Marie Antoinette

The book that I selected for my fourth nine weeks book blog book was Marie Antoinette by Antonia Fraser. I choose this book because Marie Antoinette was someone that I admire from European history. She was a great ruler and a loving mother. She has a bad rep for saying, “Let them eat cake.” This is entirely false, she said no such thing. What she did say was “Qu'ils mangent de la brioche". Brioche is a type of bread. Furthermore there is no clear evidence that she even uttered these words. The only place that it appears in is Rousseau book Confession, this book was a very inaccurate biography of her life.

Some of the things that I enjoyed about this book were the way that everything was layed out. It went in chronological order of her life, from birth to death. I also enjoyed that it cleared many misconceptions about the last queen of France. Many people think that she was a spoiled brat, but if you read about how her life really was, you would see that she was a victim of her own environment. I also enjoyed that the author not only talked about Marie Antoinette, but gave how her friends thought of her, and the other people around her, opinion. I also enjoyed how the pictures were incorporated into the book; it gave you an image to go by when you were reading her life story.

The thing that I disliked about the book was that it was very bland, there were some times throughout the book that the author seems interested and excited about some of the information, but at the same time there are places in the book that she seems to just drag on and on and on.

This book is one that I would recommend for my peers. Reasons being is that one it is an amazing book about an inspiring person. Second it clears the name of a historically significant person that was beheaded for all the wrong reasons. Also it really helps to know things about a person before you form an opinion on that person, and you should have something like a biography to obtain your information from.

This book has come rhetorical; a major rhetorical strategy is that of logos. Logos is an appeal to people with facts, and this book is nothing but facts about Marie Antoinette’s life. The author used very little imagery in her writing, but she did insert pictures which helped with the imagery issue. The diction that author used was very straight forward and formal. I feel that the author made it this way because being royal was a very formal thing, so she wanted to keep it in the scheme of things. The tone of this book was very plan and on the brink of boring, she was not one to try to be flamboyant with her word choice; she said it like it was. Fraser was well good at setting things up, she gave back stories and let you know everything that was happening. She was not very descriptive in her words though.

Word Count: 522

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass

The book that I choose to read this third nine weeks was Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. That is not his real name though his real name was Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. He chooses to go by this other name because he wanted to stay anonymous because he did not want to be criticized for his writings. He wrote this book in 1865 and it was originally two different books. The books are about a girl named Alice and her adventures into her Wonderland, where almost anything that you can think of happening happens.

The adventures that Alice goes through during this book are spell binding. They create a world inside of a world in your head. What I enjoyed about this book is its randomness. You think that you have a clue as to what is going on in the book but then there is a twist and some child turns into a pig and then there is a random croquet game going on. I also enjoyed how Mr. Dodgson made Alice seem like she knew everything, it added a comical effect to the story line. I also liked how nothing in the book made complete sense; it was utter nonsense which is a rare feature in a book with very little pictures.

I did not enjoy the way that Mr. Dodgson rarely kept to one thought at a time, it was like he wanted to put so many thoughts onto the paper but he never took the time to go back and add in the extra detail. He does this in both of the times that Alice goes into Wonderland. To me the story does not really flow together like a story, it is more like a journal where the person only writes in it once a week.

I would recommend this book to any of my friends or family members because it is one of my favorite books and was so widely known and people need to know the true story instead of the Disney story. Something that I learned that I did not learn in the movie is that Alice meets Humpty Dumpty; I never put the two stories together until I read this book. I would also recommend it because it is a good book to read when you want to step inside of a wonderland, but then you realize that wonderland is just as crazy as reality.

Mr. Dodgson uses many writing strategies to write this story he uses a lot of imagery. Even though there are not a lot of details being told during the story, he was able to create another world in my head. He also uses humor to reel in his readers. He makes random things happen, like knights as playing cards, chess pieces coming alive, a worrywart of rabbit who is attached to his watch like a fish is attached to water. He also used a ton of personification. He got animals and trees to talk, walk and be like humans.

Word Count: 508

Peter Pan

The book that I read for my second nines weeks is Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. This book is about a girl named Wendy and her adventures around Neverland, with Peter and the lost boys.
This author’s style of writing is very different from any of the other authors that I have read. The difference is that this author has a tendency to butt in. He starts to write about the story and then he would randomly just butt in. For example, “...Which of these adventures shall we choose…?” This happens throughout the entire book, he seems to want to always let us know that he is still there and does not want us to forget about him.

The author’s imagery is magnificent. He makes you feel as if you are actually standing there in between the sword of Peter Pan and the vicious Captain Hook. He also does a good job setting up the beginning scenes. You can tell what the nursery is like. Something that is interesting about this book is that Barrie gives humanistic characteristics to a dog named Nanna. This is interesting because the dog is the children’s nanny.

The tone in this piece is very laid back, the reason behind it is that because this is a children’s book. There are times where the main characters can be very serious. Tinker Bell’s tone in this whole thing is very rude and mean. She is almost always angry and that is because of Wendy.

The things that I disliked about the book are that the author is constantly stepping in. I really do not like to be interrupted when I am reading a story. Something else that I do not like is that Peter has a very forgetful memory. He tends to forget major things and its really sad. The last thing that I dislike about this book is that the way that the farther acts. He seems to always want the attention directed towards him. Even though there seems to be many things that I dislike about this book there are something’s I like about this book. I like that they had enjoyable adventure while they were in Neverland. I also like that Peter stayed himself throughout the whole story. I think that shows a lot about his personality and that he is not going to let anyone change his mind. I also like that no matter how long it took; Mrs. Darling was not going to close the window on her kids.

I do not think I would recommend this book to anyone who does not like a sad ending. The book is interesting because the author takes you to a whole other world. So if I were to recommend this to anyone then I would recommend that you only read to the part where they get back inside of the window.

The language in this book is very interesting the reason being is that even though the main characters in this book are suppose to be children, they act and talk as if they are adults. Which I guess that is what Peter and Wendy are like.

The rhetoric in this book is mostly pathos. There really is not much of ethos or logos. The author uses more of pathos because it would be hard to have anything else in a children’s book.

Word Count: 560