The Alchemist and the Angel by Joanne Owen

The Alchemist and the Angel is a fabulous story about an alchemist’s apprentice and his journey. The death of his uncle takes him to Prague, where he enters into a world of traitors, disease and magic. 

The book was well-written and I love books with twists, so in that respect it was great for me. 

The thing that spoilt the book for me were the mini-stories within the main one. Some had morals, others foreshadowed the main story and the themes were the same. Although they were interesting at first, they didn’t add much and two of them were very similar. They were also morbid.

The characters were convincing, especially Jan and Greta. Zuzana was however too perfect for my liking. The author did a lot of research on magic, on the setting and folklore of the time.  The pace was not consistent and although it was not too fast, I felt that the end was a little bit rushed. 

Suitable for 11+, boys and girls.

I would rate it 8/10.

I've had enough of book club

I used to always look forward to book club. Now after almost three years, have had enough.


Reasons:


1. The other girls who go there are a lot older than me and somehow always seem to write amazing reviews. This sometimes makes me feel like my reviews are inferior to theirs.


2. When I read a book, I like to take my time and enjoy reading it in little bits; at book club I have to rush through it.


3. Because, like I said before, the girls there are older than me, the person running the book club chooses books that are more suited to their interests than to mine.


4. I prefer choosing a book myself than having someone give me a book to read because if I do not like it, I can't put it down.


5. When I read a story from book club, I can't read any other book at the same time because I will end up reading only the book of my choice an I will forget about the one from the club and remember when it's too late.


6. I would prefer to have an option whether to write a review or just talk about the book.


7. The leader of the book club asks me questions in a vocabulary I do not understand.


I have so many books of my own I want to read, and I can do book reviews without having book club to make me write reviews; I think I will go to one last meeting and close that book :D

Art and Stew

We went to a boring talk at the British Museum about an artist called Grayson Perry. We found a programme about it on BBC iPlayer which was much better. The programme was interesting and funny. The artist said that cuddly toys were similar to god and that his teddy bear Alan Measles was a god that he worshipped. I thought that crazy!


This week we went to a few exhibitions. The first one was a rude one that I didn't understand. The artist had a model of himself on a stage and pews for the public to sit on and look at him and he called it "The King."


Then we went nearby to a market. There were some some really cool stalls, one of which had a fossilised bear claw, lots of fish fossils, thousands of years old, and many different crystals from around the world. Another stall sold old coins and one sold unusual flavours of tea. I enjoy walking around market stalls because a lot of the time there are a lot of cool things you don't see in other places and I like to see the things to see what I can come back to get with my birthday money.


The next exhibition was about five minutes' walk away. It was made up of various pieces of furniture, all the same style. The exhibition was called "Steam" and I think it's because of the shape of the furniture which was beautiful and curvy and made from the walnut tree. I sat to draw one of the chairs. My mum only had one pen with her for me to draw with; luckily it was brown, the same colour as the chair.

We went upstairs to see some paintings and sculptures. I liked the sculptures more than the paintings. They were more unusual.
The name of the artist was Frank Stella.

On our way back to the station, we walked past Godiva's and offered a free sample of Christmas white chocolate. I was surprised when I bit into it because it had some milk chocolate inside it. It was delicious. I saved a piece for my sister.


I got hungry. I had the most delicious burger in Carnaby Street, and then we went to sniff some perfumes. The woman there told us the price of the larger bottles of perfume. I wasn't sure if she said £19 or £90 but I decided to believe that it was £19. My favourite scent was "Figue" and my least favourite was "Rose." One of them was called "Cedar" and it reminded me of a cottage in the woods. The lady sprayed some samples on thin pieces of card and I am using them as bookmarks. I actually found out they were £90. That must be why we didn't buy any!


Stew is delicious.

London Streetfood Bank Part 2

I have carried on with my project to help distribute sandwiches to the homeless once a week. On World Food Day at my school I gave a presentation to two classes.

Here is me practising my speech:

When I gave my talk to a Year 5 class, I was really nervous. I thought that only people in books 'shook' when they were nervous, but I was shaking and I lost my place in the notes I was holding so I had to try to remember what I had written down. It was difficult but things went well, and no one noticed that there was a chunk missing.  Things went better in the Year 6 class that I did the talk.

