Teresa

An enjoyable book that took me back to my childhood. The main character, Meg, catastrophizes and is not at all patient. Meg's adventure with her brother and friend, Charles Wallace and Calvin, to Camazotz helps her grow as a person. She learns that being different is good because love can only exist between people who are unique.

A fictional account of a correspondence between two demons on how to influence humans. This book shows the Christian perspective on evil and how it affects humans. The influence is not overt. It's a little bit here and a little bit there that really gets most of us in this end.

An excellent story that deals with temptation and the duality of human nature (good and evil). Some things should not be studied. The curiosity of a person's identity, lead to the separation of that identity. What was once a blend became two entities, one good and one evil. When evil is indulged, that side of our identity grows stronger and can overshadow the good. Evil cannot be controlled. It can be suppressed.

Animal Farm by George Orwell is a satirical dystopian tale about a farm that experiences a revolution to overthrow the human owner to set up a society run by and for the animals. It does not go well. Their idealistic revolution quickly turns into another corrupt totalitarian society with one group (the pigs) ruling over all the other animals.

This story is used to discuss politics and power grabs that happened at the Russian Revolution. The characters can be paired up with their human counterparts who shaped Russian history (Karl Marx, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, Tsar Nicholas II). The story comes to an end with the realization that nothing has changed. The wheel has simply come full circle (corrupt power to idealistic revolution to corrupt power). The only thing that has changed is who holds the whip.

Animal Farm touches on many themes we as a society must face, corruption of power and ideals, the abuse of language written and spoken, the tendency of class stratification and exploitation, as well as the dangers of blindly following those in power.

This is a banned book in many countries (examples: Cuba, North Korea, UAE).

The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins, is a mystery in a mystery. It is a mystery novel that follows the story of a diamond from India that is not only stolen from its original custodians, but from a family in England that comes into possession of it. There are several questions that will be answered: How did the diamond come to England? How was the diamond stolen from the family? How did the diamond get to London? Does the diamond return to India or does it remain in England?

The Moonstone is one of the first modern mystery novels that helped create the genre and set the rules for mystery/detective fiction. It is written in a series of letters by the characters to understand what has happened. The story might be a bit slow in certain places (situations need to be set up), but it is an enjoyable read as both a mystery and an exploration of how the modern mystery began.