants to market the spring water for a fortune.

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Jump to navigation Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization, earns a small affiliate fee from Amazon or iTunes when you use our links to make a purchase. Thank you for your support. Our ratings are based on child development best practices. We display the minimum age for which content is developmentally appropriate.

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ONE
Different from all the rocks on the beach

Lightning has struck me all my life. Just once was it real. I shouldn't remember it, for I was little more than a baby. But I do remember. I was in a field, where there were horses and riders performing tricks. Then a storm blew in, and a woman—not Mam—picked me up and brought me under a tree. As she held me tight I looked up and saw the pattern of black leaves against a white sky.

Then there was a noise, like all the trees falling down round me, and a bright, bright light, which was like looking at the sun. A buzz run right through me. It was as if I'd touched a hot coal, and I could smell singed flesh and sense there was pain, yet it weren't painful. I felt like a stocking turned inside out.

Others begun pulling at me and calling, but I couldn't make a sound. I was carried somewhere, then there was warmth all round, not a blanket, but wet. I knew where I was because it was water and I knew water - our house was close to the sea, I could see it from our windows. Then I opened my eyes, and it feels like they haven't been shut since.

The lightning killed the woman holding me and two girls standing next to her, but I survived. They say I was a quiet, sickly child before the storm, but after it I grew up lively and alert. I cannot say if they're right, but the memory of that lightning still runs through me like a shiver. It marks powerful moments of my life: seeing the first crocodile skull Joe found, and finding its body myself; discovering other monsters on the beach; meeting Colonel Birch. Other times I'll feel the lightning strike and wonder why it's come. Sometimes I don't understand, but accept what the lightning tells me, for the lightning is me. It entered me when I was a baby and never left.

I feel an echo of the lightning each time I find a fossil, a little jolt that says, "Yes, Mary Anning, you are different from all the rocks on the beach." That is why I am a hunter: to feel that bolt of lightning, and that difference, every day.

TWO
An unladylike pursuit, dirty and mysterious

Mary Anning leads with her eyes. That was clear even the first time we met, when she was but a girl. Her eyes are button brown and bright, and she has a fossil hunter's tendency always to be looking for something, even when on the street or in a house where there is no possibility of finding anything of interest. It makes her appear vigorous, even when she is still. I have been told by my sisters that I too glance about rather than hold a steady gaze, yet they do not mean it as a compliment as I do with Mary.

I have long noted that people tend to lead with one particular feature, a part of the face or body. My brother, John, for instance, leads with his eyebrows. It is not just that they form prominent tufts above his eyes, but they are the part of his face that moves the most, tracing the course of his thoughts as his brow furrows and clears. He is the second eldest of the five Philpot siblings, and the only son, which made him responsible for four sisters after our parents' death. Such circumstances will move anyone's eyebrows, though even as a boy he was serious.

My youngest sister, Margaret, leads with her hands. Though small, their fingers are proportionately long and elegant, and she plays the piano better than the rest of us. She is given to waving her hands about as she dances, and when she sleeps she throws her arms above her head, even when the room is cold.

Frances has been the only Philpot sister to marry, and leads with her bosom which I suppose explains that. We Philpots are not known for our beauty. Our frames are bony, our features strong. Moreover, there was really only family money enough for one sister to marry with ease, and Frances won the race, leaving Red Lion Square to become the wife of an Essex merchant.

Excerpted from Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier. Copyright © 2010 by Tracy Chevalier. Excerpted by permission of Dutton, a member of Penguin Group (USA). All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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Remarkable Creatures Excerpt: Read free excerpt of Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier

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ONE Different from all the rocks on the beach Lightning has struck me all my life. Just once was it real. I shouldn't remember it, for I was little more than a baby. But I do remember. I was in a field, where there were horses and riders performing tricks.

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https://www.bookbrowse.com/excerpts/index.cfm/book_number/2485/fall-of-giants

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Reviews of Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier

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The Telegraph (UK) 24 August 2009 "Tracy Chevalier's sixth novel, Remarkable Creatures, is a book of impressive scope. It is not just the story of this young fossil hunter and her rise from indigence and anonymity to renown, but also of how her discoveries were to revolutionise the way people thought about the origins of the world.

