Roald Dahl

This week I’m going to write about one of my favorite authors as a child, Roald Dahl. His novels are characterized by black humor with a surprising twist. He published around 30 funny and wonderful children's books. One of his most known books is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I have read Roald Dahl's books since I was a kid, and his books are a part of my childhood.

Roald Dahl was born September 13,1916 in Wales and died November 3,1990 in Buckinghamshire. His parents were Norwegian and every summer they went on summer vacation to Norway. As a child Roald talked two, languages Norwegian and English. His mother always read Norwegian folk tales to him, and in his children's books he uses the tales as an inspiration. His mother wanted Roald to get educated in the British school system, so that is why they lived in Wales. During World War II, Roald served in the Royal Air Forces (the British Air Force). His first novel collection, Over to You from 1946, is based on his experiences as a fighter pilot.

From 1960 he lived in Gipsy House in Buckinghamshire. That is were he wrote most of his books. After a while he married the American actor Patrica Neal. They had five children and in 1983, after a turbulent marriage that lasted 30 years they broke up. Then he married Felicity Crosland,  and this marriege  lasted until his death of leukemia in 1990.

In 1943 his first children's book The Gremlins was published. Walt Disney bought the rights to the book  to make a movie, but it was never released. After getting such goodrespons on his first children's book, Roald continued to write books for children.

I would say that Roald Dahl is most known for his children's books. It's because his stories for children are usually told from a child's point of view. often involve an adult villain who both hates and mistreats children, but also at least one "good adult" in contrast to the villain.

I really like Roald Dahl, he is a good author and his children' books are the best books in the world. I haven’t read his adult books but I've heard many good thing about them. I really recommend reading the books Boy, George's Marvelous Medicine and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I actually don’t read many books, but Roald Dahl writes in a way that makes it easy to read and to understand.

Sources

http://snl.no/Roald_Dahl

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Gremcov.jpg

http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Dahl

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-19469498

-Amalie Eivik

Looking for Alaska

This is the last week of our little literary blog, so my third and final blog post will be a little review from the book “Looking for Alaska.” I have just finished reading this book and I thought it was absolutely amazing. It was touching, funny, romantic and emotional – all these feelings at the same time. I loved the book from start to end, so I thought it would be a very good book to talk about in this blog post.

“Looking for Alaska” was published in March 2005 by Dutton Juvenile. It is written by John Green - who I wrote about in the first week - so if you want to check out that blog post you can just search in our little archive and you’ll find it very easily. “Looking for Alaska” was the first young adult novel John Green published. Green took the inspiration to write the novel from his own life. When he was younger, he attended Indian Springs School, which is a boarding and day school outside of Birmingham, Alabama. The experiences from that part of his life were quite similar to the main character’s experiences in the book.

The main character in the book is called Miles Halter. He is a young man from Florida, who decides to leave his home and parents to attend Culver Creek Preparatory High School in Alabama for his junior year. Miles Halter is fond of reading biographies, and particularly of memorizing people’s last words. You can almost say that the character Miles is John Green’s version of himself because they both are fond of memorizing people’s last words and they share the same interests. Soon after arriving at Culver Creek, Miles meets his roommate Chip Martin, most often referred to as “The Colonel”. Chip soon figures out Miles’ own nickname: Pudge. This name is very ironic because Miles is actually tall and slender. Chip also introduces him to his other friends: Takumi Hikohito – a student of Japanese descent – and Alaska Young. Alaska is described as a very attractive girl. However, she is also known as emotionally unstable. Miles is very well aware of this, yet, he still falls in love with her.

After attending the boarding school for just a few days, Miles finds himself in the middle of a prank war between The Colonel’s group of friends and the Weekday Warriors, a group of rich Birmingham-area students of Culver Creek. This prank war continues throughout the whole book. After some time, Miles meets another girl called Lara Buterskaya. She is a Romanian immigrant. Their first date is horrible and it ends up with Miles having a mild concussion and throwing up on Lara’s pants. Despite the fact that their first date went horribly wrong, Lara still seems to be interested in Miles and they end up being a couple for a short period of time. However, after some time they both go their separate ways, still remaining the relationship as friends.

