My Reading Journal 7 Team L 林孟萱

Book title : Alice's Adventure in Wonderland

Author : Lewis Carroll

Illustrated by : Nilesh Mistry

Retold by : Jennifer Bassertt

Publishing house : Oxford University Press

The novel belongs to a series named "Oxford Bookworms Library".

This simplified edition was published on 2000.

This story, "Alice's Adventure in Wonderland", describes a very curious dream of a girl named Alice. One hot summer day, Alice and her sister were sitting under a tree. Her sister was reading, but Alice had nothing to do feeling stupid, sleepy and bored. Suddenly Alice found a White Rabbit and followed it without thinking, and running down a large rabbit hole and into the Wonderland, she began her adventure. There happened many interesting things to Alice in the Wonderland, where the White Rabbit wore gloves and always hurried to somewhere and there were food which could make you smaller or bigger, where the Caterpillar smoked a pipe and the Cheshire Cat with grin, where the March Hare was having mad tea party with the Hatter all the time and the Queen of Hearts only liked red roses and wanted to cut everyone's head...

This is a fantastic, innovative story. Many things in the story are all strange and make no sense. But anything is likely to happen in a world of dream. We can use our imagination freely and create things we fantasize in a dream or make things we desire a lot like reality. When we are sleeping, sometimes we have a good, sweet dream; sometimes we have terrible, disgustful nightmare, and sometimes we just have an incomprehensible, indescribable dream feeling confused to it. Some people say that dream shows our unconsciousness, because while we fall asleep, we are in a totally relief condition. I think that is interesting. We can release in a dream, but we can't indulge in daydreams. We should set several achievable goals and realize them. When we carry our dreams out, we will get sense of accomplishment and feel happy.

The author, Lewis Carroll whose real name is Charles Lutwidege Dodgson, was born in 1832, and was the third child of a family of eleven children. As a child, he was good at writing word games and puzzles, and latter he was also good at Latin and math. He taught mathematics at Christ Church at the University of Oxford from 1855 until his death in 1898.

Dodgson wrote books about math, and he was a good photographer, too. But his famous work is "Alice's Adventure in Wonderland". It began as a story told to a real little girl called Alice Liddell, during a boat trip on river one summer. And it was published as a book in 1865. A second story about Alice, called "Through the Looking-Glass", followed in 1871. The two Alice stories, full of clever word games and verses, are among the most famous children's book. They were also important because they were the first stories for children which did not try to teach them how to be good.

"Alice's Adventure in Wonderland" is read both adult and children; it has been translated into many languages, made into plays and filmed many times. The characters in Alice's dream are now part of English. For example, we talk of people "grinning like a Cheshire cat", or being "as mad as a hatter". And when something strange happens, we will say "Curiouser and curiouser", like Alice in her dream.

This journal is the last one in the semester. In the period of this voluntary reading, I didn't spend much in my reading, but I did and took it serious. I always chose a story which is relatively famous and familiar to us. I think that would be easier and helpful for me when reading if I had some concepts of the stories. After finishing those world masterworks in its original language, I felt a sense of achievement and happy even though those are the simplified versions. Through the writing of reading journal every time, I would review the stories and survey what I got from them; that pressed me to reflect and distinguish. And I also tried to train my ability of paraphrasing by writing journal. But it seems that I didn't do well. I sometimes still can't catch the points and describe too much trivial details. Anyway, I made efforts and work with care, and I really learn something in the process.

My Reading Journal 6 Team L 林孟萱

I finished the reading of "New Yorkers ─ short stories"; in last journal I have already introduced the reason ─ I chose the book is that I think in order to know a city we should know people of it, a rough gist of the series of stories and some pieces of the author's career. So this time I share some reflections of mine and short digests of stories in the following section. Besides, I choose "Alice's adventures in wonderland" as my next reading matter.

"The Christmas Presents" describes a poor couple, even though both of them didn't have enough money to afford a gift, each of them tried hard to get ideal gifts for the other and hoped the other mate would be happy at Christmas. For that, the wife sold her beautiful long hair to buy a gold chain which matched her husband's treasure watch; the husband sold his watch that been handed down from grandpa to gain a pair of combs for his wife's pretty hair. As we see at the above, we always try very hard to give our lovers the best thing, always bear in mind the interest of her/him, and are willing to do many things that may make her/him happy. However sometimes matter not goes as we expect, we will feel frustrated and down, and we will also forget that just two people get together is a thing which is worth being glad, not necessary to build our happiness on material outer things. It's fine to express our love by sending presents, but the most important is that we should cherish the time we own jointly. Like the end of this story, although they couldn't immediately use the gifts from the other, they could sense the affections of them, and they enjoyed the companies with the other and had a good meaningful Christmas with laughs and tears while they knew they love the other much.

