2-19 "Masie and the Dolphine"

This story was very beautiful. The main character is named Maisie and she lives in the Bahamas with her parents who are doctor and grand father. In the story, you can see oceans and beaches at lot. It made me want to go to the Bahamas.

Maisie is thirteen years old. She lives near the beach. One day, she saw a dolphin hit by a boat driven by American. She took the dolphin to her parents and they took care of it. The dolphin recovered at Maisie’s house and she named it Ben.

The American who owns the boat was an acquaintance of Maisie’s father’s. He wanted to build a hotel so was offering Maisie’s father 200,000 dollars for the estate. His hospital was very small so he wanted to think about it. Maisie knew and was unhappy about it.

Ben liked Maisie very much. Ben ate only food Maisie feed him. But now he’s fine, they had to let him go. Maisie was very sad. Maisie and her grandfather went to release him to the ocean. Maisie cried but after they let him go, he came back. He seems to tell Maisie to follow him. She jumped into the water and followed Ben. Ben led Maisie to a little box under the water. She found lots of gold in it.

Using the gold, they modeled the hospital and turned down the American’s offer. Then can always live there because of the gold.

I like oceans and beaches so I liked this story. The Bahamas must be a beautiful place. I wish I could live somewhere like that someday.
This story reminded me of “Shitakiri Suzume”. It’s about an old guy who saved an injured sparrow. The sparrow comes back to the old guy and brings him a lot of money and reward. Dolphin is very smart and friendly animal. I want to swim with one someday.

[317 words]

2-18 "ESCAPE"

This story is about a guy in prison and tries to escape from it. He insists that he’s innocent and one day, he finally gets action. When a guard brings him lunch, he sticks the ceiling. The guard thought he was gone. While everybody was looking for him, he ran out.

First, he ran but he gets tired. He finds a camping guy in the mountain and he stole his bike. After the night falls, he sneaks into farmer’s house and sleeps besides cows. Next morning, he wants to change his cloths because he wears the prisoner’s cloths. He stole the laundry hung out side. Farmer’s wife found him. She shouted and shot. He ran away. Eventually he arrived at the airport. He gets in one of the container which was about to be loaded into the airplane, but he got found out. Everybody was chasing him. In the end, he is back in prison again.

I think this guy will try to escape again. It doesn’t seem he gave up. He insists that he’s not a thief and innocent but he actually steals things on his journey. I found it a bit ironic and funny. If I was put into prison and was actually innocent, I would try to escape too. That’s one of the worst things which could happen to me.

[188 words]

2-17 "ESCAPE"

This story is about a guy in prison and tries to escape from it. He insists that he’s innocent and one day, he finally gets action. When a guard brings him lunch, he sticks the ceiling. The guard thought he was gone. While everybody was looking for him, he ran out.
First, he ran but he gets tired. He finds a camping guy in the mountain and he stole his bike. After the night falls, he sneaks into farmer’s house and sleeps besides cows. Next morning, he wants to change his cloths because he wears the prisoner’s cloths. He stole the laundry hung out side. Farmer’s wife found him. She shouted and shot. He ran away. Eventually he arrived at the airport. He gets in one of the container which was about to be loaded into the airplane, but he got found out. Everybody was chasing him. In the end, he is back in prison again.

I think this guy will try to escape again. It doesn’t seem he gave up. He insists that he’s not a thief and innocent but he actually steals things on his journey. I found it a bit ironic and funny. If I was put into prison and was actually innocent, I would try to escape too. That’s one of the worst things which could happen to me.

[223 words]

2-16 "Star Reporter"

One day, Steve heard from his friend that there was a new girl in town and he was excited. His father is an editor and always looking for interesting news. He tells his son to find something interesting to write on the newspaper about.
Steve went out. He saw a girl at a supermarket. He wondered who she was. After that, wherever he went, he saw that girl. She has a camera on her all the time and seems to be trying to take some interesting pictures.
Later that day, he heard from his neighbor that Bud Ritchie was back in town. Bud is a writer and used to live in this town. Steve thought about visiting and intervewing him for his father’s newspaper. He went to Bud’s house and asked him questions. When Bud was talking about his experiences, he found a cat on the tree and she couldn’t get off. He climbed the tree and tried to help her but he fell off the tree into the water and got wet. Then, the girl was there taking Steve’s picture. The girl was Bud’s daughter Marietta. Steve and Marietta became friends and the picture of Steve was on the newspaper.

