Here is my post for this week.
THE DOG STOLE MY BRAIN
The novel ‘The Dog Stole My Brain’ by Katherine and Mary K.
Pershall is about a boy named Jake who tries to avoid Debbie and Skye, the
school bullies, at all costs. He comes across a website that tell you how to
swap brains with someone as long and both people agree. Jake just wants to swap
brains with someone in school who doesn’t get bullied, but after an unfortunate
event, he finds himself swapping brains with his dog, Barney. The story follows
the two characters on their journey before, while and after their brains are
swapped. In the end, both Jake and Barney decide that it’s best to stand up and
be yourself in difficult situations instead of trying to ignore or avoid it.
I found this story really interesting because it is written
in first person point of view, so you can understand and relate to what the
character is going through, but after every chapter the point of view changes
from Jake’s to Barneys and back again. The author conveys well in the beginning
of each chapter whose point of view it is in and what the situation is.
THE CASE OF THE MISSING BANANA
‘The Case of the Missing Banana’ by Matthew Ryan is a very
simple picture book for young children. The story is about a character,
Patrick, who has lost his banana. Most of the sentences in the book are
questions and expressive sounds. In order to find the missing banana the
characters in the book retrace Patrick’s steps throughout the day. After going
through his whole day Patrick remembers that he ate the banana in the kitchen at
lunchtime. In the end they found the missing banana (in his tummy) and solved
the mystery.
The text is very simple with many sight words in it. It
really gets the reader involved by asking questions. The images are simple and
bright to catch the reader’s attention. There’s only one sentence per page and
the images match up each sentence. The theme of the story follows The Quest.
The whole story revolves around finding the missing banana and in the end, when
they find the answer they were looking for, there was a happy ending.
DRIVING THE FISHY FROG
Driving the Fishy Frog’ by James Moloney is a children’s
novel about a family staying at their Grandfather’s house by the beach for the
summer. The main characters in this story are brothers, Ben and Ash. They call
their Grandfather’s Landrover ‘The Fishy
Frog’ because of its colour and one morning the boys and their Grandfather take
it out to go fishing. When no one else was around, Grandfather taught Ash to
drive, he wasn’t very good at it but it was fun. Later on in the story they go
camping o a beach and they come across a sea snake. Their Grandfather gets
bitten on his foot and it starts to swell up, he becomes unconscious and can’t
give the boys any help. The rest of their story is about the two brothers
trying to find help for their Grandfather. In the end, they can find anyone
close by, so they decide to drive him back home. They come across many
obstacles on the way home but they found out that they could overcome any
obstacle by working together, instead of fighting.
The book focuses around the theme of teamwork. The two
brothers wouldn’t have been able to gat as far in the journey as they had
without teamwork. They cooperate, work together and share ideas all in the hope
to save their Grandfather. This novel gives great descriptive passages so the
reader can visualise the characters and scenes well. It is set in third person
point of view, goring to great detail for the characters expressions and
actions. The set up of this story has
the usual introduction, complication and resolution.