Miles, The Colonel, Takumi, Lara and Alaska are having the time of their lives. They soon form into a little group of very good friends. Everything seems to be perfectly fine, until some shocking news disturb the whole school. Miles’ life is quickly turned upside-down, shaking the little group of friends and making them drift apart from each other. To save their friendship, they try to figure out why this incident occurred and all the mysteries around it.

Like I’ve said before, I thought that this was an amazing book. It is an incredible story that seems so realistic and it felt like I was a part of the story when I read the book. I really recommend this book because it has a beautiful story. The book isn’t that difficult to read and it has a good length as well. I would never have thought that this was John Green’s first novel...

This has been a very fun project and I really hope that you guys liked and appreciated our little blog posts. I hope you found them useful and that you learned something from them. This was my final blog post, but if you want to check out the rest of them, you can just click your way into our little archive and you will find them very easily.

- Rakel Hansen

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_for_Alaska

http://johngreenbooks.com/alaska-questions/

Pictures:

http://www.notrequiredreading.com/books/lookingforak.php

http://www.angusrobertson.com.au/book/looking-for-alaska/39758432/

http://www.paperplus.co.nz/book/Looking-for-Alaska?i=9780007209255

The Notebook - based on a true story

This week I’ll write a little review of the screen version of the novel The Notebook. The Notebook is a very sad and emotional film about the perfect example of true love, in my opinion. I know that this may sound very strange, but I have actually never seen the film... Some of you may think that I am in no position to write about a film I have never seen, but I have friends who have seen it and told me about the plot. Besides, it isn’t exactly difficult to find information about it.

I think that this may be a typical film for girls, since it is about love and romance. I know many people don’t prefer films like this, but I really like it when it is romantic and emotional, even though I tend to cry my eyes out during the saddest parts.

The Notebook is an American film directed by Nick Cassavetes. It was available in the cinemas in 2004. The film is based on a novel (published in 1997) by the same name that was written by Nicholas Sparks. The main actors and actresses were Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams, James Garner and Gena Rowlands.

In Sparks’ own website he talks about how he got the inspiration to write the novel. The book is actually based on the story of his wife’s grand-parents who stayed happily married for more than 60 years. After Sparks and his wife got married, her grand-parents started talking about the story of how they met each other and how they stayed together for such a long time. According to Sparks himself, this was the moment when he realised that true love exists. Therefore, he decided to write a novel based on the story of this couple, who stayed together for more than 60 years.

The film version of The Notebook is quite similar to the story in the novel. The plot is separated into two parallel actions. The film begins in a nursing home for elderly people, where an old man starts reading a story to a female patient. The story begins in 1940. Noah Calhoun is a Southern boy from Seabrook, Texas and he meets the love of his life: 17-year-old Allie Nelson. They both fall in love with each other and they spend the whole summer together. However, Allie’s parents don’t approve Noah, so they force her to end the relationship. After that, Allie and her parents leave Seabrook and the two lovers are forced to move on with their lives.

Many years later – after the 2^nd World War - Allie and Noah meet each other again. They spend the night together with their love rekindled, despite the fact that Allie is engaged to another man – a young, handsome lawyer named Lon Hammond. Allie was supposed to marry Lon, but after meeting her first true love, she stands in front of a love triangle. Is it going to be Noah or Lon?

I think The Notebook sounds like a fantastic film. Some of my friends have seen it before and they have told me that it is a very good film. Besides, after reading the plot I think I might have to see it. I feel a little bit stupid because I know it is the type of film that most people have seen, but it is better late than never, right?

Sources:

http://nicholassparks.com/about/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Notebook_(2004_film)

http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagboken

Pictures:

http://guestofaguest.com/tag/the-notebook/

http://nicholassparks.com/stories/the-notebook/

- Rakel Hansen

Narnia the lion the witch and the wardrobe

The movie Narnia The lion the witch and the wardrobe was first made as a fantasy novel and then as a film. The novel was published in 1950 by Geoffrey Bles, but in 2005 they made a movie out of it. The movie is based on a lion, a witch and a wardrobe. The movie is one of the most successful movies in the world.

The film is about this place Narnia, which is a land you come to if you go through a wardrobe. The white witch has ruled there for 100 years of deep winter. Narnia is full of mythical creatures, like animals with human characteristics, some of the animals can talk, and my favorite character in this movie is a faun. He is a goat mixed with a human, so he is a goat from the hips and down and the rest of him is a human body.

