Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on Feminism

Tolog Recommendations: Animal Farm

Animal Farm
by George Orwell
Literary Fiction, Allegory

reviewed by Kari Savoie
class of 2017

Animal Farm by George Orwell was a phenomenal book that I will always think about as one of the best novels that I have ever read. From the first page of this short but sweet novella, I was immediately captivated by the chilling plot that is bursting from the seams with creativity. For a book of only 141 pages, Orwell still manages to pack a punch into the messages and themes of Soviet communism, rank, and the power of language, which still have meaning and intense power today.
The Manor Farm, run by the dictator Jones, was taken over by the belligerent animals working on it during an event that was referred throughout the entire book as the “Rebellion.” Organized by the boar Old Major, the Rebellion causes Jones to flee the property and instills principles of “Animalism” and the “Seven Commandments Of Animals” into the horses, cows, sheep, pigs, and all of the animals that were now free on newly named Animal Farm. Orwell masterfully weaves ideals of Soviet communism into this extraordinary allegory of the Russian Revolution. From reappearances of humans on the farm to battles, Animal Farm keeps its readers hooked to the unpredictable plot by juxtaposing human behaviors with those of animals. Things seem to be running very smoothly on the farm after the Rebellion because the animals are happily working long hours, receiving larger rations of food, and an electric windmill is being constructed to remove a good amount of manual labor. Everything begins to tumble downhill as the “comrades” begin to violate their own rules (wearing clothes, sleeping in a bed), become dictators themselves, and turn Animal Farm into the horrible, tyranny-filled, place that it once was. Animals become ranked once again and some animals even attempt to leave to a few of the neighboring farms. Will the power of language and tyranny take over the farm or can the animals put everything into perspective and maintain hold of Animal Farm? If you liked Night, you'll love this book! I have this opinion because like Orwell, Wiesel manages to convey some of the most powerful images that I have ever read in a book in only about one hundred pages in his Holocaust memoir.

Was Gatsby Broke?

Was The Great Gatsby Broke? infographic

Teacher Feature: Ms. Ionta

What do you most like to read?  (this could be a literary genre, or a type of material, like blogs, magazines, etc.)

I most often lean toward fiction set in a historical period and/or incorporates mythology or legend. The historical period does not matter as much as the pull of the story, so I have enjoyed The Other Boleyn Girl and its series by Philippa Gregory about England under the Tudors, The King Must Die and other novels of Mary Renault set in Ancient Greece, The Mists of Avalon and its series by Marion Zimmer Bradley about the legendary world of King Arthur, Merlin, and the priestesses of Avalon. The best part of this particular series is that Marion Zimmer Bradley tells the legends from the point of the view of the women in King Arthur’s life, all very exciting characters of their own (Bella Swan was not the first young woman to grapple with her own feminine power while acting as narrator!)

I do also enjoy non-fiction. I still feel accomplished if I read The New York Times “Week in Review” on Sundays (it was a class requirement when I was in High School; ironically, I sometimes get to read articles by a classmate and friend who was editor of our H.S. paper and made his dream of working for the Times come true).

I am often drawn to books about organizing anything from my time to my brain to my closet, such as Julie Morgenstern’s Time Management from the Inside Out or encourage me to look at life’s circumstances from another point of view, such as Kurtz and Ketcham’s The Spirituality of Imperfection. 

I enjoy biographies of people who have overcome truly debilitating circumstances, such as the doctor, Jerri Nielsen, who performed a biopsy on herself at the South Pole and discovered she had cancer (Icebound) or the widow, Lisa Beamer, who wrote a celebration of her husband Scott’s life and faith; Scott was one of the Americans who fought against hijackers on Flight 93 on 9/11 (Let’s Roll).

I enjoy both fiction (such as Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame, Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera, and every conceivable Beauty and the Beast story) and non-fiction (scholarship by Mike Oliver, Tom Shakespeare, Lennard Davis, Sharon Snyder and the like) that deals with representations of disability in history, literature, art, or society.

