Hello, dear readers! This is Miss A.Misra signing in to recommend you yet another book: The Girl who drank the moon, written by Kelly Barnhill.
Lets delight first of all in the cover art. It’s absolutely gorgeous! The tiny dragon ( Fyrian) is looking adorable and Luna looks totally fitting in the character. I love her posture drawn so efficiently! The moon is glowing and so shiny it’s clear why Luna drank the moonlight. ( Okay, that sounds confusing now, but you will understand later. Moving on!)
Here’s a summary of the story. I have not really given anything away here. If you don’t really want to know much, feel free to skip the last paragraph.
The people of Protectorate place a baby in a ring of Sycamore trees, at the entrance of the forbidding forest where an evil witch resides, and leave, presuming that the baby would be killed by the witch. This is their baby sacrifice, and their belief is that if they don’t do it, the witch would kill everyone! However, the witch, Xan, is totally kind, and gentle. A good witch. She has no idea why the children are sacrificed to her, as she never required or wanted anything, and she never even hurt any of the children she was given. She took them lovingly and brought them to the Free Cities, where they were adopted into nice families who did not sacrifice random kids. On the way, she gathered starlight on her fingers to feed the babies with ( Look, I tried to do that too. I tried to reach my hand up and touch the stars, and gather the starlight to eat. It didn’t work. You’re free to try though, and if you succeed send me some), which makes them content and full. They grow up to be called Star-children, and they exude a faint sort of glow.
Once upon a time, Xan accidentally fed a child moonlight, instead of starlight. Once the baby girl had drunk it, she was enmagicked, ( Yes, that’s a real word, according to the book, anyways.) and was bursting to the brim with magical powers. When Xan understands what she has done, she realised that it was too dangerous to just leave the child in an unknowing family. She names her Luna, partly because she has a birthmark shaped like a crescent moon on her forehead, and partly because she had drunk moonlight. Get it? Lunar-Luna? Right? ( I don’t know if you understood but I think you must have, If you haven’t, too bad!)
Luna grows up in her grandmother’s cottage, along with the bog monster glerk, and a simply tiny dragon, called Fyrian. In her toddler years, she continues to use magic all the time, unaware of it herself. To protect her from becoming a danger to both herself and her surroundings, Xan locks away her magic inside of her for a few years till she turns 13, and then she would learn to control it and utilise it safely ( or so we think ). But the time keeps ticking, and it seems that Luna’s magic is spilling out of her now. Even worse, Xan is withered, and old. She will die once the young girl turns thirteen. Meanwhile, there is a real witch, in the town of Protectorate itself, who feeds herself on the sorrow of the people ( that’s dark, like really dark ). But who is she? Will she be stopped? Will Xan survive? Will Luna learn how to use her magic and will they survive the process?
My opinion: This book was awesomely amazing! It’s a sort of story that sticks to your mind and makes you think about it and wish the book never ended. ( Okay, but if that wish comes true we won’t be needing any more novels. One book would be enough. ) It’s got a very nicely imagined storyline, and the message given through it is ” Sorrow is a scary thing. It can make people angry, make them sad, or make them insanely depressed. Look towards hope. Think positively.” Or it might be “Don’t accidentally drink Moonlight if you want a normal life.” Or perhaps “Try not to be born in the city named Protectorate,where people sacrifice children to witches when there aren’t any.” You choose.
Also, it has a kind of deep storyline which might take some time to understand. One thing the book lacks is humour. It would have been the prize novel had it got jokes in it. There are some instances where humour is indicated ( very subtly). Like the part where the tiny dragon Fyrian tries to hug the big monster glerk, and he does not really succeed much. Or the parts where a story is told by some mother to her child, in some other part of the world. There are such typical phrases like “Wait till your father gets home.” or ” Okay, one story only, then do your chores!” it makes you smile.
Overall I rate this book a 4.5 out of 5 stars, for ages above 10 years old. It’s a nicely imagined story, and the fact that someone took the childish idea of wanting to drink the moon or eat it, and created that into such a glorious novel is absolutely fantastic! I have not yet read such a lovely story as this one was. Of course, I like Agatha Christie. Her writing style is really good. But there are very few of such books that have magical instances. I especially like the word ” enmagicked.” It’s a lovely word. “Magicked” is used sometimes, for instances like ” He magicked it away” informally, but enmagicked. Ah. That’s totally different. Two letters can make all the difference in the world. Fact proven!
