12th week -Tourism-

Title: Tourism

Author: Paul A. Davies

Publisher (level): Oxford Bookworms Factfiles (2)

Summary:

Tourists travel to places away from home and stay there for a short time to do business, to visit friends or family, and to have a holiday. These kinds of travel are part of tourism. Tourism is very important business for many countries, and it is getting bigger.

Tourism probably began in Roman times. Rich Romans visited friends and family who were working in another part of Roman Empire. Romans built roads, and travellers stayed in small hotels. In the nineteenth century, travelling by sea became faster and safer because the first steamships were built. During twentieth century, travel continued to become cheaper and easier. In1949, the first company which sold the package holiday was started. With the package holiday, the company puts everything: plane ticket, hotel room, food, and so on. The modern tourism began.

Tourism includes these businesses: for example, hotels, sports, and entertainment. These days, there are many kinds of travel. Back-packing and eco-tourism are ones of them. But tourism has disadvantages. Someone says tourism is bad for the environment because visitors bring rubbish and cars, boats, and planes bring pollution.

Tourism changes from year to year because people want to see and do different things. In 2001, a rich American man had the first holiday in space. Some companies plan to sell holidays in space. There is a company planning to build a hotel on the moon. What will be the tourism in the future?

Evaluation: 3 stars

I’m taking advantages of tourism when I go back home in long vacation. The train takes me home safely in 2 hours. Without it, I would have to walk long and dangerous way to go back home. Reading this book, I learned what the tourism is. What surprised me is that tourism began about 2000 years ago.

11th week -The Lottery Winner-

Title: The Lottery Winner

Author: Rosemary Border

Publisher (level): Oxford University Press (1)

Summary:

One Saturday afternoon, Emma Carter walked on the street. It was quiet town and there were no body in the street. Suddenly, somebody ran up behind her, hit her on the head, and snatched her bag. Then he ran away with Emma’s bag. She was taken to hospital. Later, a policeman came to the hospital and Emma told him about the bag-snatcher. In her bag, there were some money and a lottery ticket. She always has the same numbers. All those numbers are important to her.

Jason Williams lived with his father and mother. Sometimes he stole things from old people. He was angry because there were only a little money and a lottery ticket in the old woman’s bag. On Sunday, he checked the winning lottery numbers. They were same to the ticket in the bag. He was very happy to be a lottery winner. Sunshine Lotteries, which was the lottery company, had a party for him. But two policemen came in and they arrested Jason. The old woman was Emma Carter.

The next day he was at the police station. He denied that he stole the lottery ticket. Later, a woman came in. She was his wife and wanted half of money from Sunshine Lotteries. She left him a few years before because he did her bad things. On Thursday Jason thought that doing good thing would be an advantage in the court and decided to give some of money to “Help the Children”, which was the organization sent doctors and nurses to poor countries.

They went to law against that who was the winner: Emma Carter, Jason Williams, and Jason’s wife. Lawyers for each of them and even for Sunshine Lotteries and for “Help the Children” were involved in this case. One day, Sally, the Jason’s lawyer, went home and talked with her husband. He asked her the question who would win. She said, “The lawyers would. Because there are a lot of us and lawyers are expensive. So a lot of money is going to be our money.” She began to think how to use the money.

Evaluation: 5 stars

I know the world of the lawyers only after I read this book. They don’t think of clients. In this case, whoever wins, a lot of money from a lottery company will be paid the lawyers because lawyers are expensive and there were a lot of them.

I thought Jason would win because there was no prove that the ticket was Emma’s. I caught in a trap. I enjoyed the funny story.

10th week -Washington D.C.-

Title: Washington D.C.

Author: John Escott

Publisher (level): Oxford Bookworms Factfiles (1.8)

Summary:

Washington D.C. is the capital city of the United States of America. In 1789, George Washington became President, and two years later new city with his name began to grow. George Washington named this city the District of Columbia after the Italian, Christopher Columbus, who was the first European to visit America.

Washington D.C. has lots of things to see. The Washington Monument is a monument to America’s first President. The Lincoln Memorial, where Martin Luther King came to make a famous speech. The Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial was built to remember the great President, Roosevelt, during the world depression and the World War II. And so on.

Of course there are places for entertainment and shopping in Washington D.C. We can enjoy music, sports and so on. There are many shops at Union Station, which was the biggest train station in the world. We can buy everything there. Other shops, which aren’t at this station, are convenient too. Why don’t you visit this city?

