The Book Thief - Review

I finished the Book Thief a few weeks ago and I must say it was a page turner! Marcus Zusak managed to create a novel brimful of heart warming innocence, compelling characters and an insight into Nazi Germany. The tale is narrated by Death, and you might ask how is a story told by death written for young adults? Well in this novel Death is no Grim Reaper, but a gentler version who feels sorry for what he has to do.

Character - The heroin of the story, a young girl called Liesel, has been left in foster care by her mother and has just witnessed her brother's death. A great deal has been taken from her and almost to settle the score she steals books. The story continues with her life with her new foster family in a small German village, how she forms a relationship with a Jew in hiding and her connection with books and words.
Liesel is an identifiable character, with an innocence that brought me back to my days as a child. She has a very simplistic view on life, and yet she is also three dimensional, with many different sides to her personality. Her compassion for those in need is strong, and we see this when she does her best to help the suffering Jews by giving them bread. It is acts of defiance like these that make Liesel so likeable and unique, as she is righteous in her stance against what is wrong. I found her courage and determination admirable.

Cultural Context - The novel is set during the Second World War and gives us a valuable insight into Nazi Germany. Despite the scope of the events happening at that time, it could perhaps be said, that the world of the text is quite small as it’s written from a child’s perspective focusing solely on a single town, a single street and only a handful of characters. This seems to highlight the simple view of the world through a child’s eyes. Although we are shown the impact the war had on the lives of those living in Germany at the time, from men being sent to war and not returning, to the lack of food and rationing.
Most importantly, we learn of the suffering of the Jews when a Jewish refugee comes to hide in Liesels home. Building a strong relationship with Max opens Liesel’s eyes to the injustice around her and in turn the world of the text evolves giving us true insights into human cruelty, and the compassion of those trying to help those victims.

Style - The way the story is told is truly unique and Death's little anecdotes and soliloquies add a certain charm. It is a beautifully balanced piece of storytelling with glimpses of what is yet to come: sometimes misleading, sometimes all too true. It may be said that some events told by death before they happened spoiled it slightly, softening the blow as opposed to the impact it may have had, had it been unknowns to the reader . Personally I found this take original and refreshing; each chapter was unexpected as we were brought forward and backwards in time.
Zusak is most skilled at story-telling, in particular I am envious of the way he can create vivid images in my mind with apparent ease. His descriptions are very original, in particular those relating to characters. For instance Liesel’s foster mother is described as "like a small wardrobe with a coat thrown over it’’ and referred to as a ‘cardboard woman’. He uses metaphors freely, crafting them to his unique style. ‘The sky was the colour of Jews’.

Themes – One of the themes in this novel is Literature and the impact of words. Liesel is named the ‘Book Thief’ for a reason as she begins her love affair with books and words, when she steels her first book. She is illiterate to begin with, but with the help of her foster father and Jewish refugee Max, she begins to learn the power of words. It is hinted at through out the novel, particularly through Max’s allegorical story ‘The Word Shaker’, that words are at the route of Hitler’s power. This subtle message is another way of pointing out the propaganda that secured him position as dictator, and Liesel learns this through her understanding of the impact of words. I thought this theme was strongly developed, linking many events, and the love of literature was so evident that I felt it was written for those who understand the joys of books and words.

I loved this book, and it has to be said it achieves many moments of tear-jerking sentiment.
The ‘Book Thief’ is thought provoking, original and story-telling at its best.

Geography Project - (4) One Day - David Nicholls

David Nicholls was born in 1966, Hampshire, England. He is an author and screenplay writer an has written three novels, 'Starter for ten' , 'The Understudy' and 'One Day'.
'One Day' was published in 2009, and became a word of mouth sensation. Told entirely in the context of one day each year, the anniversary of their first meeting in 1988, this is the story of Dexter Mayhew and Emma Morley. The pair become best friends post-college graduation and see each other through year after year of unrequited love, bad decisions and good fortune. It has unpredictable twists and is highly rated , with a large fan'base following.
It is currently a film in production starring Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess. Some fans have voiced their displeasure at the casting of Anne Hathaway, as her accent seems unconvincing. It's being filmed in France, England and Scotland and is said to be released in the summer.

