"I am Malala" By Malala Yousafzai

I am Malala

Malala Yousafzai

123/291 # of pages read

Hey again! So this week the blog post will be about the main problem in my novel. I will discuss all the obstacles and all the different hard problem that they faced.

The main character, Malala is just a child who is fighting for women's freedoms and for girl's education. There aren't so many problems that Malala has faced so far but one big problem that was told in the book was of her getting shot by the Taliban. She got shot because of her thinking that education was important for girls and the Taliban actually took over with their leader, Maulana Fazlullah who was first very liked by all women and others but then hates and afraid of because of his mean ways of "following the Islamic rules and doing what the Holy Quran or Sharia says". The Sharia was the religion that Fazlullah wanted everyone to follow which had rules like women should cover their heads and never go outside and not receive education but Fazlullah has lost his purpose of following a religion and just caused terror and killed too many. He had many suicide bombers and had bombed many buildings, schools and government buildings. The Taliban was slowly starting to take over Pakistan which of course scared Malala.

Malala's "idol", a woman named Benazir Bhutto was one who stood up for woman's rights and girl's education. Benazir was unfortunately shot by the Taliban, and Malala said she felt terrible and her whole family cried. They thought that there was no more hope, but there was. 'If Benazir could stand up for women rights, I can too' Malala thought to herself. From that moment Malala knew that she just wants to make the world a better place for everyone, especially women who are treated inequality. Malala soon went to radio stations, like BBC and her father too was interested in ending this, he also owned a school and cared for these children to get education. Malala was always interested in politics and things like this but an obstacle that was not worrying her that much but was possible is that she could draw too much attention and the Taliban would find her and take her down which they did do.

Ziauddin (her father) wasn't afraid of anything and that did cause some trouble for her and his family. He also a main character in this book so some obstacles he went through so far is the big chance that his school will be bombed and destroyed, he protests against Taliban and also is putting his family into trouble although all he is trying to do is help. Ziauddin slept at a friend's house just in case the Taliban come to his house were his kids might see him die. Even Malala's mom thought of hiding a knife under her pillow and she put a ladder so that Ziaddin can climb up without being seen. So this was kind of a matter of life or death.

I am really enjoying this book, it is very interesting and inspiring. The book includes many things I didn't know about like so much inequality in Pakistan and so many other countries. It shows the big difference between my life and theirs.



Picture link: http://blogcdn.4tests.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Malala-Yousafzai-book.jpg

Shelly

Apollo 13 - main problem

Hey everyone!

This week, I was also reading the book, Apollo 13, by Jeffrey Kluger and Jim Lovell. I am 237/397 pages through, and currently, the book is very exciting! I am really enjoying it now that the action is actually happening, but I will describe more about it in my blog post, as I am going to talk about the problem in my book. This problem, is obvious.
So, you may wonder, what is the problem on Apollo 13?
Well, to be honest, they don't really know what caused the problem, or what made it so bad. All that they (the crew of Apollo 13, and the ground controllers in Houston) know is that all of a sudden the air and the fuel in the main ship of the Apollo 13 ships, is disappearing. It is rapidly decreasing, and there is nothing they can do about it. The ship is rocking, the supplies are limited and the temperature is plummeting. I also must remind you that they are currently on the other side of the moon. The ships moon landing is aborted - and the crew of three have to move into a two man ship, with enough rescources for two days. They have to make a four day journey and  find a way home. 
Back on earth, one of the news station reports that they have a one in ten chance of surviving, on the way back to earth. This statistic, is not a positive one, at all. 
On earth, the support crew are doing everything that they can do to rescue the mission. They are helping the crew plan a burn - where they use a lot of fuel to project themselves back. It is risky, and in no way garuantees safety for the crew. But, they have to keep trying and preparing. Lovell is trying to arrange everything and to stay in contact with  ground control. This is proving quite hard since the connection is failing - they cannot use too much power or the ship will run out of energy and then will die. Survival chances in that situation are basically non-existant. 
I think that this book has finally got interesting, and this week I actually read 110 pages, and I am very proud of myself. I will endavour to continue to read more, and finally finish it so I can get on with the book project. Bye for now!