And, last but not least, I read what my students tell me I “have to.” I figure I tell them what to read all year, they can return the favor once in a while.  I have read every Harry Potter, Twilight, and Hunger Games novel. Although I like to tease, I really did enjoy them!

Do you have a favorite book/author/publication?

Different stages of my life each have been marked by a different, favorite book read over and over again:  Right now, it would have to be Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South, a story that reads like a cross between the work of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. In my college years, it was all about the drama, such as Shakespeare’s Othello and Euripides’ Bacchae (in the original Greek of course).

In my high school years, it was The Mists of Avalon (mentioned above) and The Firebrand (also by Marion Zimmer Bradley) in which the story of the Trojan War is told by the princess Cassandra. Cassandra’s curse is that she can foresee the future but no one will believe her. In middle school, S.E. Hinton’s Outsiders and J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye were like old friends I kept calling to visit.  And in elementary school, and probably even now, my favorite author was the poet Shel Siverstein, the creator of The Giving Tree, Where the Sidewalk Ends, and many other great reads.

What's the last great thing you read?

I quite enjoyed Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. The narrator is a little boy who demonstrates traits of Asperger’s Syndrome although he has never bee diagnosed. He is very bright and creative, but has terrible difficulty with social interactions. He copes with the sudden death of his father by taking on a mission that will lead him through every borough of New York City in search of a message he believes his father left for him. It is deeply moving, surprisingly funny, and utterly epic (and I say this as someone who has studied Homer and Vergil most of her life). And it reads like a love letter to the best city on the planet, New York, New York, my hometown.

Where do you most like to read?        Anywhere I can commit to staying awhile: lying down in bed, belted in on a plane, hunched over a table in a café or restaurant (especially if outside), plopped down on a blanket at the beach or in a park.

When you were in high school, did you like to read?  If so, what?  

My love affair with books goes back further than I can remember.  I would covet them and collect them… but not read them. I almost hated the act of reading in high school.  What I know now is that I was suffering from undiagnosed ADHD.  All I knew then was that I was often distracted when reading and felt enormous pressure to finish complicated, often depressing, books for class while keeping up the rest of my honors schedule. Reading for fun felt like a luxury I had to sacrifice to be a good student. I still need to fight off the feeling I am a bad teacher if I read for fun rather than grading on a weekend or an evening, but I am getting better at finding a balance.

What is your most hated book and why?

I despised Lord of the Flies by William Golding when I first read it in the seventh grade. Even then, I realized that I was just too young to appreciate it.  After all, where is the joy in reading about how a bunch of boys my age were left to survive on their own on an island and start turning on each other. In college, I picked it for a research paper because I wanted to give it another chance.  My paper (about how pigs and poop served as symbols of the decline of civilization) was published in a journal, so now all of my memories are good ones.

And I would like to second Mrs. Dawson on Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea. It was the shortest reading of the semester and I could not bring myself to finish it!

Book Spine Poetry: Amanda Furlong

In the Time of the Butterflies,

Wise women,

Searched for meaning,

And considered Jesus,

As the God of Small Things

How To Use the QR Code Displays

I've been inspired by the AMAZING bulletin board in Ms. Tramontin's classroom.  If you haven't seen it yet, you really should.  Her display uses QR codes, which most of you will have seen in the corners of advertisements in magazines.  Normally, I'm not a fan of QR codes, since they are meant to tempt one into buying more, more, more (and I really don't need any more stuff!).  Ms. Tramontin harnessed this tool to create a display that links students to audio and video using a bar code scanner.

Since imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Ms. Tramontin should be feeling pretty good today.  I've created two Library displays that use QR codes too!

To use these bulletin boards (one in the Library, one in the Senior hallway), you'll need a smartphone.  Follow these directions to see what's in store for you in the Library.

1. Download one of the many, many FREE QR code scanners from your app store.  Per Ms. Tramontin's recommendation, I chose ShopSavvy's product.  It's free and it's fast.
2. Use the app to scan the QR codes on the bulletin boards.
3. Enjoy the videos.
4. Come check out the books!