Well goodbye now! See you later in my next post!
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Lifestyle
The House at the corner: Enid Blyton
Hello dear readers! This is Miss.A.Misra signing in to tell you a book review.
Today’s book is Enid Blyton’s The House at the corner.
Enid Blyton is one of my favourite authors, and this book did not disappoint either. It is one of the Family Adventure books, which means it does not belong to a particular series, and is another story altogether.
This story follows the life of the Farrell family including David and Delia, the twins, Pam, Tony and Lizzie, Aunt Grace, Mrs Farrell and Mr Farrell, a surgeon.
Here, every child seems rather self absorbed, much to aunt Grace’s irritation. Their mother has especially spoiled the eldest, Pamela, and Tony, the troublemaker. Aunt Grace likes Lizzie because she is helpful, generous and kind. But, Lizzie has thick spectacles and braces, and never scores much in her class except for literature, and she is not confident. Her real name is Elizabeth, but no one calls her that. She wishes to drop the silly nickname and figures out how- she has a great way of writing and when Aunt Grace discovers it, she tells her to try and write some more and send them to newspapers to print.
On the other hand, David and Delia, twins of age 10, were highly interested in gardening and kept with each other for company most of the time.
On the night of Pam’s play, a terrible tragedy occurs and the house is in distress. Everyone must change their ways to make things work or the household would collapse. Will they be able to do the right thing for each other and their family?
This book was just as amazing and feel-good as the other ones written by Enid Blyton. I think that the whole concept is really nice and shows that we can all change if we really want to.Its about staying true and loyal to yourself and your family.
A good gift for book loving lazy kids who avoid helping around the house or plain selfish.Its time to change for the better.
Well, dear readers, thats all for today!
Good bye!
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Sea of Monsters, Percy Jackson book number 2
Hello! This is Miss. A.Misra signing in to tell you about the book number two of Percy Jackson, that is, the Sea of Monsters.
Here, Percy starts narrating the book by telling us about a nightmare he had where he saw his friend Grover being chased by an enormous cyclops, somewhere around Florida. And for magical half bloods ( child of a god/ goddess and mortal) dreams show real events happening somewhere around the world, and it has some significance to them or their friends.
Anyways, he wakes up with his lovely mom ( who was returned to Percy after he found the stolen lightning bolt of Zues, the god of sky, by the way. She was captured by a minotaur and kept till he returned to bolt.) who was calling him to breakfast. It was the last day at Meriwether college prep, and he would be going to camp a bit later for some unknown reason given by Chiron, instead of going off that very day. He goes to school with his new, extremely tall friend called Tyson, who was really strong and all but very shy and timid. He and his teammates were playing dodgeball when the opposing team turned into giants called laestrygonians ( yeah, I know. I had to look that up too =)) and started throwing big flaming dodgeballs at them! Tyson is surprisingly not affected by fire and smashes a whole ton of them. Finally, Percy is cornered and he thinks he’s about to die, when Annabeth appears out of no where and impales the giant! Turns out, she was wearing an invisibility cap and had been there all day.( I wish i had an invisibility cap too!)
Afterwards , she informs him that the camp was under attack by giant bronze bulls. And giant means giant. Like really big. ( Ok, I think you get it.) They all journey there, Annabeth, Percy, and Tyson together.
Percy runs and helps someone fend off a bull, while Annabeth fights another. Tyson looks about in a desperate way, till Annabeth shouts to him ” I, Annabeth Chase, grant you permission to enter camp.” and he rushes in and crushes a couple of bulls. Percy is confused because no mortal person is allowed in camp, permission or not. He finally looks at tyson properly and sees that he is a CYCLOPS! The mist in his school prevented him from noticing that before. Nonetheless Annabeth’s ideas about leaving him outside, Percy refuses and brings him in.