"Soapy's choice" and "A Walk in Amnesia" can view this two stories as comparisons; other two "Tildy's Moment" and "The Memento" also can see as contrasts.

"Soapy's choice" says a tramp wanted to pass cold winter in prison where was nice warm and with food and his friends. He made several plans and carried them out to in sure police would catch him and sent him where he wanted to go ─ the prison. After he throw a stone to brake a shop window, ate a meal without paying, stolen an umbrella from a gentleman, and bother a lady at street, etcetera, police were around the scenes when he did those , he still was not arrested and wandered in the streets. Then he walked near a beautiful church and thought of his old happier days; that made him decided to change his life and be a new man. At the same time, a great irony happened that police arrested Soapy and told him he would stay in prison for three months like his prime expectation. "A Walk in Amnesia" tells a lawyer was busy with his career, who had been warned by doctor that it was likely that he would get amnesia. One day on his way to work, he thought about the doctor's words and felt well and pleased with life. Next, he woke up on a train and found he didn't know who and what he was. He made up a name for himself and began a new exciting life in New York. He met several acquaintances and he told them he was not the man they knew and went away. But another day his wife came and found him with the doctor, at first he still denied who he is, after his wife left the room, he asked the doctor, his old friend, to keep what he said as a secret; actually he had been pretending. When I read "A Walk in Amnesia", originally I couldn't figure out what it happened, after I thought twice, then I got it. There were different leading roles in these two stories, but they told the same thing. That is whoever and whatever we are, poor or affluent, a tramp or a lawyer, we always will have questions to our lives feeling confused or tired about them, and would like to change constant daily lives admiring others' lives. I thought this is common, is humanity. We continuously ask ourselves and discover who I am, what we need, what we want. Sometimes we are not unsatisfied with lives we have, maybe we just need to take a relief. We need some time to take a rest, and then we will get over.

"Tildy's Moment" says a waitress, Tildy, worked in a small restaurant, who was small, fat and not beautiful. In the same place, another waitress, Alien, was tall beautiful and full of live. All customers came to the restaurant liked Alien, they laughed and talked with her, and many customers sent her presents, but no one cared about Tildy. One day a man, Mr. Seeders, who often came to have meal, kissed Tildy after he drank too much beer. It is the kiss changing Tildy's world. She understood that men could like her as much as Alien. Her eyes were bright; her face was pink. She wore bright clothes, did different hair style, and looked nicer. Two days passed from that day; Mr. Seeders came again with a very red face, and he told Tildy he was sorry for what he had done, because of drink he didn't know what he did at that time. After listening that, Tildy cried out loudly. "The Memento" tells an actress, Miss Rosalie, was tired of the kind of life which she performed in theater, was surrounded by men who didn't respect her, and paid a little. She left the town to the country. There, she met and decided to marry a man, Arthur, who she considered as Mr. Right. She didn't tell him she was a actress because she wanted to forget and put that life behind herself. Someday she learned Arthur kept a memento ─ something which belonged to a girl he had loved. She asked him about it, after a conversation between them, she loved him more. She considered he was different from other men, resulting of that even he never met and spoke to that girl, but he loved her and wanted nothing from her. However she got very angry, when she found the memento was one of her garters which fell down from stage in one of her performance. These two stories are about women with love. After reading them, I realized some maters. One, we should be love ourselves, or nobody will like us. Two, the happiness is found by ourselves; we can decide what attitude we take and what way we do. Others can't take decisions for us and can't take the place of us to live our life. If we desire to have happiness, we must pursue for it ourselves and when we found that, we have to enjoy and value it. Don't just wait for it, and when we are conscious of that it is not the thing we want; just let it go. With reluctance, without pleasure.

p.s. I am sorry for the delay of submition.

My Reading Journal 5 Team L 林孟萱

Book title : New Yorkers ─ Short Stories

Author : O. Henry

Retold by : Diane Mowat

Publishing house : Oxford University Press

The novel belongs to a series named "Oxford Bookworms Library".

This simplified edition was published on 2000.