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Exerpt from 'The Book Thief':
http://www.readersread.com/excerpts/thebookthief.htm

The Book Review
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/10993149

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/books/review/Boylan-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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Extracts from "The Diary of a young girl"

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The following extracts are taken from the diary of Anne Frank between 1942 and 1944, when she lived in hiding in Amsterdam with her family. The Franks were discovered, arrested and transported to Auschwitz on August 4th 1944.

July 8th 1942: "At three o'clock (Hello had left but was supposed to come back later), the doorbell rang. I didn't hear it, since I was out on the balcony, lazily reading in the sun. A little while later Margot appeared in the kitchen doorway looking very agitated. "Father has received a call-up notice from the SS," she whispered. "Mother has gone to see Mr. van Daan" (Mr. van Daan is Father's business partner and a good friend.) I was stunned. A call-up: everyone knows what that means. Visions of concentration camps and lonely cells raced through my head. How could we let Father go to such a fate? "Of course he's not going," declared Margot as we waited for Mother in the living room. "Mother's gone to Mr. van Daan to ask whether we can move to our hiding place tomorrow. The van Daans are going with us. There will be seven of us altogether." Silence. We couldn't speak. The thought of Father off visiting someone in the Jewish Hospital and completely unaware of what was happening, the long wait for Mother, the heat, the suspense - all this reduced us to silence.

July 9th 1942: "Here's a description of the building... A wooden staircase leads from the downstairs hallway to the third floor. At the top of the stairs is a landing, with doors on either side. The door on the left takes you up to the spice storage area, attic and loft in the front part of the house. A typically Dutch, very steep, ankle-twisting flight of stairs also runs from the front part of the house to another door opening onto the street. The door to the right of the landing leads to the Secret Annex at the back of the house. No one would ever suspect there were so many rooms behind that plain grey door. There's just one small step in front of the door, and then you're inside. Straight ahead of you is a steep flight of stairs. To the left is a narrow hallway opening onto a room that serves as the Frank family's living room and bedroom. Next door is a smaller room, the bedroom and study of the two young ladies of the family. To the right of the stairs is a windowless washroom with a sink. The door in the corner leads to the toilet and another one to Margot's and my room... Now I've introduced you to the whole of our lovely Annex!"

August 21st 1942: "Now our Secret Annex has truly become secret. Because so many houses are being searched for hidden bicycles, Mr. Kugler thought it would be better to have a bookcase built in front of the entrance to our hiding place. It swings out on its hinges and opens like a door. Mr. Voskuijl did the carpentry work. (Mr. Voskuijl has been told that the seven of us are in hiding, and he's been most helpful.) Now whenever we want to go downstairs we have to duck and then jump. After the first three days we were all walking around with bumps on our foreheads from banging our heads against the low doorway. Then Peter cushioned it by nailing a towel stuffed with wood shavings to the doorframe. Let's see if it helps!"

October 9th 1942: "Today I have nothing but dismal and depressing news to report. Our many Jewish friends and acquaintances are being taken away in droves. The Gestapo is treating them very roughly and transporting them in cattle cars to Westerbork, the big camp in Drenthe to which they're sending all the Jews. Miep told us about someone who'd managed to escape from there. It must be terrible in Westerbork. The people get almost nothing to eat, much less to drink, as water is available only one hour a day, and there's only one toilet and sink for several thousand people. Men and women sleep in the same room, and women and children often have their heads shaved. Escape is almost impossible; many people look Jewish, and they're branded by their shorn heads. If it's that bad in Holland, what must it be like in those faraway and uncivilized places where the Germans are sending them? We assume that most of them are being murdered. The English radio says they're being gassed. Perhaps that's the quickest way to die. I feel terrible. Miep's accounts of these horrors are so heartrending... Fine specimens of humanity, those Germans, and to think I'm actually one of them! No, that's not true, Hitler took away our nationality long ago. And besides, there are no greater enemies on earth than the Germans and Jews."

October 20th 1942: "My hands still shaking, though it's been two hours since we had the scare... The office staff stupidly forgot to warn us that the carpenter, or whatever he's called, was coming to fill the extinguishers... After working for about fifteen minutes, he laid his hammer and some other tools on our bookcase (or so we thought!) and banged on our door. We turned white with fear. Had he heard something after all and did he now want to check out this mysterious looking bookcase? It seemed so, since he kept knocking, pulling, pushing and jerking on it. I was so scared I nearly fainted at the thought of this total stranger managing to discover our wonderful hiding place..."

