Swami & Friends

By R.K. Narayan (1906-2001) 

Swami and Friends is a book by R.K.Narayan,  set in the 1930s about a boy named W.S. Swaminathan, called Swami by his friends and family. He lives with his parents and his grandmother, and later his younger brother in Malgudi, a typical fictional town in the Madras Presidency (Present day Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Telengana), British Raj (Present day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh). He has two groups of friends: One, who are strictly school friends, and Two, his best friends. Like any boy today, he doesn’t like to go to school and likes to have fun with his friends, even if his father does not let him do so. I have noticed that Swami is very scared of his father, and his grandma tries to bribe Swami to come and talk to her.

Swami is portrayed as a sometimes rude, but kind-hearted character, who gets into trouble very often, and also gets himself expelled from his first school, (after also receiving whacks by his headmaster) because of taking part in Anti-British Riots by throwing stones at the school windows. He also gets expelled from his other school (for a specific reason which I won’t say). What happens to him will be revealed when you read the book.

What I learnt from this book is about how the Indians felt about what the British did to us, and how they would butcher us for speaking against them. I also learnt about paise and annas, which are like cents and dimes. I also learnt about how strict the teachers were. (They used to thrash you with a cane about 5-6 times if you remained absent from school for a day, or about 2-3 times if you missed a class in school). I feel very relieved that the present generations are not so strict.

I would recommend this book to people who are 10 and above, and anyone who would like to rent this book from me can send a mail to me at agastya.nadadhur@gmail.com, and come and collect it from me whenever they want to.

Book Review on 'The Graveyard Book' by Neil Gaiman

I started reading this book 3 weeks ago, and finished it on 11th June 2018. It is about a baby boy, whose family is killed, and he crawls to the graveyard near his house, and is raised by Ghosts for the next 15 years of his life.  This book is a thriller, as the criminal of the kid's family's death is known.

The kid is called 'Nobody' as his ghost parents say, "The boy is himself. Not anyone else, so we shall name him Nobody." He becomes friends with other dead people in the graveyard, and has many adventures in the graveyard.

 The only thing he is not allowed to do is exit the graveyard, as his family's murderer, the man Jack,  is still alive, and wants to murder him. Luckily, his guardian, Silas says that he has the freedom of the graveyard. He once also starts school, but quits it as he was about to become the most popular person in school, which he doesn't want. Nobody learns ghost tricks and studies in the graveyard by his tutor, Miss Lupescu, and has lots of boys of a family (who all died before they were 10 years old) to play with. He learns secrets of the graveyard, and how life was in the olden days. He listens to the stories Sir Nehemiah Trot, a poet who has travelled around the world, teaches him, and learns facts, (like how Silas had met the Queen of England, who glared at everyone and spoke no English,)  from his tutor and guardian.

What I enjoyed the most in this book is when Nobody teaches the man Jack a lesson. How the boy got the man Jack tricked into becoming the master of the Sleer. What I learnt from this book is new vocabulary, and how was life in different centuries, and what people thought in different centuries, and how they lived. I also learnt about different types of jobs people do.

This book has also won the 2010 Cilip Carneige Medal. It is a book full of mysteries and suspense, and is an outstanding book for kids from 12 years to adults to read. I recommend that the readers of this blog can come to me to borrow this book, or buy it online.

  

                                      Book Review On CHESTER & GUS

By: Cammie McGovern

                                               

I started reading this book two weeks ago and finished it now. This book is about Chester, a dog, who fails his service dog certification test, and then a family, who has an autistic son, adopts him to help the boy. He doesn't know how to help, as the boy behaves differently from other people Chester has met, but Chester wants to help Gus, and in this book, he tries to help Gus. He also learns to help Gus before Gus gets an epileptic attack. 

Chester also goes to school with Gus to help him. He tries to help Gus to socialise with other kids. Gus's parents don't want him to go to an out-of-district school, and they try to make ends meet to make sure Gus doesn't go to that school. There are also many funny and sad parts in this story. 

What I learnt from this book is what is Autism, how do autistic people like Gus behave, and what does it take to become a service dog. What I liked about this book is how Chester helps Gus, and how Gus overcomes a few of his fears and problems with the help of Chester. Another thing I learnt was that dogs think that if a person smells of urine, then they are welcoming the dog. I also learnt that dogs can also be taught to read placcards. They can then pick the real thing for their owner.


The book is actually written in Chester's point of view. I would recommend kids aged 11 to 16 to read it, but adults can also read this book.