I thought Steve was a nice guy. He works hard for his father. He climbs a tree to help a cat and ends up fall. He doesn’t complain about his embarrassing picture was on the newspaper.

［237 words］

2-15 "Mr. Jealous"

Rob dates with Cathy and he likes her very much. They are both teenagers. One day, she said that Rob is the only one boyfriend she’s seeing. Rob was very happy to hear that.
The other day, Rob asked Cathy about she didn’t answer her phone on Wednesday. She said she was out with Tom. Rob was confused. He didn’t know who Tom was but didn’t ask her because he didn’t want to have Cathy think he’s jealous.
In the weekend, he called Cathy. Cathy was not at home and he heard she was out with Tom again. He didn’t know what to do. He was jealous.
Next day, he asked her who Tom was, if she’s dating with 2 men at the same time. Cathy laughed. She showed him a picture of Tom. Tom was a kid. She takes after him off and on. Rob was relieved and happy again. But Cathy, in her mind, says “Tom has a 18 year old brother and I like him a lot…” in the end of the story.

I thought it was a shocking story. Cathy actually likes other guy but Rob doesn’t know to the end of the story. I thought this story would be funny and cute but, because of the last word she said in her mind, I felt it was even scary. Girls are scary…

［227 words］

2-14 "Mulan"

Mulan is a heroine who is acclaimed as the bravest girl in China. She lived in China long time ago. She is said the bravest girl in China because she pretended to be a guy and went to the war to protect her family.

Mulan lived with her younger brother and parents. One day, the Emperor ordered people to send one guy from each family to joing the army to fight in the war. Since Mulan's brother was still a kid, her father had to go to the war. However, he was ill and too old to fight. Mulan decided to go to war as a man. She wore armor and acted and talked like a man. Nobody could tell she was a girl. She join the army and fought with men. She did very good in the fighting so the emperor called her and tried to give her some money but Mulan just asked him to allow her go home. Some time later Mulan came back home, her friend Ye Ming visited her. They met at the war and fought together. He was very surprised when he found out that Mulan was actually a girl. Ye Ming stayed at Mulan's house for a while and he wanted to marry her. Mulan was confused at first but she ended up get married to him. That's the end of the story.

I have watched the movie "Mulan". It's a Diney's animation movie. I liked that movie so I liked this story too. I thought Mulan was very brave. China has a lot of great people.

［264 words］

2-13 "The Elephant Man"

The story is set in 19th centry London. This guy was called Elepahnt Man because he was very ugly. His skin was brown and came down. He looked like an elephant. He was usually locked in a store and people could see him for 2 pences. One day, Dr.Hedrick found teh store and got in to see the elepant man. He was very surprised because the elephant man was very ugly. He diceded to take him to his hospital and examin his body.
He coudln't talk well. Dr. Hedrick could bearly understand what he was saying but he could tell he was a nicehearted man. Dr. Hedrick invited him to live in his hospital so that he wouldn't be tretaed as a thing in the store. The doctore let him read many books and meet many people.
In the end, the elepant man died because he dropped from the bed from head. He broke his neck and died alone.

I thought Elephant man is a poor guy. At begging, he was treated so bad in the store. He always missed his mother who he didn't know where is now. I felt he might have a ugly face and body but his heart is very beautiful. First time he was introduced to a girl by Dr. Hedrick, he cried. Every girls who had ever seen him was scared and screamed but this girl shook his hand and smiled so he was very happy. It is very sad he died in the end of the story but I think he was very happy.

［261 words］

2-12 "King Arthur"

I read "King Arthur" this time. I felt this name was familir to me and he should be a famouse historical person. I wanted to learn about King Arthur.

In 650 in England. There was no king and people were fighting. One day, Merlin the magician made a magic stone and put a sword in it and said "Only the true king can pll out the sword". The person who pulled it out was a very young boy. He was the boy to be King Arthur. Merlin taught him how to be king and after four years, the boy became good, strong king.

