Paws to Read
A Not So Secret Reading Life by The Library Goddess
What Reading Means to Me
Who am I?
What's Playing Now...
My Favorite Authors/Books
Elizabeth Berg
Laurie Halse Anderson
A.S. King
Lauren Oliver
John Green
James Dashner
My latest blog entry...What I am reading now
High school senior point guard Jonas Dolan is on the fast track to a basketball career until an unthinkable choice puts his future on the line.
Reality Boy by A.S. King
An emotionally damaged seventeen-year-old boy in Pennsylvania who was once an infamous reality television show star, meets a girl from another dysfunctional family, and she helps him out of his angry shell.
Spotlight on Historical Fiction
Elephant Run by Roland Smith
This novel represents the Pacific Theatre in WWII and is filled with elephants and manhouts, Japanese vs. Burmese, and airfields and work camps. It is also filled with adventure, mystery and intrigue. One young hero and one young heroine prove that family is everything and hope springs eternal. Like any good historical fiction novel much of the action and even some of the names are real and students will be engaged in all facets of this conflict.
1. Kachin guerillas – Burmese militia fighting against the Japanese
2. Hirohito – the ruler of Japan during WWII
3. Hitler – leader of Germany during WWII
p. 2 and 3 November 30, 1941
p. 68 December 25, 1941
p. 125 – soon after Christmas the novel tells us it will be ten months until Nick hears from his father. p. 151 Nick gets his first letter from his father, approx. September, 1942
p. 311 indicates three years later August, 1945
p. 312 shares three dates in May, 1945
Vocabulary that helps you understand the historical context
Historical/Cultural Vocabulary
1. blitz p2
bombing raids
2. Luftwaffe p2
German airforce
3. rationing p2
portioning
4. Nazis p2
German army
5. breadbasket p3
several bombs
6. brigade p3
group
7. embassy p3
home delegation
8. cheroot p5
cigarette
9. koongyi p8
elephant bell
10. choon p8
elephant prod
11. “mustered out” p10
leave military service
12. manhouts p10
elephant keeper
13. singoung p10
manhout foreman
14. oozies p11
machine gun
15. liberators p16
freedom fighters
16. shrines p17
temples/churches
17. fortification p25
fort
18. longyis p26
skirt
19. natshin 139
offering box
20. liberate p173
free
21. counteroffensive 173
offensive action against
enemy’s offense
22. emplacements p177
set up
23. barracks p179 and p215
living quarters
24. novice 213
beginner
25. Nirvana
Heaven, paradise
26. sabotage (implied) p228
damage, disrupt
27. installation p234
military base
28. operative p234
spy
29. armaments p245
weapons
30. infirmary p262
hospital
31. orderlies p262
nurses
32. sentinel p270
lookout, guard
33. unsheathed 305
taken off
Flight By Elephant: The Untold Story of World War Two's Most Daring Jungle Rescue by Andrew Martin
The incredible story of Gyles Mackrell and his Burmese, elephant-assisted wartime rescue mission.
In the summer of 1942, Gyles Mackrell – a decorated First World War pilot and tea plantation overseer, performed a series of heroic rescues in the hellish jungles of Japanese-occupied Burma – with the aid of twenty elephants.
At the age of 53, Mackrell went into the ‘green hell’ of the Chaukan Pass on the border of North Burma and Assam. Here, Mackrell and a team of elephant riders rescued Indian army soldiers, British civilians and their Indian servants, from the pursuing Japanese, directing the elephants through jungle passes and raging rivers, and territory infested with sand flies, mosquitoes and innumerable leeches. Those he saved were all on the point of death from starvation or fever: that summer was spent in a fight against time.
Now in Andrew Martin’s hands this never-before-told tale of heroics is given the shape of a suspenseful adventure, a wartime rescue whose facts are the stuff of fiction. ‘Flight By Elephant’ is a gripping chronicle of war and survival, starring everyone’s favourite animal – the powerful, exotic and hugely loveable elephant.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11652782
British tea planter Gyles Mackrell organised the evacuation of hundreds of people from Burma into British India in 1942 in the face of the Japanese advance in South Asia.
Dr Annamaria MotrescuCambridge University Centre of South Asian StudiesThere was only one way Mackrell could save those whose flight from the enemy was blocked by monsoon-swollen rivers at the border - by elephant.
http://cbi-theater.home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater/elephants/elephants.html