Book Review 1 - The Arrival

The Arrival is a graphic novel. An interesting one. This story is about a man who sets off for a new country , where he has to build a new life for himself and his family. Of course this man's journey is not always smooth and has met with many difficulties. There was a problem in communication. The man does not know how to speak and write in the language that was used in the new country so he had to communicate with the people using pictures.


Another problem that was faced was trying to adapt to the new enviroment. This story took place in a "fairytale" land, whereby ships in the story were able to float in air and pets looked like strange creatures. You can see examples on the picture on the right. Some of these things looked different from the country he came from. Such as how the food looked like in the new country. With the difficulty in trying to communicate with the people there and the much difference between the two countries, adaptation was made difficult.

The man also had to find a job to support himself. Like in the real world, job opportunities are hard to come by. The man went to several places but to no avail. He finally found a job which required him to put up posters. As he could not understand what was being writen on the poster, he put up every peice upside down. this made his employer angry and fired him. The next job he found was the job of a delivery man. Half way in his work, he met a horrifying creature. He dropped down the basket of food and ran for his life. At last he got a stable job at a factory .

In the new country, the man had gotten help from quite a lot of people. All these people had something in common. All of them had an unhappy past. The man got help from a women who once worked as a slave in small factory. She was one of the many girls that were forced to work as slaves. She was supposed to make sure that the fire does not go out. So she had to use a shovel and continue adding coal to the fire. When the woman can take it no longer, she took the shovel and secretly forced the door open and then hopped on to a train moving nearby. That is how she got to the new country and escaped hardship.

The story is also about family. At times, the man would take out the picture of his family and looked at it with sorrow in his eyes. This shows that the man misses his family very much.

There was a fairytale ending in this story.The man's wife and child reunited with him in the new country. There was a sense of happiness when they were united together. All of the three were smiling and hugged each other.

From this story, I learnt that the lives of immigrants are tough although the purpose of immigrating to another country is to be able to lead a better life. There are many obstacles in an immigrant's life and he has to be strong to overcome them. I also learnt the importance of family. Family manbers are the ones who are there when you need help. They are the ones who would stand by you and support you all the way no matter what situation you are in. So treasure their prescence!

Overall, I think that this book is worth 'reading' and is thought provoking. It strongly shows the struggles of an immigrant and importance of family. So do yourself a favour. Go and read this book!

Character Analysis- Village By The Sea

The last few post of my blog are all about the story book The Village By The Sea. I written a book review on the book and shared with you my experiences when acting out Chapter 10 of the book. Now let me do a character analysis of some of the characters.

Hari

1. he is the protagonist of the story


2. he is the only son of the family


3. he has to assume the duty of taking care of his parents and his siblings.


4. he leads a hard life as he has to make decisions which adults have to make

Lila

1. she is the eldest daughter of the family and is the elder sister of Hari


2. given up school to help maintain the house

Bela and Kamal

1. they are the younger sisters of Hari and Lila


2. they are dtill schooling


3. both of them help Lila in managing the house.
   

Mother

1. She is the mother of Lila, Hari, Bela and Kamal


2. She fell ill with anaemia and is getting weaker by the day.


3. She is unable to take care of her children, protect them from their drunkard father nor work

Father

1. he is the father of Lila, Hari, Bela and Kamal


2. irresponsible father


3. drunkard


4. wastrel


5. wastes money on toddy


6. turned over a new leaf in the end

Pinto

1. the pet dog of Hari's family


2. faithful to the family especially Lila as she spent the most time with him

Bijiu

1. richest man in the village that Hri and his family live in


2. owns the first diesel powered boat in the village


3. proud and arrogant


4. looks down on the other villagers

Ramu

1. he is the friend of Hari


2. knew that many factories are going to be built in the village and believes that he will be able to get a job there.

Jagu

1. he is the owner of the Sri Krishna Eating House


2. gave Hari a job when he is in Bombay


3. lives in a slum

Mr Panwallah

1. He is a watch mender


2. popular with his neighbours


3. taught Hari how to mend watches

de'Sivas family

1. rich and generous family from Bombay


2. comes to Thul during the holidays


3. owns a bungalow in Thul


4. brought Hari's mother to the hospital and paid for the medical fees.

watchman of the factory

1. hostile towards the villagers


2. looks down on the villagers

Sayyid Ali

1. supported the point that factories should not be built in Thul


2. spent his time drawing birds

Adarkar

1. member of the Maharashtra State Legislative assembly


2. led the villagers to Bombay to protest against the building of factories in Thul

Hira bai

1. she is an old women who is interested in herbs and cures


2. loves toddy


3. sent the medicine man to Hari's mother.

Jagu's wife

1. cares very much about her family


2. her family is not very rich so she was unhappy when her husband brought Hari home to her house to stay for a day as this adds on to her family's burden

Policeman

1. guarded Hari when he slept in the park

Khanekar brothers

1. drunkards


2. sons of Hira bai


3. wastrels

And there you have it, the character analysis of The Village By The Sea

Drama Sensation

Ever read a book and acted it out? Sure that some of you out there must have done so before. Well that was what my class did. We acted out chapter 10 of The Village By The Sea. Chapter 10 tells us about the struggles that Hari went through in Bombay and the benefactors that helped him along the way.( If you still do not know what I am talking about, you should refer to my earlier post "The Village By The Sea" to get a brief introduction of the story.

The story starts with Mr Panwallah the (owner of a watch repair shop) informing Hari about the arriving monsoon. Mr Panwallah then brings Hari to a festival and buys Hari a coconut and some other snacks.This made Hari feel like a young boy again, a feeling that he has not have for a while.Hari has been leading a very hard life so far. He has to take the role as the father of the family and make decisions that adults have to. Hard for a boy thirteen years old.This scene takes place in Bombay.

The next part of the story takes place in the village where Hari was from, Thul. The fisherman (my role) there were getting ready to set out to sea.They were very eager to get back to sea as they have not done so because of the unsuitable weather. The food in their houses and other neccessities were running out. They were then disrupted by a rich villager by the name of Biju. He is an arrogant man and looks down on the rest of the villagers. Biju also owned the first diesel-powered boat in the village.

The next scene is about Hari falling ill after working long hours in the hot and humid restaurant. Jagu, the owner of the restaurant then brought him home. Jagu lived in a slum area with his wife and children. Jagu later got into a quarrel with his wife as she was unhappy that her husband brought another person home to be taken care of. Their family was already very poor and Hari would only increase their burden.

Last scene, Biju saved some fishermen while some others drowned.Hari's family was also wondering about Hari. When will he come home? This was just one of the questions that they asked themselves, quietly.

I find that this activity is really something that allows us to understand the book well. This method of studying the book allows us to be the characters and react like them, think like them and have the feelings that they have. Learning has also become more interesting, instead of the normal way in which thhe teacher speaks and students sit on the chair, at the same spot, listening. Lastly, we would like to thank our teachers for the encouragement.