Book Spine Poetry: "Journey of a Tolog"

"Journey of a Tolog"

by Charlotte Saydah

State of wonder, 

lost and found, 

unbroken, 

the last lecture, 

wait till next year.

Book Spine Poetry: I am an emotional creature

"I am an emotional creature"

Bright young things lie in your face,
The twisted sisterhood lost, lost.
Lost and found in a different voice, 
The nature of life - 
no turning back.
I am an emotional creature.

Teacher Feature - Ms. Power

What do you most like to read?
novels, especially ones from other cultures or earlier times in history. Since I am not a particularly fast reader and I am so busy with work, I rarely indulge in reading one, because I know that if it's good I won't be able to put it down and I will neglect my other duties or skip sleeping. It's a huge treat to read a novel. I like to read them on planes especially; it makes the trip pleasant instead of onerous. Once I read "Into Thin Air" on a plane which was especially cool because the plane was flying at an elevation not much higher than Mt. Everest, where the story takes place. 

Do you have a favorite book/author/publication?
My two favorite novels are The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare and Jane Eyre. Magazine-wise, I regularly read Science News, National Wildlife, Muse, and Cricket, and occasionally Scientific American. 

What's the last great thing you read? A Thousand Splendid Suns 

Where do you most like to read? In the reclining chair in my living room 

When you were in high school, did you like to read? If so, what?
Yes, novels about people (especially kids) in other cultures and other times in history. (that hasn't changed) 

What is your most hated book and why?
I disliked Great Expectations (sorry, Holly) because, with the exception of the minor character Joe, there is no character in the book that I felt empathy for. I did not care what happened to any of them and that made the book boring to me. I can't relate to people who are lazy and unambitious (like Pip) or who don't want to move forward with their life (like the woman who still wears her wedding dress). I did at least finish the book so there are other books I hated more, but I cannot even remember their titles. In 3rd grade, I read all of the Nancy Drew series that existed at the time. Now they seem dreadfully badly written, but at the time they were exciting. 

I love libraries.

Teacher Feature - Ms. Havrilla

• What do you most like to read?  (this could be a literary genre, or a type of material, like blogs, magazines, etc.)
• I like to read the news daily, health/medicine academic journals/abstracts frequently, spiritual formation (ex. The Lamb's Supper by Dr. Scott Hahn, Theology of the Body by Christopher West, & Bible Study- I use a guide from St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology) frequently, magazines (monthly), educational resources (ex. Brain-based learning by Eric Jensen), and I finally get around to novels during the summertime.  The novels I read depend on my mood and location.  I tend to enjoy "easy reads" such as romance novels (ex. Nicholas Sparks, Mary Kay Andrews), adventure (ex. Clive Cussler- one of my favorites), and action/adventure (ex. Nelson DeMille, Brad Thor- who can resist a handsome Navy Seal keeping America safe?)  Oh and yes, I usually read the novels while sitting out on the lake in the Montana sunshine – or at home on the beach listening to the waves lap upon the shore.
• Do you have a favorite book/author/publication?
• No, variety is the spice of life.  I like to mix it up.
• What's the last great thing you read?
• Hmm, most of my reading during the school year revolves around my classes- just recently I sent a current events article to my Anatomy students regarding the flu outbreak with handy tips on how to prevent getting sick.  Personally, reading my Bible study guide is probably the last read that has been most enriching.
• Where do you most like to read?
• OUTSIDE!  In nature.  Under the sunshine.
• When you were in high school, did you like to read?  If so, what?  
• Honestly, no.   (Maybe you shouldn't include this question?!)  Actually, I really thought I hated to read for awhile (except textbooks- I've always loved those!)  I finally realized that it wasn't reading I hated, it was being forced to read books I didn't care about that I hated.  I've overcome that obstacle.
• What is your most hated book and why?
• FSHA summer reading?! Lol  Try reading East of Eden with one eye (no joke- I had a serious eye injury summer of sophomore year- this was before audiobooks were as common as they are now!)

Teacher Feature - Ms. Jones

What do you most like to read?  