November 19th 1942: "Mr. Dussel has told us much about the outside world we've missed for so long. He had sad news. Countless friends and acquaintances have been taken off to a dreadful fate. Night after night, green and grey military vehicles cruise the streets. They knock on every door, asking whether any Jews live there. If so, the whole family is immediately taken away. If not, they proceed to the next house. It's impossible to escape their clutches unless you go into hiding. They often go around with lists, knocking only on those doors where they know there's a big haul to be made. They frequently offer a bounty, so much per head. It's like the slave hunts of the olden days... I feel wicked sleeping in a warm bed, while somewhere out there my dearest friends are dropping from exhaustion or being knocked to the ground. I get frightened myself when I think of close friends who are now at the mercy of the cruellest monsters ever to stalk the earth. And all because they're Jews."

May 18th 1943: "All college students are being asked to sign an official statement to the effect that they 'sympathize with the Germans and approve of the New Order." Eighty percent have decided to obey the dictates of their conscience, but the penalty will be severe. Any student refusing to sign will be sent to a German labour camp."

March 29th 1944: "Mr. Bolkestein, the Cabinet Minister, speaking on the Dutch broadcast from London, said that after the war a collection would be made of diaries and letters dealing with the war. Of course, everyone pounced on my diary."

February 3rd 1944: "I've reached the point where I hardly care whether I live or die. The world will keep on turning without me, and I can't do anything to change events anyway. I'll just let matters take their course and concentrate on studying and hope that everything will be all right in the end."

July 15th 1944: "It's utterly impossible for me to build my life on a foundation of chaos, suffering and death. I see the world being slowly transformed into a wilderness, I hear the approaching thunder that, one day, will destroy us too, I feel the suffering of millions. And yet, when I look up at the sky, I somehow feel that everything will change for the better, that this cruelty too will end, that peace and tranquillity will return once more. In the meantime, I must hold on to my ideals. Perhaps the day will come when I'll be able to realize them."

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Extracts from the diary of Anne Frank (1942-44)

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The following extracts are taken from the diary of Anne Frank between 1942 and 1944, when she lived in hiding in Amsterdam with her family. The Franks were discovered, arrested and transported to Auschwitz on August 4th 1944. July 8th 1942: "At three o'clock (Hello had left but was supposed to come back later), the doorbell rang.

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extract from Harry Potter and the sorcerer's stone:

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Book Summary
Harry hasn't had a birthday party in eleven years - but all that is about to change when a mysterious letter arrives with an invitation to an incredible place.
Harry Potter has never been the star of a Quidditch team, scoring points while riding a broom far above the ground. He knows no spells, has never helped to hatch a dragon, and has never worn a cloak of invisibility.

All he knows is a miserable life with the Dursleys, his horrible aunt and uncle, and their abominable son, Dudley - a great big swollen spoiled bully. Harry's room is a closet at the foot of the stairs, and he hasn't had a birthday party in eleven years.

But all that is about to change when a mysterious letter arrives by owl messenger: a letter with an invitation to an incredible place that Harry and anyone who reads about him - will find unforgettable.

For it's there that he finds not only friends, aerial sports, and magic in everything from classes to meals, but a great destiny that's been waiting for him... if Harry can survive the encounter.

Chapter Two
The Vanishing Glass

Nearly ten years had passed since the Dursleys had woken up to find their nephew on the front step, but Privet Drive had hardly changed at all. The sun rose on the same tidy front gardens and lit up the brass number four on the Dursleys' front door; it crept into their living room, which was almost exactly the same as it had been on the night when Mr. Dursley had seen that fateful news report about the owls. Only the photographs on the mantelpiece really showed how much time had passed. Ten years ago, there had been lots of pictures of what looked like a large pink beach ball wearing different-colored bonnets - but Dudley Dursley was no longer a baby, and now the photographs showed a large blond boy riding his first bicycle, on a carousel at the fair, playing a computer game with his father, being hugged and kissed by his mother. The room held no sign at all that another boy lived in the house, too.

Yet Harry Potter was still there, asleep at ...

