Heartlight Although the book's theme of the role of death is a somber one, the writing is not. That's partly because of the attendant theme of love conquering all. The book has elements of physics, metaphysics, adventure, science fiction and fantasy, broadening its appeal to many audiences. Even the author recognizes similarities in plot to Madeleine L'Engle's Wrinkle in Time which many students will have read previously.
Going Through the Gate It is a wonderful book for young adult readers. In this suspenseful fantasy, first time author Anderson has given us a teacher to rival Mr. Chips and a graduation that makes all others pale in comparison. Miss Clough has been teaching in the town's one room school house for years. She had the parents of many of this year's sixth grade graduates and there is no doubt that she commands great respect. She rules with an iron hand, and somehow, we learn, she has changed the town. Most of the people are vegetarian and no one hunts. On graduation day, the whole town closes down but one man, a peddler with one eye, who has forgotten that this is graduation day. When he sees the sixth graders heading to school, he insists that they remember him to Miss Clough -- an ominous sign that the day may be dangerous.
The book is short -- only 134 pages. It's an excellent read-aloud choice for kids in fifth grade and up. Such is Anderson's skill that the suspense and wonder are sustained throughout. You should have no trouble getting dialogue started during and after the reading. Imagine becoming a creature! What would it feel like to fly? What might have happened if the children got their first choices? Why is Miss Clough exhausted? Why was it so dangerous? Why did Mary Margaret cheat?
The Barn In this brief novel set in 1855, Ben's father has been felled by palsey -- what we call today a stroke. Ben, nine years old and the youngest child, has been called home to Oregon Territory from the boarding school he's been attending. More gifted intellectually than his siblings and, perhaps, with a stronger sense of family, Ben quickly becomes the leader, dividing the labor as efficiently as possible. This leaves him with the care of his father.
First finding a way to communicate at least minimally, and desperately needing to re-establish contact with the dying man, Ben determines that, if they build a barn his father had planned, the man will recover. His sister, Nettie, anxious to marry, delays her plans to help with the barn and the three set about the nearly impossible task. The barn becomes a symbol for achievement, acceptance and love. It is also, quite obviously, the object of the boy's obsession which he questions himself, but only after the barn is completed.
Detailed descriptions of barn-building take up much of the room on these few pages, but it is, after all, the focus of the book and Avi cleverly makes us care about it as deeply as Ben does, even while questioning his logic. The book, in spite of that amount of detail, is spare and can be read within one sitting. It can be looked at as the historical piece it is or can become a starting place for the look at symbols in books or in our own lives. Passion and obsession are also obvious directions that can be followed as a result of reading the book.
Wings of Fire
Autobiography of an Indian scientist.
The unexamined life is not worth living," said Socrates more than two millenia ago. Here, we have in print, a well-examined life of one of the icons of the post-colonial technological renaissance of the country. All civilisations are technological, originating from basic discoveries and determined applications of fire, agriculture, the wheel, irrigation, knowledge of materials and metals, etc. A defining feature of post-renaissance technological development was the organised marriage of science and technology, each feeding on the other in a synergistic way. This is where the non- Western nations, India being a typical example, got rapidly left behind. Kalam very vividly recalls a piece of sculpture he saw at the NASA Langley Research Centre where his initiation into Rocket Engineering began - "a charioteer driving two horses, one representing scientific research and the other technological development, metaphorically encapsulating the interconnection between research and development." Elsewhere, he writes with great insight - "Gradually, I became aware of the difference between science and technology, between research and development. Science is inherently open-ended and explanatory. Development is a closed loop. ... Science is a passion - a never ending voyage into promises and possibilities."
Since independence, India has sought in various ways, to harness scientific technology to secure for its people, a life free of want, but free from fear, as well. A P J Abdul Kalam represents the quintessential best of this difficult journey, through personal and professional struggle, to self-realisation, and fortunately, also to adulation and success.
Kalam chooses to organise the autobiographical material into four sections: Orientation, Creation, Propitiation and Contemplation, devoted roughly to the first 32 years (1931-1963), the next 17 years (1963-1980), another 10 years (1981-1991), and beyond.