One morning, asoldier visited Arthur and informed that the lords from the North are coming to fight him. Arthur went to fight them with his men and won. One of the losing lords from the North invited Arthur to his castle and he met Guinevera, a daughter of the lord. They liked each other and decided to get married. Arthur built a new castle for his future queen.

Merlin had to leave Arthur because his magic was gone. He couldn't help Arthur anymore. Merlin gave Arthur a magic sword and told him not to break it.

After they got married, they met Lancelot, the strongest knight in the country. He became a good friends of theirs.

One night, Morgan, Arthur's half sister and her son Mordred visited Arthur. They stayed in Arthur's castle for weeks. They were very friendly to Arthur and Guinevera. But one night Arthur had a dream about Merlin. He was warned that Mordred was a bad man in athe dream. Guinevera said not to worry but the dream was right. Mordred wanted to kill Arthur and be the next king. He fought him. Lancelot fought with Arthur too. They lost a lot of soldiers. They killed Mordred but Arthur was dead too. Arthur asked Lancelot to take care of Guinevera. Arthur was taken by Merlin and story ended.

So many things happened to King Arthur.

[332 words]

2-11 "BABE: Pig in the City"

Babe is a clever pig which works as a shepherd. He is very famous in the country. The farm in which Babe and Mr and Mrs Hoggett lives was in danger because they had to pay money for the men from a bank and if they couldn't, they would have to sell the farm. One day, Mr. Hoggett got an offer from someone to show Babe's work at the party. They will pay a lot of money for that. To save the farm, Babe went to the city with Mrs. Hoggett.

Mrs. Hoggett was misunderstood that she was carrying the drung at the airport so she had to stay in the little room with a detective and missed the next plane. She and Babe couldn't get to the city they wanted to go.

They looked for a hotel and found the Flealands Hotel. In that hotel, many animals lived. They were abondoned animals. There were chimpanzees, dogs, cats, and monkeys. Nobody knew that they were there.

I thought it was a funny story. So many different animals and happenings. Baby is very cute.

［145 words］

2-10 "The Death of Karen Silkwood"

This story is based on a true story. In the beginning of the book, it says "A fictional story has an ending, but a true story does not". I think it's so true. I had never had this idea about a true story and a fictional story.

Karen started to work at the nuclear factory. They take care of fuel rods and uranium at the factory. People are all wearing white gloves. There is a scanner at the factory. The workers have to check their hands in front of the scanner.

One day, when Karen's friend Susan checked her hands in front of the scanner, the alarm went off. Guys white coats came out of a laboratory room and took her to somewhere. Karen followed them. She saw Susan had no clothes on and the men were showering her. Susan was screaming. The shower hit Susan so strongly.

After Karen saw that happened, she began to think it's dangerous to work there. Karen asked Pete, one of the Union leaders for help. He told Susan to collect the evidence. She sneaked into the photography room and stole some negatives. She kept them in her house.

That day, Karen was taking the negatives to Pete. However, she never arrived at the place she was supposed to meet him. Karen's car was found on its side by the bridge. It was crashed into the bridge wall. She was found dead in it. Pete looked for the brown envelop that contains the negatives but it wasn't there. They never found it.

I thought this story was a little scary because it is based on a true story in Oklahoma. I wonder if she was killed by somebody. If so, it is very bad. I also wonder if the factory still exists. The story is made into a movie so I'd like to watch it.

［311 words］

2-09 "The Ransom of Red Chief"

I didn’t know what ransom meant. I looked up my dictionary and now I know what the word means. It means money that is paid to somebody to release a person who is being kept as a hostage. This book is about two men who try to get ransom by kidnapping a son of the richest man in town, Mr. Dorset.
Bill and Sam are in town and have only 200 dollars. They come up with kidnapping the son of Mr. Dorset, the richest man in town. But Mr. Dorset’s son, Johnny is a lot of trouble. When they catch Johnny, he resisted strongly. Johnny likes fighting very much. He says his name is Red Chief, not Johnny. Bill and Sam have a hard time taking care of Johnny because he is very perky and strong. They want to let him go as soon as possible. They write a letter to Mr. Dorset requesting the ransom. But Mr. Dorset turns down their request. Mr. Dorset writes them back requesting Bill and Sam paying 200 dollars to Mr. Dorset so that they can bring Johnny home and escape from him. Bill and Sam don’t want to pay him 200 dollars but they don’t want to be with Johnny even more. So they decide to escape from Johnny paying 200 dollars.
I thought this story was funny. They wanted lots of money but ended up paying some to ransom’s father. They picked wrong one. I hope they will succeed next time.