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Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone by by J.K. (Joanne) Rowling: Summary and reviews

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Harry hasn't had a birthday party in eleven years - but all that is about to change when a mysterious letter arrives with an invitation to an incredible place. Harry Potter has never been the star of a Quidditch team, scoring points while riding a broom far above the ground.

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Harry Potter book review

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I think parents should focus on the message of good vs evil. It's full of fantasy and magic wich appeals to children (of all ages) but don't let over... Continue reading

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Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - Book Review

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Jump to navigation The parents' guide to what's in this book. I think parents should focus on the message of good vs evil. It's full of fantasy and magic wich appeals to children (of all ages) but don't let over...

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Then there came a loud, harsh klaxon sound, rising and falling, which ﬁlled the building.

Almost immediately the people from the conference room appeared at the far end of the corridor. Jochmann was ﬁrst. ‘What the devil is going on?’ he said angrily, shouting over the noise of the alarm.

One of the Brownshirts said: ‘This Jew Communist rag has insulted our leader, and we’re closing it down.’

‘Get out of my ofﬁce!’

The Brownshirt ignored him and went into a side room. A moment later there was a female scream and a crash that sounded like a steel desk being overturned.

Jochmann turned to one of his staff. ‘Schneider – call the police immediately!’

Carla knew that would be no good. The police were here already, doing nothing.

Mother pushed through the knot of people and came running along the corridor. ‘Are you all right?’ she cried. She threw her arms around Carla.

Carla did not want to be comforted like a child. Pushing her mother away, she said: ‘I’m ﬁne, don’t worry.’

Mother looked around. ‘My typewriter!’

‘They threw it through the window.’ Carla realized that now she would not get into trouble for jamming the mechanism.

‘We must get out of here.’ Mother snatched up the desk photo then took Carla’s hand, and they hurried out of the room.

No one tried to stop them running down the stairs. Ahead of them, a well-built young man who might have been one of the reporters had a Brownshirt in a headlock and was dragging him out of the building. Carla and her mother followed the pair out. Another Brownshirt came behind them.

The reporter approached the two policemen, still dragging the Brownshirt. ‘Arrest this man,’ he said. ‘I found him robbing the ofﬁce. You will ﬁnd a stolen jar of coffee in his pocket.’

‘Release him, please,’ said the older of the two policemen.

Reluctantly, the reporter let the Brownshirt go.

The second Brownshirt stood beside his colleague.

‘What is your name, sir?’ the policeman asked the reporter.

‘I am Rudolf Schmidt, chief parliamentary correspondent of The Democrat.’

‘Rudolph Schmidt, I am arresting you on a charge of assaulting the police.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. I caught this man stealing!’

The policeman nodded to the two Brownshirts. ‘Take him to the station house.’

They grabbed Schmidt by the arms. He seemed about to struggle, then changed his mind. ‘Every detail of this incident will appear in the next edition of The Democrat !’ he said.

‘There will never be another edition,’ the policeman said. ‘Take him away.’

A ﬁre engine arrived and half a dozen ﬁremen jumped out. Their leader spoke brusquely to the police. ‘We need to clear the building,’ he said.

‘Go back to your ﬁre station, there’s no ﬁre,’ said the older policeman. ‘It’s just the Storm troopers closing down a Communist magazine.’

‘That’s no concern of mine,’ the ﬁreman said. ‘The alarm has been sounded, and our ﬁrst task is to get everyone out, Storm troopers and all. We’ll manage without your help.’ He led his men inside.
Carla heard her mother say: ‘Oh, no!’ She turned and saw that Mother was staring at her typewriter, which lay on the pavement where it had fallen. The metal casing had dropped away, exposing the links between keys and rods. The keyboard was twisted out of shape, one end of the roller had become detached, and the bell that sounded for the end of a line lay forlornly on the ground. A typewriter was not a precious object, but Mother looked as if she might cry

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The book I am presenting is the first book in the trilogy 'The Hunger Games' written by Suzanne Collins a 52 years old american author.

Review:

In a really dark future, on the ruins of the United States, a tv game is created to controlate the population by the terror. 12 boys and 12 girls randomly chosen, participate to this game called 'The Hunger Games' and everyone has to watch it in live. In the arena there is one rule: survive. When her little sister is called to participate to the Hunger Games, Katniss does not hesitate for a second. She takes her place. 16 years old and Katniss is already confrontated to the death many times. For her, survive is like a second nature.