Something horrible has happened. Thalia, daugther of Zues, was killed. Her father turned her into a tree, and it had magical powers making boundaries to the camp. Someone had poisoned it! Camp crew was less, low levels of protection and a sneaky looking new teacher called Tantalus was here. The only thing that can save Thalia is the golden fleece, and this was assigned to Clarisse, daughter of Ares, by Tantalus, much to Percy’s anger. To get it, one must sail across the sea of monsters, which is, well, a sea full of monsters. (??) Anyhow, he and Annabeth both set sail anyway,to find the fleece and their friend Grover, who has vanished off the face of Earth.
Who will reach their destination first and get the fleece? Will they be in time to save Thalia’s tree and the whole camp?
In My opinion, this was just as good as the first book.This book was really exciting but one thing I couldn’t understand was- Tyson was a cyclops.Okay, but why did Percy not see it before? He is a half blood. There is some lame excuse about him never seeing higher than tyson’s nose and not really understanding, but thats silly. You’ve been with a schoolfellow for the whole semester and never looked at his eyes?( Wait, he’s a cyclops. It’s eye.)
Well,that’s it for today! Bye readers!
Nature Video Inspiration to stop Mindless Snacking
I snack when I am bored and I don’t get bored roaming around the garden.So for me the best way to avoid endless cups of tea and snacking is too keep gardening.
I was wondering why I don’t talk about my plant relations more often.I was wondering why more people don’t try their hands at community gardens,green terraces and neighbourhood kitchen gardens.The rate at which the cities are losing their green cover and the over-populated metro cities are hotter than ever before.In the same latitude it’s still hot in the villages, but cool under the shade of a mango tree and doesn’t cause the same oppressive feeling of heat when you work outdoors.
Tomorrow 22nd April 2024 is World EarthDay and I thought I will share with you my village garden update over the last few months of 2024.
I did a live stream 2 weeks back, and this is the video
Today I did another live stream, and the garden looks like this now.Its super sunny and the flowers and leaves are looking deliciously happy .My yellow Allamanda has decided to live very closely with the orange Ticoma and they are living happily together .You will see the bright yellow flowers peeking from between the clusters of trumpet shaped orange ones in the video below.The Madhabilata (মাধবীলতা ) Madhabilata Clustered hiptage Helicopter Flower.Plus the yellow Ticoma ,the bicoloured bougainvillaea ,red roses,yellow hibiscus and the purple Petunias are all looking happy .
But the best news is the flowering of the Cardamom plant which I planted three years back and its amazing to look at.I will share the pictures and videos of those tomorrow so don’t forget to visit the blog .
Subscribe ,set up the blog notification ,bookmark my blog so that you dont miss all that I am doing this year .
P.S My daughter just uploaded her second Young Detective Mystery book on KDP and I will be sharing the behind the scenes of that too.
The Spring Flowers welcoming Summer
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Gorumara Elephant Camp plus Jute Handicraft store:What’s in store?
Gorumara Elephant Camp is a stones throw away from the Oxytel Resort where we stayed for the Holi Bash this year.The Holi holiday and the term end holiday coincided and we went to Dhupjhora ,near Murti and had a lovely time there.
The Elephant camp has options of scheduled Elephant rides,plenty of green space for kids to play,small cottages if you want to stay.There’s also an enchanting workshop selling jute products with their own loom and everything else.
It’s Government owned and the training is given by a local teacher .There is a profit sharing arrangement with the product creators,teacher in charge and the Government. It’s a simple set up but is enchanting with all the creative energy.
We ended up buying Jute carpets,small rugs after spending some time talking to the artists and asking them questions.
The children and adults both enjoyed the visit to the camp .
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Festa Frawli or Strawberry festival in Malta
FESTA FRAWLI 2024,Malta
Last Sunday,we visited the popular, annual spring event,Festa Frawli or Strawberry festival in Malta.
Like every year this year also the event took place at the main square, outside Mgarr parish church. There were many attractive food stalls.They were selling colourful delicious looking desserts,snacks,beverages, savory items,jam,jelly etc.all made from fresh local strawberries.
Mounds of freshly picked strawberries were on display and for sell too.
The church square was pretty crowded. Folk music and dance performed by local artists using traditional instruments pulled many visitors.A nice event which attracted locals and foreigners alike.
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