Alex Ferguson by Sir Alex Ferguson #3

     Hi guys! This is my third post about this book and this post will be about the main problem of the book and the obstacles that Sir Alex faced. So far I read 318 pages out of 350 so I'm almost done with this book.
     There are a lot of different problems described in this book and it's really hard to tell which one is the main one. The first problem that he's talking about is when he was young and he had to take care of the pub he was working in. Although he had to fight sometimes to keep people calm and friendly and he had  to work from 6 am till late night he said he learned a lot about people's thinking and behavior while working there. Another problem was his retirement from managing. In 2001 he first thought about retirement but his wife told him that he's crazy if he's thinking about retiring at that time. He also had problems with player's behavior. Some of them weren't training as hard as he wished they did, some didn't behave well and some didn't bother to learn English at all. It was ahrder for Sir Alex to help the players that didn't speak English but he was lucky that those players were just great (e.x. Cristiano Ronaldo didn't speak English at all when he joined Manchester United and he still didn't speak much after he left but he's quality as a player helped him and also something that helped him was that the second coach was also Portuguese and he could translate him everything). An example of a bad behavior player was Roy Keane. In his last 2 years at United he turned into a beast. He was swearing at the players, saying bad stuff about them at interviews and just didn't behave as a football player should so Sir Alex finally fired him but he had a regret when he did it because before that happened Roy was an amazing player and he was the captain of the team and Roy Keane is still considered a football legend (if you don't know who he is just search him up). Carlos Tevez was a player that didn't train at the level that Sir Alex was expecting but he played amazingly well when he did. Tevez is still playing but now he's playing for Juventus Torino (go ahead and search him up too if you need).   Another problem in the life of a manager is having bad results with your club. Sir Alex had a period of his career when he had really bad results but he was lucky that the club owners believed in him and knew what he can do.
     This is my post today! I hop you enjoy it. I included the problems and the obstacles in the last paragraph and I think I did it well :)
     Have a nice weekend!
     

How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming

       The book I am reading for my book report is "How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming" by Mike Brown. This book has 231 pages. The main obstacle that the author (Mike) has to go through in this book is trying to define what a planet is and trying to see if Pluto and Xena (A "Planet" he found) fit the standards of the word planet.  Mike, is an astronomer and one night found an unusual object in the sky that was not a star, and he spent a lot of his life researching Xena, the planet that he found as it was as important as a child to him. Since Xena's properties are very similar to Pluto, if Pluto became a planet so would his little space object. Sadly Pluto is not voted as a planet, which means that Xena is not either, both would now be considered a "Planetoid".

Invincible Louisa by Cornelia Meiggs

 
        Hello again!

Right now I am on page 101 out of 194.So in this book, Invincible Louisa, they have moved so many times that it is hard to count. They have moved so far to Concord... a lot, and they have moved  (<<<Fruitlands, Massachusetts) to Massachusetts also. Louisa was very good at drama and she performed plays with her sisters and family. They performed plays in their barn, and they also had a club named the Pickwick Club. The only thing about it was that the sisters were the only members in their club.  (<<<Hillside, Concord)When Louisa turned fourteen, she finally went to school. Anna (her sister) found the new life interesting, and easy to get used to, but it wasn't the same for Louisa. She was a very tall girl for her age. Louisa and her sister did not go to school for a second year, though their father and Mr. Henry Thoreau taught them. One thing that is interesting about biographies are that they are written from peoples journals and diaries. It is also a little weird to read it because they only have what the people wrote, so they skip from place to place in the book. The harsh winter is coming up and no one knows what is going to happen, do you think that they will survive or something worse?
          Well thank's :)
       

Bound Feet and Western Dress by Pang-Mei Natasha Chang

I am currently on page 164 of 208.

The main problem in my book, and the main problem it is trying to portray and illustrate is women's rights and the problems they had to face to get even any where near the 'standards' of a male. They were expected, and not only in China, to stay at home, marry at a very young age, have children at a very young age and stay home and observe the household and sew from a very young age. When I say young age, I mean around 17 or even 16. One of the huge things that a woman would have to face in China in the early 20th century was the traditional feet-binding process. This is a painstaking process, wherewhich the woman is expected to have a feet 'crushed' and made about 3 times smaller. Of course, this is not only a painful process but affected the Chinese women for their whole life. Unfortunately, this process was mandatory since it was very unlikely for a man to wish to marry a woman who didn't have bound feet. It was considered 'elegant' and 'rich.'

For many Chinese woman, they didn't take the things I mentioned seriously, and just went with them, not really caring about the unfairness and inequity of them. The main character in the book I'm currently reading was not one of those women. She, unlike the majority, wished for a good education and an experience of the Western world. Unusually, her feet were not bound. She was forced to marry at the age of 16 or 17 (one of the two) and had her first child at the age of 18. The tradition after you had your first child was to stay with your in-laws. This may not seem that bad, but this meant enduring 5-hour long tea sessions talking about the progress of the baby and future plans for it. The rest of the day one was expected to sew shoes for the family with your mother - in -law. A lot of the time, the women were lucky and had fairly good relationships with their husbands. Unfortunately, for the main character in my book, she hardly every spoke or saw her husband since he spent the majority of his time in the West.

I think it is very unfair that the women in early 20th century China had to deal with these types of things, especially as they knew nothing else. 

Hi guys,

I am currently reading Three cups of tea by Greg Mortenson. I have so far read 43 pages out of 331. Here is a picture of the book:

The main character in my novel is Greg Mortenson who is the author of the book. He is quite tall around 6 feet which is around 1 meter 82. Also his skin color is white although most of his best friends are black. He is kind,you can see that here in this sentence from the book " If Mortenson had known how scarce and precious sugar was to the Balti, how rarely they used it themselves, he would have refused the second cup of tea." (Page 28). Also he is quite smart, he is also a risk taker because he kept on going on different paths than he was supposed to. He is also determined because when he got lost he did not lose hope and he was determined to get out of there alive. "He'd have to spend the night and search for the trail in the daylight." (page 11). 

AG