What make a city different from another city? Is it the building, the weather, the people? It is the people who make a city, and if you want to know a city, you must know its people. You must know what make them laugh and cry, know the small detail of their everyday lives. This book contains five O. Henry's famous short stories which is sensitive, funny and sympathetic, and give us vivid pictures of the everyday lives of these New Yorkers. The five stories separately are "The Christmas Presents", "Soapy's Choice", "A Walk in Amnesia", "Tildy's Moment" and "The Memento". These shows that a housewife, a tramp, a lawyer, a waitress, an actress ─ ordinary people living ordinary lives in New York at the beginning of twenty century. The city has changed greatly since that time. Cities grow bigger with the years, new buildings are put up and old buildings are pulled down, horses are replaced by cars and buses, fashions change. But people do not change a lot; people are much the same. The New Yorkers in these stories are very different from each other. Some are rich, some are poor, some are happy, some are sad, some have found love, some are looking for love. But the hopes of a tramp are as important as the hope of a lawyer; the love of a waitress is as exciting as the love of an actress. And we see that people's hopes and fears and dreams do not change with the years.

O. Henry which is the author's pen-name, and his real name is William Sydney Porter. Porter was born in North Carolina, USA, in 1862. When he was twenty, he went to Texas where he worked in different offices and then in a bank. In 1887 he married a young woman called Athol Estes. He and Athol were very happy together, and he at the same time he began writing short stories. His most famous story is "The Gift of the Magi" (in this book called "The Christmas Presents"), and many people think that Della in this story is based on his wife Athol. In 1896 Porter ran away to Honduras because people said he stole money from the bank when he was working there in 1984. A year later he came back to Taxes to see Athol, who was dying, and in 1898 he was sent to prison. During this time there he published many short stories, using the name "O. Henry", and when he left prison in 1901, he was already a famous writer. He then lived in New York until his death in 1910. Porter's stories are both sad and funny, and show a great understanding of the everyday lives of people like shop girls and office workers. He wrote about six hundred stories and made a lot of money, but he was a very unhappy man. When he died, he had only twenty-three cents in his pocket, and his last words were: "Turn up the lights; I don't want to go home in the dark."

I just finished first story and I am going to reading the second story. I think the story is close to our people's daily lives, and there are some happy things and some sad things in story, just like we would meet in our lives. Next time after I finish the book, I will share you my feeling about the stories. And I will keep going with my reading.

My Reading Journal 4 Team L 林孟萱

In last reading journal I had introduced the book "The Secret Garden ", including it's simple story content and something about the author. In this period, I finished reading "The Secret Garden", and I found another book named "New Yorkers" as my next book. So this time I would like to tell you some sentiments which I got when I was reading the story. And if I discover something interesting in "New Yorkers", I will share with you next time.

I think "The Secret Garden " is a story which sees children as it's bulk, so the story is proceeding around the children and using points of the children's view to watch this world. Mary Lennox, a little girl, is the leading character of this story. Mary is born in a middle-class family, so she doesn't need to worry about her livelihood. But her parents are always busy with their own things and don't care about Mary. Her father is an official who is engaged in his work; her mother is a pretty woman who spent all her time going to parties. They can afford employing servants, so Mary is often accompanied only with servants who paid to look after her. I think that is a reason which results in some bad personalities of Mary, like that Mary is bad-tempered, disagreeable, and selfish. The children truly need others' company, especially the company of parents, and not only in material but also in spirit. I consider it is important that parents take time to be with kids and do some things, such as tell stories to them, play ball or go to a picnic with them, anything is fine. The important thing is parents and children are together, not what they do. In those time which parents and children spent together, they can exchange their thoughts about things, discuss or even argue with others, or they can just enjoy the company with family without many words. In that chance parents also can tell children what is good and what is bad, in order to make children have right values. And children can share their discoveries in daily life to make parent know what they underwent. The company and communication will get the relationship between parents and children be more closer. So I consider parents can not take they are busy as an excuse, and then not take time to be with children. Relatively, children also should not think talking with parents is wasting time. Family is everyone's strongest support. We should cherish every minute which we get along with our family.

The above is a part of my thought after reading "The Secret Garden". I still have some other thoughts left if having chance I will share about you. Now I have finished reading two books. Although I didn't spend much in reading and the books I chose are only thin and easy to read, I still feel happy and a little sense of achievement, and I indeed gain something when I am reading and sometimes when I am thinking.

My Reading Journal 3 Team L 林孟萱

Book title : The Secret Garden

Author : France Eliza Hodgson Burnett

Retold by : Clare West

Illustrated by : Jenny Brackley

Publishing hourse : Oxford University Press

The novel belongs to a series named "Oxford Bookworms Library".

This simplified edition was published on 2000.