Evaluation: 4 stars

In Japan when it comes to think about America, the topic is always about New York and Los Angeles but not about Washington D.C., the capital of America. So I didn’t know about it. When I trip to America, I’d like to visit to Washington D.C. to learn the history of America, and New York to enjoy shopping and some entertainment.

9th week -The Mystery of Allegra-

Title: The Mystery of Allegra

Author: Peter Foreman

Publisher (level): Oxford University Press (2.6)

Summary:

One night in April twelve years ago a man met Allegra. He was sixteen years old and she was only five. Allegra means “happy” in Italian. When his family were driving a dark road in heavy rain, they found a villa. They decided to stay there.

The old woman’s name was Margaret and her daughter’s was Chiara. Chiara had a daughter whose name was Allegra. When he went to bed, a girl entered his room and woke him up. Her name was Allegra and she asked him to take her to her mother. He wondered because her mother is at this villa.

Next morning he talked with Chiara about that night. She called Allegra and she came. But she was different from the first Allegra, he met that night. This night he met the first Allegra again and she asked same thing. He asked some questions to her. Then he knew where her mother is, at Bagno a Ripoli, near Florence. On April 21^st the second Allegra died for terrible fever. She was five years and three months old.

When he was eighteen, he went to university. In spring he went Italy and stayed in Florence with an Italian family. They had a daughter called Allegra. She was born on January 21^st and five years old. He remembered the second Allegra and went to Bagno a Ripoli. Then he knew that the first Allegra was ghost and her mother was died long years before and that her father took her from her mother. The ghost was looking for her dead mother.

At that night the third Allegra suffered from fever. The date was April 20^th. She was going to die on the next day. He met the first Allegra and hurried to her mother’s tombstone at Bagno a Ripoli. When arrived there, she cried happily and disappeared. Next morning the third Allegra got to be better. He saved the ghost, who is the first Allegra, and the third.

Evaluation: 5 stars

Perhaps this story is sorted mystery. But I could read it without so much fear. To say the truth, I hated the mystery because authors who write this kind of story think simply that the more fearful story is better. However this story excited me.

I recommend it for beginners because its story is not so complex that we can understand it without deep thinking.

8th week -Martin Luther King-

Title: Martin Luther King

Author: Alan C. McLean

Publisher (level): Oxford Bookworms Factfiles (3.2)

Summary:

Martin Luther King was born in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. When Martin started school, he couldn’t find his friend. After school, he knew that his friend went to school for whites, and that he couldn’t play with his friend anymore, because he was black and his friend was white.

This segregation is based on slavery in sixteenth century. Men and women were taken from their homes in Africa and brought to the North and South America to work on farms. Many slaves fought against the slave-owners. Britain made buying and selling slaves against the law in 1807 and a year later America did the same. But slave owners in the South of the United States of America refused to free their slaves.

Martin thought non-violent protest is the best way to fight to segregation because he heard of a talk about Mohandas Gandhi, the Indian leader, who thought that love was more powerful than hate. He followed this thought whenever he took any action. When more than 200,000 people marched on Washington D.C. to ask for equal rights for black Americans, he stood in front of the statue of Abraham Lincoln and made the most famous speech of his life.

A few years later he was shot and died. He was thirty-nine years old. The last words of his most famous speech were written on the stone above his grave.

Evaluation: 5 stars

This is only after reading this book that I know why Martin Luther King referred Mississippi, Alabama, South Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana in his speech. There were terrible segregations for black people. I could gain my knowledge about racism and how to overcome it by reading this book.

In order to prevent from making more tragedy of segregations, this book should be more familiar to people all over the world.

7th week -The Birds-

Title: The Birds

Author: Daphne du Maurier

Publisher (level): Penguin Readers (2)

Summary:

Nat lived near the sea with his family. He liked working out on the farm down near the beach quietly with only the sea and wind to listen to. He watched the birds. In spring the birds moved away from the beach, but in autumn they came back. But suddenly the weather was colder. The birds were more excited than usual. There was something wrong with them.

At night Nat heard the noise of the angry from the window. He opened it and something flew past him. It was bird. Later, there was a sound at the window again. He opened the window and there was not one bird but five or six of them. Then he heard scream from his children’s bedroom. Hundreds of birds got into there. They started to attack and wanted to kill.