Geography Project - (3) Frank Beddor - The Looking Glass Wars

Frank Beddor was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota and is a former world champion skier, film producer, actor an author. Beddor is the CEO of the production company Automatic Pictures, and has produced 'There's Something about Mary' and 'Wicked'.
He is the author of the Looking Glass Wars trilogy, and also four spin-off graphic novels about Hatter Madigan.
The Looking Glass Wars is inspired by Lewis Carrol's 'Alice in Wonderland' and the premise is that the two books written by Lewis Carroll were, in the story, a distortion of the 'true events' portrayed in these novels. Alyss Heart, heir to the Wonderland throne, was forced to flee her world because of an invading army. Lost and alone in Victorian London, Alyss is befriended by an aspiring author to whom she tells the violent, heartbreaking story of her young life only to see it published as the nonsensical Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Beddor is currently working on producing a film of his trilogy.

Geography Project - (2) 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'

'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' was written by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, using the pen name Lewis Carrol. The story was created while on a rowing trip with a neighbouring family , the Liddells, and their children. Dodgson told the story of young Alice's adventures in Wonderland to amuse the children.
Some people say that the character Alice, was based on one of the children he was friends with, Alice Liddell. It is said that only after much begging from the children, did Dodgson actually develop the story more and type it up, sending it on to a publisher. John Tenniel illustrated all the characters for the book and it was published in 1865. It has remained popular with children and even adults as the tale plays with logic and can be used as a good example of literary nonsense.
The sequel to the book, 'Through the Looking Glass' was published six years later in 1871. The themes and settings for 'Through the looking Glass' make it kind of a mirror image of Alice in Wonderland, so that everything is in reverse.

Geography project - (1) Enid Blyton

Enid Mary Blyton was born in East Dulwich, London in 1897. She is one of the most successful children's authors in the world with her stories being translated into over 90 languages.
Enid Blyton became an English teacher for 5 years and then married Hugh Pollock in 1924. They had two children ,Gillian and Imogen, but they divorced in 1941. She re-married in 1943 and even changed her children's name to prevent any contact with her former husband. She became afflicted with Alzheimer's and died in 1968, aged 71.
Since her death and the publication of her daughter Imogen's biography 'A Childhood at Green Hedges', there has been much speculation over her personal life. She has been depicted as emotionally unstable and even malicious. Her daughter Imogen has been quoted saying "The truth is Enid Blyton was arrogant, insecure, pretentious, very skilled at putting difficult or unpleasant things out of her mind, and without a trace of maternal instinct. As a child, I viewed her as a rather strict authority. As an adult I pitied her."
Other negative views of her novels have been voiced by critics as too old-fashioned, portraying unsuitable stereotypes regarding gender,race and class. Some of her publications have been altered to suit the modern readers and what is considered politically correct.

Despite these views Blyton's work still remains very popular and is considered some of 'the classic' children's tales. Personaly I grew up reading Enid Blyton books all the time, and they were some of my favourite stories of all time. She can be known for her 'Famous Five', 'Secret Seven' and 'Mallory Towers' series. Also her stories for younger children like 'The faraway tree'.
A documentary of her life was made by the BBC last year, with well-known actress Helena Bonham Carter playing Blyton.

Hotel Rwanda

In religion we've been studying the Rwandan genocide the last couple of weeks, and as part of that study we have watched 'Sometimes in April' and 'Hotel Rwanda' which are both films dealing with the genocide. I had never heard about this issue before, and my ignorance was only highlighted when I realised how recent it has been, as it only happened in 1994.
The movies we watched dealt with the conflict between the Hutu's and the Tutsi's and the UN's attempt at intervention. It was shocking to see how many innocent victims were killed and the films were definitely moving. I think it's really important to educate young people in the history and current affairs of the world.

The Book Thief

We were given the reading list for ffth year in english a few weeks ago, and my english teacher gave us the task of chosing one book from the list and reading it before easter. The first difficulty I encountered was actualy chosing a book, as there were so many that I'd like to read. Some girls in my class recommended 'The Book thief' to me and I had began reading it some time before but had found it very hard to get into. I decided it was a good reason to attempt it again so I started the other day and I am now on page 135 :D You may think that's good progress but this book has nearly 600 pages! :L
It's a really interesting story, it's set during the second world war, about a young foster child named Liesel. In an unnconventional twist, death narrates this story, but I think this gives it a unique touch. I'm enjoying it so far, and I''l keep you posted as to how it's going :)

Gaisce Hike

This weekend myself and 13 other girls from school went on a Hike in the Wicklow mountains for Gaisce :) We had to hike 25km over 2 days, so we stayed over night in a youth hostel. The hostel was lovely and the rooms even had an upstairs :D We arrived on friday and dropped our bags into our rooms, then we went for our hike with an instructor. We did 10km uphill, and another 10km down within 3 hours. I thought it was going to be really hard, but we were surprisingly fast and most of the hard work was done in the first day :D
We got back to the hostel, and then we made our own dinner in the kitchens provided. We watched a movie in the tv room, and then we went to bed because we were all wrecked! :L
The next day we were up early and we went orienteering to make up our final 5km. We were divided into two teams and there was some friendly competition as to who would finish first, my team did of course ;) After that we did archery and 'low ropes' which are lots of tight ropes you have to walk across. Then we did some team games and after that we got the bus home! It was a really enjoyable weekend! like a mini carlingford :D

