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发表于 2010-11-16 10:53:15
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Cakka
U make my heart smile.
英文水平明显不同,看着她一气呵成,30分钟内写完这篇, 然后偶就想,啥时候偶的英文能到小学水平呢?
The Wild Children
My name is KKKKK, and I’m doing a book critique on The Wild Children, by Felice Holman. Through her book, Felice Holman reveals her thoughts on the Russian government and early-20th century Russia. It talks about an old world, it has a climax, and it has a happy ending, thus fulfilling my criteria for a normal book. It takes place in Russia, after the 1917 Russian Revolution. The Russian people had finally overthrown the Tsar and his family, and the country was now a republic. But the new government was almost as bad as the last one; soldiers had stormed churches, and, quote, “people had been disappearing.” Alex knew that, of course, but he never dreamed it would happen to his family. And when it did, he escaped to his teacher, Katriana, who hid him in her house before sending him to Moscow.
Most stories talks about another world, or an old one. The Wild Children takes place around 1917-1920. At that time, Russia was a place full of homeless, orphaned children, or bezprizorni, which is Russian for “the wild children.” These boys lived in bands scattered across the country in bands, robbing and begging for food, unable to meet their basic needs. They hid themselves from the Russian police and soldiers, living in abandoned cellars or on the streets. After his family disappeared, Alex joined a band of these boys in Moscow, who call themselves “The Baker’s Band.” He learned about their way of living, and soon became quick and silent just like them. One of my favorite parts was Chapter 3, when Alex first saw the cellar where the Band lived; the book described the cellar as a small place, with a hearth in a corner, a heap of clothes in another, and food in the last. At the end of Chapter 3, Felice Holman writes, “......although it was cold, the boys stayed close and warmed each other with the heat of their bodies......all over the city, children slept, but not just in warm beds; children slept in abandoned cellars, on the streets, everywhere.” To me, this is enough to specify that, although the children were homeless and without family, they still had each other to keep company, to keep warm, and to trust. It was like a new family.
Most stories have a climax. It can be the triumphant part, or it can be sad, like The Wild Children. When “old winter’s wind” started to blow, the Baker’s Band travelled south to keep warm. They stayed in a mountain cave with another band. Unlike the Baker’s Band, this band were drug dealers. Two members of the Baker’s Band, Boris and Grigory, joined this band after the Baker’s Band left the cave. Tension had already been building up between Boris, Grigory, and Peter, the Band leader during their stay in the cave. Finally, Boris and Grigory goes back to the band in the mountains. Boris, however, returned for revenge. By giving the location of the Baker’s Band to the Russian police, the Band were taken to a children’s shelter. Now this is the sad part; in the shelter, the director comes to beat the newcomers. Unfortunately, Miska, the youngest member of the Band, was injured so severely that he died. After his death, Peter, Alex, and the rest of the Band escaped from the shelter-----but not before Peter had avenged for Miska by attacking the director in his sleep. During the fight, an accident occurred, resulting in a second death. Thus two were dead, a young boy and an adult, thanks to Boris’ anger and betrayal. I think that’s the climax in this book.
Most stories have happy endings; The Wild Children is no exception. Fed up with life on the streets of Russia, the Baker’s Band travel to Leningrad to look for Basil Sokolov, the brother of Alex’s teacher, Katriana. Before leaving Kovrov, Katriana had told Alex of her brother in Leningrad, who helps smuggle people out of Russia. Basil gives the boys directions to Orangienbaum, where Nicholai the “Fisherman” rows the boys to Finland on his boat. When they were about to leave, soldiers suddenly became suspicious; why would anyone go fishing late at night? No matter what Nicholai said, the soldiers remained doubtful. The boys were on the verge of being discovered, when a soldier decided that Nicholai could be trusted. As they rowed away from his homeland but closer to freedom, Alex realized that he had never felt more excited in his life. One more surprise was waiting for him at Bjorko, Finland; Nicholai’s friends were waiting for them, and one of them was none other than Katriana Sokolova! That, I believe, is the most ecstatic part of the whole book.
The Wild Children is about a boy who had lived in a house, ate at a table, slept in a bed, and sat by a cozy fire. It’s about a boy whose life was turned upside down, all of a sudden, because his family, his parents, his sister, Grandmother, and his uncle, his only family were taken away by the government. It’s about how this boy changed from a normal child to one of the bezprizorni, all in two nights. It’s about a boy whose new family survived the challenges in their home country and, eventually, escaped to a new land. Due to former unhappy experiences with bad books during Novel Study, I thought I might not like The Wild Children. Yet as soon as I started reading, I decided this was probably the best book a teacher had ever recommended to us. So once again, old saying are proved correct; one can never judge a book by its cover. |
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发表于 2010-11-16 10:45:44
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