Extract:

"Say you are poor and starving as we were. You can opt to add your name more times in exchange for tesserae. Each tessera is worth a meager year’s supply of grain and oil for one person. You may do this for each of your family members as well. So, at the age of twelve, I had my name entered four times. Once, because I had to, and three times for tesserae for grain and oil for myself, Prim, and my mother. In fact, every year I have needed to do this. And the entries are cumulative. So now, at the age of sixteen, my name will be in the reaping twenty times.

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I'm presenting the fault in our stars by John Green;)

Hazel and Gus are two teenagers who share an acerbic wit, a disdain for the conventional, and a love that sweeps them on a journey. Their relationship is all the more miraculous given that Hazel's other constant companion is an oxygen tank, Gus jokes about his prosthetic leg, and they met and fell in love at a cancer support group.

EXTRACT

Chapter One

Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death.

Whenever you read a cancer booklet or website or whatever, they always list depression among the side effects of cancer. But, in fact, depression is not a side effect of cancer. Depression is a side effect of dying. (Cancer is also a side effect of dying. Almost everything is, really.) But my mom believed I required treatment, so she took me to see my Regular Doctor Jim, who agreed that I was veritably swimming in a paralyzing and totally clinical depression, and that therefore my meds should be adjusted and also I should attend a weekly Support Group.

This Support Group featured a rotating cast of characters in various states of tumor-driven unwellness. Why did the cast rotate? A side effect of dying.

http://www.seattlepi.com/lifestyle/blogcritics/article/Book-Review-The-Fault-in-our-Stars-by-John-Green-5680393.php

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I'm presenting a book I absolutely love: Perfect chemistry.
Book Review: The main two protagonists are Alex Fuentes and Brittany Elias. Alex is a Hispanic boy associated with a gang called the Latino Blood. Brittany Elias is your typical rich American girl. She’s the most popular girl in school, captain of the cheerleading squad, and her boyfriend is the star quarterback. Alex and Brittany first meet on the first day of senior year. Brittany almost crashed into Alex’s motorcycle in the parking lot which causes a little argument between them. Their first encounter doesn’t go well, but they’re in for a surprise. They have just found out they will have each other in the same chemistry class, and to top it off they’re partners. Alex and his new partner can’t seem to work right. They argue over every little thing and can’t seem to agree on something simple, such as where to work on their project. As time goes by, they get closer and feel comfortable with each other. They have now realize they both have secrets, secrets that can be dangerous if anyone where to hear about them. Brittany has always portrayed herself to be the “perfect” girl and Alex has always acted as a tough guy, but are these two characters really what they say to be? Brittany’s life at home is horrible. Her dad is almost always away on business and unable to help emotionally at home. Her mom is under a lot of pressure because her oldest daughter has a mental disorder and worries that one day her friends will discover she has been lying about her “perfect life.” Alex has to seem tough so no one messes with his family seeing how his father was killed when he was six, and now has that responsibility. He knows it’s hard for his mother to support three kids on minimum wage, so he’s decided to make something out of his life. Not caring about the world and their inner conflicts, Brittany and Alex decide to begin a relationship. Once publicly displayed, trouble is not far behind. Brittany’s parents highly disagree of such romance, and Alex has now gotten himself into some trouble with the leader of the Latino Blood and he can’t seem to get out of. When asked to do a special job, will Alex listen to the promise he made Brittany or do the job to learn information about his father’s murder? I would extremely recommend this book not only to girls who love high school romance, but to guys as well. I say this because I myself am I guy and I have to confess I did enjoy reading this book. This was the first book I’ve ever read that’s been written in alternative-first person point of view and had me flipping pages almost every minute. At some points I would chuckle. This author really captured the protagonist’s feelings and made them sound like believable characters. Seeing how I took pleasure in reading Perfect Chemistry, I wouldn’t mind reading other books with a similar plot or by Simone Elkeles. When using flashbacks, Elkeles descriptions are very detailed. When reading these parts of the book I felt myself right in the middle of the action. I don’t regret reading this book and I trust neither will you.