［249 words］

2-08 "Give us the Money"

Adam Grey works in a bank. He doesn’t like his job and doesn’t like Mr. Smith, his boss. One morning, Mrs. B tells Adam his horoscope. She says “Do something different today”. So Adam turns right at the corner he usually turns left. Suddenly, he sees something. A girl is being rubbed. He tackles the robber and runs with the girl. But it is actually a movie shooting.
At the same time, at the bank Adam works, real robbery is happening. They take bank’s money and run away. At a corner, they bump into Adam wand the girl. They mistake each other’s bags as theirs and don’t notice it. In Adam’s bag there is a lot of money, and the robber’s bag, there are pieces of news papers for movie shooting.
The robbers get angry and go to chase Adam. Adam and the girl run. The girl is an actress and she calls the movie director for help. The director goes rescue her and Adam with a camera. He shot the car chase of Adam and the robbers.
In the end, Adam and the girl are safe and police get the robbers. One of the robbers is surprisingly Adam’s boss, Mr. Smith. He goes to the bank but gets fired because he is late for work. But he is fine because the director asks him to star in his next movie. He will be a movie star.

[237 words]

2-07 "Sindbad"

I decided to read "Sindbad" because when I picked up this book in the library, I got interested by that title as I thought I have heard that name before. I knew the name "Sindbad" but I didn't even know if it was a man or woman, or even a person or a thing. However, since there was a picture of a man with turban on its cover, I could guess Sindbad was a man.

Sindbad is a young man who lives in Baghdad. The story starts off with the death of his father. He left lots of money for his son so Sindbad becomes rich. But Sindbad uses it all soon and is in debts to many people. Therefore, he decides to go sail and earn money. He goes sailing to different countries many times in the book. And it's about those adventures searching for money and treasures all over the world.

First, Sindbad arrives in an island. There, he finds lot of jewls. But it was a snare of huge snakes. He was almost eaten by snakes but survived and goes back to his home. He paid all the debts by the jewels. Some time later, he wants to go sailing again. For the second time, he arrived in an island where cannibals live in. He is caught by them and his sailors were eaten by cannibals. But Sindbad could escape from the cage and ran to another country. He met a daughter of the king of the country. He liked her and married her. But she died for illness a year later. In the country, husbands have to be buried with their wives even if they were still alive. So Sindbad was in the grave alive with his dead wife and lots of treasures. He dug a hole and escape from the grave.

[305 words]

2-06 Sally's Phone

Sally is a young woman who lives with her family. One morning, she was woken up by her boyfriend’s phone call. It was only six. Her boyfriend’s name is Andrew and he said her to come to the dinner with his new job that night. He also told her to wear a blue skirt she had and hung up. Sally didn’t want to wear the blue skirt but Andrew didn’t listen to her. He always doesn’t listen to Sally.
That day, at work, she talked about it to her coworkers. They thought it was absurd. They told Sally to buy a new skirt whatever color she likes. At lunch break, they went to shopping together and Sally bought a red skirt. On the way back to office, she bought called at a coffee shop and bought a coffee. When she bought a coffee, she bumped into a guy. He was nice. He picked up her bag and apologized.
Later that day, her phone rang. She picked up and said “Hello” and they said “Is this Paul?” Sally said “No” and hung up. Now she has Paul’s phone and Paul has Sally’s phone. They mistakenly picked up the wrong ones when they bumped into each others. They called and decided to meet up and return their phones to each other.
Paul thought Sally was beautiful and Sally thought Paul was nice. After they exchanged their phones, they went to have drinks. Sally didn’t want to meet Andrew anymore so she didn’t go to the dinner. It was Paul’s sister’s birthday that day so they went to the party together.