Next morning the radio said that there was something wrong with millions of the birds and that they must shut the windows and the door and stay home. Nat worked all morning, putting up wood over the windows and doors of the house. He recommended owner of the farm near his house to do so but he denied and said, “I have more important things to do.”

Next day there were hundreds of dead birds at Nat’s garden. Nat went to the owner’s house to get some foods but the owner was dead and there were lots of dead birds in the house. He took some foods and wood for fire. He must still be afraid from thousands of birds.

Evaluation: 2 stars

I want to know the conclusion of this book. But it was not written. Whether he succeeded to escape from the angry birds or killed by them? Otherwise did the author want to tell us that not to prepare cause big problems? I can’t be satisfied with this book.

By the way, I know the case that the birds kill someone indirectly: for example influenza. But is there the case that the birds kill someone directly?

6th week -Commerce-

Title: Commerce

Author: Paul A Davies

Publisher (level): Oxford Bookworms Factfiles (3.2)

Summary:

Every time we watch television, travel on a bus, or buy something in a shop, we are taking part in the world of commerce. Hundreds of years ago, families worked for themselves. But as people started to live together in towns and cities, they began to do different jobs. People work, earn money and spend money.

The value of world trade is about 4,000 billion dollars a year, and it is growing fast. The European Union began in 1952 when six European countries formed the ECSC. In 1957, the same six countries formed the EEC to made trade much cheaper and easier between these countries. Other parts of the world started to make similar agreements. But there are unfair trade between richer country and poorer country. Richer country controls the businesses of poorer country.

In the 1990s, the stock markets decided that Internet companies were the future of business. New Internet companies were formed everyday and people bought stocks in these companies. But Internet business is the same as other kinds of business: only the best companies are successful and most of the companies go out of business.

The world of business will continue to change quickly. The most successful companies will be the ones who can change with it.

Evaluation: 4 stars

This book is suitable for Japanese students to learn reading, and politics and economics in secondary education. But it isn’t for this reading class because it is already summarized: it has no words to erase. So I picked up what I want to write as the previous review.

I got a lot of knowledge of economics from this book: the history of money, economical problems of poorer countries, importance of fair trade, and so on.

5th week -A History of Britain-

Title: A History of Britain

Author: Fiona Beddall

Publisher (level): Penguin Readers (3.2)

Summary:

Britain was invaded four times in its history by the great Roman Julius Caesar in 55 B.C., the Angle Saxons in 409, the Vikings at the end of 8^th century, and Normans in 1068. In the time of Norman kings the language of government and literature was the Normans’ language, French. So though the Saxons’ language grew into modern English, Half the words in English language come from French.

Catholic Church had great power in Britain until the time of Henry VIII, who closed Catholic and started new one when he had religious problem of marriage. Since then, Catholic Kings and Queens, and Protestant ones competed and Protestant got more power.

In the 1930s, about a quarter of the world’s population was ruled by the British and they said “The sun never goes down on our empire.” They meant that it was always daytime somewhere in the Empire and their empire was forever.

After The Second World War, most of Britain’s Empire became independent. But Britain plays important places of the world. (172 words)

Evaluation: 3 stars

In Japan, We must learn about world history when we are high school students but we can’t learn about British history as more as this book especially about each kings and queens before Tudor.

Because of the quality of this book about history, I picked up stories only which I was interested in. To say the truth, I wanted to pick the stories of each kings, queens, and governors, Magna Carta, and The Industrial Revolution but if I wrote all of them, the summary section would be too long.

I want to read a book about social sciences in the next time. (102 words)

4th week -Green Planet-

Title: Green Planet

Author: Christine Lindop

Publisher (level): Oxford University Press (2.6)

Summary:

On 1 March 2002, the Ariane rocket went up into the sky. On the rocket was Envisat. Envisat is the satellite which gets power from the light of sun, and uses the power to send information back to scientists on earth. Scientist can learn what is happening in the air, in the sea and on earth.

There are many people and organizations that have tried to make the Earth a better place. For example, Rachel Carson　wrote a book Silent Spring which says that using a lot of pesticides destroys our environment, Greenpeace was established to protest to those who do wrong things to the Earth, and so on.

Even not so famous people take effort to save the Earth. When there was an accident that large amounts of oil went into the sea and onto the coast in a lonely part of Alaska in 1989, over 10,000 people helped cleaning the beaches.

To save the Earth a lot of people will need to work hard. (166 words)

Evaluation: 4 stars

This book is written in British English but I think we have no trouble to understand the sentences. It takes not more than one day to read it.

