ANIMAL FARM by George Orwell 144 pp. Penguin Group. £8.99. (Ages 13 and up) ISBN 9780141182704 Rating: ? Stars This book is set in a future when animals are much cleverer than now. And because of their cleverness, the pigs started a revolution against the humans. Pigs could speak fluently in English unlike the other animals, and that gave them the power to be leaders. But, the story that follows only happened a few years after that... Their first leader, Old Major, was kind and fair who knew animals should be equal. But when Napoleon became the leader it was very unpleasant. He made a rule that allowed the pigs to have better food and that forced all of the other animals to work crazily hard every day and night. That wasn’t enough, Napoleon wanted more power. He decided to kill his brother, Snowball, so that he would be the only leader. Snowball was admired because he came up with a clever idea to build windmill. Sn...
THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET A Novel in Words and Pictures. By Brian Selznick. Illustrated. 533 pages. Scholastic Press. £12.99. (Ages 9 and up). ISBN 9781407103488 Rating: 5 Stars This book tells you of the adventures Hugo Cabret had while trying to fix the automaton without being caught. It is about a 12 year old boy called Hugo Cabret whose father died in a fire in the museum where he had worked and had found an automaton. After the fire went out, Hugo lived with his uncle in a train station where he was trying to live by stealing food. His uncle went missing, but he continued to work on his uncle's clocks so no one would know. Meanwhile, he was fixing the automaton which he recovered from the wreckage of the museum fire. Hugo only has one problem, the train station toy shop owner has stolen his notebook. What happens when the toy shop owner says that his notebook is burned? Should Hugo believe the toy sho...