I like the way Sally ditched Andrew. It was immediate and no hesitation or sorriness at all. At the beginning of the story, she was concerned about her relationship because Andrew always tells her to do whatever he likes her to. He didn’t care Sally’s feeling at all. She wasn’t happy. So I thought it was very good for her to meet Paul. Paul is very nice and respects her feelings and taste.

［341 words］

2-05 "Julia Roberts"

I really enjoyed reading this book. It is mainly about Julia’s career as an actress. In the beginning, it says a little bit of her childhood too. I like movies so I like reading about actors and actresses.

I have seen many movies which Julia Roberts is in. My favorite is “Erin Brockovitch”. This movie is based on the true story. The movies based on true stories can often be boring but this one is absolutely not. She acts one of the coolest women in it.

I knew that she has been in many great movies but didn’t know that she has also been in some bad movies which didn’t make much money. Her career wasn’t always good. She once stopped movies for a while. Maybe she was in a slump.

She has dated with many many guys before. The most of them are actors. It is no wonder because she’s beautiful but I was a bit surprised as reading the history. Now she’s married to some guy and has twin kids.

[172 words]

2-04 "New York Cafe"

When I saw the cover of this book, I though this was about NewYork. I like New York so I decided to read this book. Actually, this book was about computers. It was kind of scary and surprising at the ending.

It's 2030 and you can do anything with computers. S.Fuller takes 5 million dollars with the computer. Next day, at Fuller's, Mr. Fuller finds lots of money in their account. Mr. Fuller is confused, but his son, Sam says to Mr.Fuller to be happy about it. Fuller family is consisted of Mr.Fuller, Mrs.Fuller, Sam, and Sam's little sister Sheila.

I thought S.Fuller was Sam. Everybody would think it is Sam, but actually it is Sheila, his little sister. She 's very good at computers and took money from the bank. The fact turns out in very end of the story. It was so unpredictable and surprising.

[147 words]

2-03 "Marley"

This book is about a couple and their dog named Marley.

Jon and Jenny had been married for a few years and were considering about having a child.

But Jenny was unsure if she could grow a child because she coudln't even graw the plant which Jon had given her as a present. She watered the plant too much and killed it. She wasn't confident that she won't kill a baby too so they decided to strat with a dog.

The dog was named Marley because they both liked Bob Marley.

Marley is a Labrodor retriever, male, very perky.

I think this book is very funny even thought it's very long and I haven't even finished it.

I have never read any English book this long but it's not as hard as I thought it would be.

I think it's because the contents is very interesting and easy to understand.

There are many vocabularies i don't know in the book so I can learn a lot by reading this.

I read some pages as I mark the vocabs I don't know and stop and look up my dictionary and find out their meanings and read the same pages once again.

Marley is very cute and adorable.

As I read the book, I can picture this dog whimper, run, sleep, bark. It very fun to read this book.

[227 words]

2-02 "Girl on a Mototrcycle"

Kenny was traveling across the US. On the way, he met a girl named Mel. She looked like a bank robber Kenny had seen on TV. He was very suspicious. However, it turned out that she wasn't the robber in the end. She was a stunt girl and she had been on TV several times. That's why Kenny thought she looked familiar.

It was a bit exciting and mysterious story. Everything comes clear in the end and you don't know how the story goes until then. I thought the woman was the bank robber but she wasn't. It was a bit surprising. The real suspect was a man who wore a blond wig and disguise himself as a woman. He was wearing a helmet so nobody could know either it was really a woman.

I found it also kind of funny because Kenny sneaked into Mel's room to find out if she was really a bank robber. And no one blamed for that action even after they found out that Mel was innoncent. I think it's a trespass.

[178 words]

2-01 "The Lost World"

This book is a young reporter named Malone. He looked for a dangerous adventure to write about and met the zoologist named Chanllenger. Prof. Challenger has an evidence that there are dinosaurs on the earth. Nobody believed him but Malone was interested. Malone went to Amazon to investigate. There were pterodactyls there.

Before I read this book, I thought it was about the one which was made into a movie but it wasn't. I learned some names of dinosaurs such as triceratops, stegosaurus, pterodactyl, and Tyrannosaurus Rex. I know what they are called in Japanese but they are very different in English. I don't even know hoe to pronounce them but it is good to know the spellings.

［118 words］