Jabba Jabba Jembe

Our music teacher organised a percussion workshop for us last thursday, and we had a brilliant time :D Jabba Jabba Jembe is a percussion workshop focused on jembe African drumming :) There were loads of different types of African drums and we all got a chance to try them :D Dave, who was doing the workshop with us, showed us lots of different beats and when we put them together it sounded really cool! We also saw a video called the rhythm project, about African music :)
Here's a link to a video of our workshop ;

Rte 2 :D

On wedensday we were divided into two groups and given camera and sound equipment. We were told to shoot a 3 minute programme and write the sript and act in it ourselves. It was a bit of a challenge but once we got ideas going we wrote a script and started filming. We decided to do a skit on a crime show, and we got to shoot on the fair city set. I was the scriptwriter, and an extra in the show. It was great fun to do and we definitley enjoyed it! Using the professional equipment was really cool, and then the team director edited it.
We were off on thursday because it was st. Patricks's day, but we wer in again on friday our last day :( In the morning we went to the newsrooms and were shown how they broadcast the news. In the afternoon we watched our edited films, and we had a brilliant time laughing at them :L We were given a goody bag with a copy of our programme, a photo of us al together, and rte pen and kiering and an account of the week we wrote ourselves :)
In my opinion it was one of the best work experience's you could possibly do! :D

Rte Work Experience :D

Last week I had the privilege of doing work experience in rte for the week :)I was unbelievably lucky as I was one of 18 students picked out of a draw of about 300! Rte do a special T.Y work experience programme, and it began on Monday where I had to report to the t.v. reception at 10. There were 17 other T.Y. students from lots of different schools and by the end of the week we were all good friends :). That morning we were given an introduction and then brought around to all the different studios on a tour. We saw the set of fair city, the daily show and the late late show :)

We were also brought to the rte publications section, where they publish the rte guide. They showed us how they photoshop the cover and gave us a talk on the interviews they do with people. It was all really interesting, especially because I'd love to work in media when I'm older, especially editing or journalism.

The next day we spent the morning in radio. That was one of the highlights of the week because we got to listen in on Ryan tubardy's show and he came out and talked to us :D (our first celebrity of the week :) ) We also sat it on Pat Kenny and Marty Whelan's shows. Then the band Aslan came and played live on the Rick O' Sé show, and we got to sit it on the interview with them too :D

Work Experience

Today was my third day of work experience and so far it's pretty great! :D I'm working at the Irish play school in the mill for the week. I start at half 9 , and I walk up to the mill myself as it's only about 15 minutes from my house. There's about 16 children all together between the ages of 3-4. For the first hour we play with them and we do art ,which this week was shamrocks for st. Patrick's day. Then we sing songs and have lunch. After that I read them stories and then we go out to the hall to play :)
All the kids are great, we have to speak Irish to them most of the time, and it always amazes me how much they understand! Some of the children have better Irish than I do :L

Mini Company Competition

Yesterday was the first round of the enterprise board mini company competition! My team 'Can Do' were preparing all week designing and organising our stand for the day.
Unfortunatley I wasn't there ( :( ) even though I'm team manager because I was getting my braces off! (yay :) ) I heard the day went very well though and the judges were very nice. There were 9 groups from saint wolstans and 7 of these groups went on to a shortlist, and some of the groups on this list will go onto the next round. So good luck to all the girls who got through, we wish you the best in the county final :D

Writers Workshop :)

Yesterday we had the pleasure of a visit from Irish writer Oisin McGann who came to do a workshop with us :) Ms. B had informed us of his visit and had given me one of his books to read called 'The Gods and Their Machines'. It was a novel for young adults set in an alternative world, about war and conflict and the struggle that young people have against prejudice. I thought it was really good and thoroughly enjoyed reading it, so I had been looking forward to meeting the writer behind the ideas.