I could understand what efforts are taken by people to save the Earth. I think I am taking more or less efforts: not using plastic bags when shopping, going to bed early in order not to use more electricity. But when I am being lazy, I waste more resources than I have saved. (81 words)

3rd week -Mission Apollo-

Title: Mission Apollo

Author: Lewis Kerr

Publisher (level): Oxford Bookworms Factfiles (3.2)

Summary:
During the Second World War, Germans were building rockets. In 1945 the American, British and Russian army entered Germany. The Nazis wanted to destroy information about the rockets but Wernher von Braun, who is made the rockets, and his friends stole it and reached the American army. The Americans took him to America and the Russians took his friends to Moscow. Then both of them started to developing rockets.
In the beginning the Russians are in front because Eisenhower, the President of United States, was not interested in space. But President Kennedy came to the White House. He knew space was important and said “Americans will land on the moon before 1970.”
In the Gemini program the technology of rocket was so improved that astronauts could stay in space for over 300 hours. Then the Apollo program was started. But in 1967 three astronauts died in a fire in the Apollo space craft. However, in 1969 the space craft was safer than before and Armstrong and Collins, who are the astronauts, were succeeded in landing on the moon at July 20.
After that the Americans and the Russians were more interested in building space stations than in travelling to the moon. The new space craft was invented. People were excited when a man walked on the moon and became interested in space. (222 words)

Evaluation: 3 stars
I was disappointed when I saw the sentence “NASA wanted to put astronauts on the moon because it wanted money for other space programs.” Rationally thinking, I know that money is one of the factors if people take actions but it attacked my childish mind. I understood the way people growing up mentally. (53 words)

2nd week -White Fang-

Title: White Fang

Author: Jack London

Publisher (level): Penguin Readers (2)

Summary:
White Fang is a wolf born in near the Mackenzie River. He had four brothers and parents but his father and brothers died because of hunger.
One day his mother caught an animal and they ate it. After that, White Fang went out everyday and killed for food. Then he was taken to the world of men. The first owner was Gray Beaver, who is an Indian. There were some dogs in his camp and White Fang fought them. So he was always hated. When Gray Beaver took him a trip, he fought many dogs. He was so strong that he often killed them. Then a man wanted White Fang and he bought him from Gray Beaver. His name was Beauty Smith.
He called White Fang “The killer dog” and showed him to people for money. One day White Fang forced fight against a big dog and badly wounded. So another man bought him. The man’s name was Weedon Scott.
Since White Fang experienced fighting and killing, he knew only them. But thanks to Scott’s effort, he began to know the love. It was Scott whom White Fang trusted. One day he moved to California and began to live with Scott’s family and their pets. There were a lot of rules he didn’t know: for example, “he couldn’t eat foods in the stores” and “he couldn’t fight other animals”. But he learned them quickly. He knew the love and lived being loved by his families. (245 words)

Evaluation: 4 stars
I assure that this book is easy but I couldn’t understand who “he” is without careful reading.
I felt easy because White Fang knew the love. We can’t feel happy without the love from someone. I owe my happiness to my parents, friends, teachers and someone who gave me the love.I know that using “Indian” is inappropriate and I should use “Native American” but I adopted this book. (69 words)

1st week -The Railway Children-

Title: The Railway Children

Author: Edith Nesbit

Publisher (level): Penguin Readers (2)

Summary:
This is the story of three children whose name is Roberta, Peter and Phyllis.
In the beginning of the story, their family lived in the peace. One day two men came to their home and their father was taken away! Although they asked their mother, she didn’t answer.
After that, they moved away to a smaller house. There is a railway road near the house. Since they had visited a station, they made many friends mainly on the train. While they had not so much money, they lived being helped by friends and helping them.
One day, Roberta got a lot of old newspapers for Peter, badly hurted and required staying bed, to read so that he doesn’t get tired. When she read the newspaper, she knew the reason why the father was taken away. He was suspected as a spy. She couldn’t believe that. So she asked an old man who is their friend to help them to find the spy.
Finally, their father came back. A hot newspaper said that the real spy was caught. His innocence was proved! (181 words)

Evaluation: 4 stars
This book is easy to read for me because most of sentence is simple and used not so difficult words. While this book is so simple, I felt warm things: for example, their vivid spirit and love for families. So I evaluate it “Good”. (44 words)

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