This story talks about a little girl, Mary Lennox. She originally born and lived in India. Her parents were always busy with their own things, and only her servants kept company with her. It seemed that nobody cared about her. But when her parents died of a serious disease, she was sent back to England to live her uncle's home in Yorkshire. Mary primarily never thought about other people, but only herself. In fact, she was bad-tempered, selfish and disagreeable. When Mary move to her uncle's house, which is big, old and full of many secret. She met some people, and the way they treat her is different from those she used to know. Mary began to adapt to the life in Yorkshire, and at the same time she was learning and changing little by little. After she found the secret garden's key and entered it to take care of plants there, she also found that the child, who often cried in the night, is Colin, her uncle's son. Mary and Dickon, who she made friend with in Yorkshire, helped ill poor Colin get out to breath fresh air and took him to the secret garden. They had much happy time in the garden. In the end, because of Mary and Dickon's help, Colin became health, and found back the love between he and his father.

The author, France Eliza Hodgson Burnett, was born in England in 1849. When she was sixteen, her family moved to USA, and made their home in Knoxville, Tennessee. There, she began to write stories for magazines, and after marrying in 1873, she went on writing stories for both adults and children. "Little Lord Fauntleroy" in 1886, made her famous, and in 1905 came another book , "A Little Princess". "The Secret Garden" came out in 1910. By that time Burnett had two homes ─ a house in Kent, in the south of England, and a house on Long Island in USA, where she died in 1924. Today, most people think "The Secret Garden" is Burnett's best book. In this story the children are more like real children ─ they are selfish and disagreeable, they shout and get angry, they learn and change. The idea for this book came to Burnett from the old rose garden at her home in Kent, where she made friends, like Mary in the story, with a robin that came to take bread from her hand.The story is still a great favourite with children, who love the idea of a secret place that adult do not know about. And this story had been adapted to movie many times.

My Reading Journal 2 Team L 林孟萱

In this two week I finished my first book "Frankenstein" which I have simply introduced last time. And I start to reading another book named "The Secret Garden". This time I would like to talk about what my feelings are after I read "Frankenstein". Next time when I finish "The Secret Garden", I will share something about it.

At the moment I finished reading the book, "Frankenstein", I really felt sorrowful and miserable about what are described in the novel. Victor Frankenstein is a young and intelligent scientist, who at beginning thought he found the secret of life and then created a "new man" by taking parts from dead people and piecing them together. But after Victor did finish his "work" and made it alive, he was filled with fear at what he had done and escaped from the creature he made. As a creator, just like a father or a leader to the creature, Victor didn't do any thing for it, except gave it life. I think that is an irresponsible behavior. The creature is like huge baby who need someone to give him love. He tried hard by himself to learn every thing to being a human and helped people if he could. But people hurt him again and again just because he looked frightening. I think it is very unfair to judge a man/woman just according how he/she looks. Although people always like beautiful things, the appearance can not represent what a man/woman is. The creature became very disappointed and began hating human especially his creator. Then he started to kill people in order to make his creator painful, but he also felt disheartening. Victor became more and more distressed when his beloved families and friend died, so he also hated the creature he made. In the end of the story, Victor and the creature who didn't have a name both paid much for those, and they died for it. I think if everyone could consider in others' place, then many things will not go so miserable. More than that maybe the world will be more wonderful.

My Reading Journal 1 Team L 林孟萱

Book title : Frankenstein

Author : Mary Shelley

Retold by : Patrick Nobes

Publishing hourse : Oxford University Press

The novel belongs to a series named "Oxford Bookworms Library".

This simplified edition was published on 2000.

I think that will help if I know more about the author or the creation background of story, when I read this novel. So I want to introduce something about the author , Mary Shelley. She lived in nineteenth century Europe. Her parents were both writers and famous people of that time. In addition , her husband is Percy Bysshe Shelley , who is a well-known English romantic poet . Merry Shelley wrote many books in her life , but today she is remembered only for her first novel , Frankenstein , also is this novel. The idea for this story came to her when she and her husband were staying with their fried , Lord Byron , another well-known English poet , at his villa near Lake Geneva. One storm night Byron suggested that everyone should write a ghost story. At first Mary did not have any idea , but later she had a dream in which a monster appeared , and then Frankenstein was born according that dream. When Mary wrote this story , she was only nineteen and expecting a baby. Two of her children had already died young , and we can see in this story her fears and worriws about preguncy , childbirth , and the way children develop in later life. By the way, Frankenstein is often called the first science- fiation story.

I have not finished reading this novel , but will be soon done. The vocabulary in this rewritten edition are not difficult for me , so I can read it roughly smoothly. But sometimes I also don't comprehend the meaning of context , so I will read that paragraph again. I consider I can take a serious thinking about some issues mentioned in the novel , like "How and what science affect us ?" . For me this story is besides a little horrible and sad , it also instructive. I will keep going.