Animal Farm ~George Orwell~

               My English teacher is notorious for his ability to give away the entire plot of a book before his class has even read it. Knowing this, I made it my goal to read as many of the books that I knew we were going to be required to read this summer, in order that no book endings would be revealed to me before I desired. Animal Farm was one of the books on that list.

                Animal Farm is an easy read and it’s intriguing too. Unfortunately, I didn’t understand the book as much as I wanted to, mainly due to the symbolism that I’m clueless on. Even though right now I only see the story, hopefully soon I will see the beautiful depth to the book.

Dave at Night ~Gail Carson Levine~

My little sister Olivia used to have a very different book taste than I did. She loved the Little House on the Prairie books, Faithgirlz, and A Dixie Morris Animal Adventure series. (None of which I liked very much.) As she’s grown, her book taste has matched mine more and more. Therefore when she asked me to read a book called Dave at Night, I was pretty confident that I would enjoy it. 

                This book exceeded my expectations by mountains! When I was a child, my siblings and I would play “orphans” for days and days. Our imaginations were spurred on by Little Orphan Annie, James and Cassandra from Little House on the Prairie, and the Boxcar Children. Dave at Night was quite identical to many of our orphan games---so much so that I found it easily relatable!  

          Dave at Night is about a boy who is orphaned at a young age and placed in an institute for orphan boys. The story describes his adventures escaping from the orphanage, making buddies, and learning how to accept love and appreciation. The most important lesson Dave learns is that, “A friend sticks closer than a brother.”

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{a pic of me and my siblings in one of our “orphan” games.}