Oisin came in the morning and talked with us about coming up with ideas and the process of writing. He was very enigmatic and passionate about the english language and writing. He is also an illustrator and he illustrates for most of his books. He did a quick sketch for us and signed it 'to the girls at st. wolstans'. It was amazing to see his creation come to life before us in a matter of minutes.
After the talk we could ask him questions, and I asked if when he began writing a novel did he always know how the ending would be? He answered by saying that usualy there are two kinds of writers, those who plan out everything in the plot and those who write spontaniously. He admitted he liked to plan his endings and have a general direction in which to write.
It was a very interesting workshop and I would love the oppurtunity to meet with another writer sometime.
Here is a link to Oisin McGann's website:

Cooking once again :)

It was our second day of cooking Thai food in Home ec. and I think it went a bit more succesful than the last! We decided to cook Thai BBQ chicken skewers with coconut rice :D First of all we marinated the chicken in a sweet and sour BBQ sauce of ketchup, honey, sugar, soy sauce, lime juice and ginger (I know it doesnt sound very nice :L) and then you skewer them with peppers and grill them. They were delicous :D
And to accompany the chicken skewers we made coconut rice! I don't particularly like coconut (and ironicaly it is an essential ingrediant in most Thai dishes :L) but I actualy liked the rice! It tasted kind of weird at first but then it was strangley addictive :L The one thing I'm learning about our Home Ec. project is to be adventurous and try cooking different dishes you wouldn't normaly try!
Here's the link to the coconut rice recipe we used;
http://thaifood.about.com/od/thaisnacks/r/thaicoconutrice.htm

Thai Desserts :D

In Home ec. we're starting a new project where we have to choose our own country and then cook three dishes from that country :) We have to make 2 main courses and a dessert, and cook them in pairs. Myself and Niamh chose Thailand, because it's known for its cuisine. We cooked our first dessert on Tuesday, banana fritters with maple syrup and coconut crème caramel pudding :)
Here's some pictures of what they turned out like on the day :) ;

Attempting Tech :)

I have never done Technology before in my life, and I'm actually surprised at how enjoyable it can be! Though I'm not very good at it :L
We've started doing different practical projects, starting off with a simple kiering before Christmas and now we're doing a clock! We have to measure it out on plastic accurately and then begin cutting and filing. It was all going very well for me until I got a little distracted chatting to Niamh and almost sawed right through my clock! :L Luckily it's not terribly damaged and can be salvaged :) I'm determined to get everything else done brilliantly to make up for that little mishap :L

Movement Workshop

To help us with our drama competition we had a movement workshop today in school. Ms. C was telling us that it was important not just to say our lines with emotion but to show this in our body language. The workshop consisted of a warm up and then we went into pairs and began making shapes with our bodies around each other. We had great fun watching other pairs, and it was amazing to see the shapes people created.
It showed us a new way to act using our movements, and if we wanted you could use that to open or close a play. Hopefully this will help us in the competition and improve our acting even further :) You never know we might have the next Meryl Streep in our very school :D

Briery Gap Drama competition

The Briery Gap Drama competition was on tuesday and st. Wolstans had four drama entries in the heats. My group did a play based on the poem 'But You Didn't' by Merryl Glass. We adapted the poem and wrote a script with a scene for each verse. The play is about a youg couple very much in love, until the man is called up to war and he dies in combat. We had Niamh playing the female character Merryl in the present looking back on all her past memories with her partner before he was killed, and then Orlaigh is the past Merryl acting out the memories with Bebhinn as John, her partner.

We really enjoyed putting the whole production together, even though it was stressful a times trying to work out costumes and props. Ciara deserves a lot of credit for painting the entire backdrop herself! Something I would completley mess up :L
I was an extra in the play, but I was involved in the writing of the script, and I was in charge of lighting and props with Ciara.
The other dramas from our school were all very good, and I've seen them so many times I know all the lines off by heart! It's amusing to see all the plays are based around tragic themes such as racism, drink driving, abuse, war....we have morbid imaginations! :L

Young scientist :D

The BT Young Scientist exhibition was on 2 weeks ago in the RDS, and all of transition year got to go and support our school :) It had been two years since I was last there in 2nd year, and I swear it hadn't changed a bit! There were hundreds of projects and I tried to see as many as possible. Some were very interesting such as one group who made a windmill out of bicycle parts, and another group who did a study on the most intelligent child in a family (the eldest? or the youngest?)

Stephanie, Kate, and Aoife were one group from our year representing the school, and there project was called 'The free radical theory of aging and the counter-acting affects of antioxidants' I know it's a bit of a mouthful and I don't even understand it fully! :L Basically they tested different antioxidants on microscopic worms to see if they would live longer. The girls did very well and were awarded highly commended, it was well deserved! :D
Although there were lots of interesting projects and stands, most girls were interested in getting lots of free stuff :L I myself left with a free bouncy ball, and some badges!