On the other side of the wardrobe we have the four siblings Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy who are living in London. They are endangered by a second world war attack of German bombers. So the four siblings evacuated to Professor Digory Kirke who doesn’t like kids so much and he isn’t used to having kids around his house. One day the siblings play hide and seek, and the youngest one Lucy hides in a wardrobe. She starts going longer in inside the wardrobe until she enters to the fantasy world Narnia. There she meets a faun named Mr. Tumnus, Lucy believes that Tumnus is so kind to her because he likes her, but he had been commissioned to kidnap her for the white witch. But Tumnus hasn’t a heart to do that, so he leads her back to the wardrobe.

Lucy tells everything to her siblings but they didn’t believe her. So Lucy returned to Narnia again to meet her new friend Tumnus. Then her brother Edmund follows her without letting her know. Edmund meets the white witch, and she introduces herself as the queen of Narnia. She is very interested in him and questions him about his siblings. She want him to take them with him to the castle. If he comes back with them she will make him into a prince.

Edmund decides to go back and retrieve his siblings with him to the castle. When he gets all his siblings to Narnia they meet some talking beavers who tell them about the witch. Her magic will fail if two sons of Adam and two daughters of Eve fill the four thrones at Cair Paravel. And then the beavers tell them of the rightful king of Narnia, the lion Aslan. The sibling settles out on a long journey to help Narnia to end the cold winter.

I really like the movie, and I prefer watching the movie over reading the book. Because I like to see the environment and what's really happening, I also like to hear the music and the sound effects, over imagin my one picture in my head, and guess whats happening. There are many differences between the book and the movie. In the book the witch is described with long black hair and a crown made of gold, but in the movie we see the witch with blond hair and an ice crown. There are more action scene in the movie than in the book.








Sources:
- http://www.oprah.com/book/The-Chronicles-of-Narnia-by-CS-Lewis_1
- http://thatwasnotinthebook.com/diff/the-lion,-the-witch-and-the-wardrobe-vs-the-chronicles-of-narnia-the-lion,-the-witch-and-the-wardrobe/0#diffPage
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chronicles_of_Narnia
 - http://narnia.wikia.com/wiki/File:The_chronicles_of_narnia-HD.jpg

- Amalie Eivik

John Green

My favourite author of all time is the American author John Green. I have read his book “The Fault in Our Stars” and I thought it was an amazing book. Here are some facts about him.

John Green was born August 24^th 1977 in Indianapolis, Indiana. He is only 37 years old, but is known as the bestselling American author of young adult fiction. Furthermore, the book “The Fault in Our Stars” reached number one on a New York Times bestseller list in 2012, according to Wikipedia. Green also won the 2006 Printz Award for his debut novel “Looking for Alaska”.

In addition to being a very successful author, Green is also known for his channel on YouTube called “vlogbrothers”. In 2007, he began a video blog project called “Brotherhood 2.0”. He created the channel with his brother Hank Green. The two of them decided that they were going to stop using all text-based communication with each other throughout a whole year. Instead they would exchange video blogs, also known as “vlogs”, with each other by posting them on their own website and on YouTube. However, the video blogs turned out to be very popular and because they got such good feedback and had so many supporters and fans all over the country, they decided to keep their channel and continue the project. Even though they don’t make videos every day anymore, they still upload new videos every week.

Today, John Green lives in Indianapolis with his wife, Sarah Urist Green. Together they have a son and a daughter – Henry Atticus Green and Alice Green. They also have a dog called Fireball Wilson Roberts, also known as Bubbles, Bubbles the Nerdfighting Puppy or just Willy.

John Green writes books for teenagers and young adults. Most of his books are love stories, but what I like about them is that they are not the typical clichés. That makes the stories more interesting, in my opinion. If you are the type of person who likes reading books like this, I really recommend one of John Green’s books.

Sources:

http://www.gyldendal.no/Forfattere/Green-John

http://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Green

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Green_(author)

http://johngreenbooks.com/bio-contact/

John and Hank Green's YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/user/vlogbrothers

The picture was taken from:

http://johngreenreview.com/

- Rakel Hansen

Hello! The writers in this blog are Amalie, Rakel and Stine-Mari. We are three girls from Norway and we are students at Bodin upper secondary school. This blog is a project in our English class where we are going to write about English literature, authors and films.