I love historical fiction most!  There is something really interesting to me about imagining how people lived in times gone by and getting a little window into the past through an interesting character.  I also enjoy magazines about celebrity gossip, parenting, my university's alumni magazine and teacher magazines because I can finish an article in a few minutes.

Do you have a favorite book/author/publication?

Yes, I am obsessed with Diana Gabaldon and the Outlander series!  It's SO good!

What's the last great thing you read?

A Breath of Snow and Ashes which is the 6th book in the Outlander series.

Where do you most like to read?

I usually read in bed.  Most often before I go to sleep, to help me wind down from the day.  I used to love to stay in bed late on a Saturday morning with a cup of coffee and my book, but Baby Mariah makes that difficult these days!

Ms. Jones hates this book!

When you were in high school, did you like to read?  If so, what?  

Yes, I loved to read in high school.  I even liked some of the books we were assigned to read!  Believe it or not, I liked The Scarlet Letter, The Crucible, 1984 and A Prayer for Owen Meany.  I had less time to read for pleasure but I still squeezed it in where I could.  My favorite books growing up were the Little House on the Prairie series, the books by Karen Cushman, who wrote Catherine, Called Birdy, Scott O'Dell books (Island of the Blue Dolphins) and the Harry Potter series.

What is your most hated book and why?

Billy Budd by Herman Melville.  Seriously awful!  Boring, slow and hard to read!

I SO TOTALLY judge a book by its cover

The phrase "don't judge a book by its cover" is an excellent metaphorical maxim to live by, much like "all that glitters is not gold".  It is true that one should not accept the world at face value, and that many things are not what they seem upon first glance.  Some level of discretion is wise.  But taken literally, this phrase holds no water with me.  I judge books by their covers all the time, whether right or wrong.  When I browse shelves at the bookstore or library, I pick up books by authors I love, yes, but also because of beautiful dust jackets, interesting bindings, or titles splashed across the cover in cool fonts.  I'm willing to read a copy of a book with a hideous cover only if I know (somehow) that it's going to be a good read.  It's OK.  I don't feel bad.

Here are some AWFUL book covers from our school library.  Actually, these books are no longer part of our school library, but not because of their covers.  Well, maybe that's not entirely true.  The cover is a factor, but certainly not the only one.

Russian Literature: Some Thoughts

Ok, I just read Chekhov’s “The Butterfly”.  Here are some initial reactions:

image retrieved from Wikimedia Commons

• Was Dymov trying to get Olga’s attention by making so many careless, dangerous mistakes in his medical practice (like cutting himself while performing autopsies, during which he certainly was not wearing gloves), or was he just completely ignorant about how infections spread?  At that time, did doctors know about contagion?  If they did, then what was his problem?
• Poor Dymov!   I mean, when he shows up at the cabin after such a long journey and Olga just sends him back to the city to fetch her dress, I felt so sorry for him.  Of course, he DID it, which is either pathetic or really sweet, or perhaps both.
•  It’s interesting that Olga justifies her first kiss with Ryabovksy by thinking about Dymov that “for so simple, so ordinary a man the happiness which he has already received is quite adequate”.  Does that mean she feels that one must be extraordinary to deserve great happiness, and that ordinary people only require a modest amount of happiness in their lives?  Or does it mean that only extraordinary people can really find great happiness, and ordinary people don’t or won’t recognize it or allow themselves to experience it?  Hmmmm….
•  For what reason did Ryabovsky hide his new girlfriend from Olga when she came to his studio?  I can’t imagine he was trying to spare her feelings, since he was cruel to her so many other times.  Was he just trying to avoid conflict?
•  Come to think of it, Olga mentions that SHE had hidden in his studio more than once.  So clearly he is something of a ladies’ man, and Olga already knew it. 
• I love the use of the word “wangle”.  I think it’s a great word.  Olga ‘wangled’ theater tickets from her actor friends.
• Does anyone else think it’s strange that Olga would throw parties for big groups of men, and that her husband would prepare their dinner? 
• Who the heck is Schreck and why is so much mention made of him?