One week I didn't go and Mum went without me. I'll tell you what I remember about the story she told me when she came back. She said that she was asked to help this man who brought lots of little packages of lamb. Each one was carefully wrapped.  He was Moslem  and it is part of his obligation to pay for the sacrifice of a sheep/ lamb and distribute it. The man and his wife cooked the meat and tried to find out who they can donate it to; and then he found London Streetfood Bank online, spoke to Jon, and came on the day.

My mum told me that he and his relatives were shocked that there were people going hungry on the streets in London. There weren't any homeless people where lived (which was in London too in Harrow) and he found it hard to believe that people lived on the streets. He said he could have given it to his relatives but that would just make them fatter than they already were! :D

When I heard about him, my first thought was, "Wow, what a kind person." I thought it was amazing that he went through all that effort to donate food.

I felt proud of the work I was doing too.

However, a few days after World Food Day, a girl in my class who is always bullying and snapping at me and my friend said to me that it was illegal for me to do what I was doing and that she knew because she looked it up on the Internet. She said that it was actually my mum who did the sandwiches and I just helped her. Obviously I know that it was a load of lies because this girl lies a lot and who would actually take the time to look it up on the Internet? I told her I knew it wasn't true and a boy sitting at our table backed me up and said that he would go home and check to prove that this girl was wrong. I didn't tell my parents till later because I just wanted to shrug it off.

The last time I went to collect sandwiches from Pret, the sandwiches had already been put in a black bin bag but luckily not in a proper bin. We packed them way in different bags according to fillings and went to distribute them. It was lucky we got there; there were a lot of sandwiches that day, and also some salads and yoghurts as well as pastries. I felt extra good because many people got food from us that day.

Helping the hungry is my project.

Geocaching

Geocaching is a kind of treasure hunt that anyone wherever they are can participate in provided they have a GPS made especially for geocaching (finding these treasures). The gadgets tell you the name of the wood, river or outdoor place that the treasure is hidden in. It will then tell you how many steps in which direction you need to go to get to it. If you stop walking while holding the gadget, it will get confused and show you the wrong direction so it's very important to keep moving even if you are on uneven ground  with branches catching your clothes.

When the GPS starts showing lots of different instructions, that means that you've reached the place where you need to start looking: under branches/leaves, in trees/bushes, tree stumps etc. The 'treasure' is normally kept inside film canisters, ammunication cases or tupperwares. 

When you find it, you must sign your name in a book kept inside the container, put a gift in (small trinket, McDonald's toy, 1p coins, face-cream sachets, hairclip, pencil), and if you want, take a gift out that someone else had put in.  When you get home, you go to the website and you note down which geocaches you found that day. I haven't got an account to do this but I do sign my my name on the log there each time. We found two the last time we went. The first time I did it which was a year ago I also found two.

Book Review: The Kin by Peter Dickinson

The Kin is an epic novel about some of the first tribes on Earth and how they managed to survive.

The story is split into four sections, each one told from the perspective of one of the main characters. Although this mean that I had to re-orientate myself each time, it helped me gain a fuller understanding of each character, and as a result I understood more about how the people in those times thought and behaved. So I think that the author conveyed his message effectively.

Before I carry on, let me just tell you that this book has 632 pages, even longer than the last good novel I read, Watership Down. When I book that is this big, I wouldn't normally choose it because I'd worry that I wouldn'd ever finish it but I started reading The Kin and it kept my interest and I definitely think that it was worth spending my time on. So it has stopped me getting scared of every long book I see.

The story starts with action. After their kin abandons the weaker and younger children in a cave,  two cousins Suth and Noli run away from their tribe to rescue the children Ko, Mana, Tinu and Otan from the cave. The  four sections are told from the points of views of these character. The pace is good and what kept my interest most was learning about their customs, like how they never received a gift without giving anything in return.

In between the chapters were "OldTales". They were stories told by people who lived 200,00 years ago. Those people of course didn't talk like we do now. They spoke more simply. So the stories were told in fewer words than we would use.

What interested me about the book was that in those times they were different Kins (tribes). Some of them spoke very little with their vocabulary consisting more of grunts, different sounds and gestures. Other Kins had more words and spoke a little bit like we do now but with fewer words.

Before reading this book I thought that people with grunts and gestures existed before the people with more complex vocabulary but in this book I discovered that they lived at the same time and made an effort to interact with each other. It made me want to learn about the evolution of writing.

I would rate this book eight out of 10 and recommend it to children aged 8 and above.