Esio Trot Book Review

This book basically revolves around the three characters, Mr Hoppy, Mrs Silver and Alfie. This book is written by Roald Dahl. Mr Hoppy is a man who is secretly in love with Mrs Silver who lives just directly below him. Mrs Silver has a pet tortoise called Alfie and Mr Hoppy envious that tortoise so much as Mrs Silver always embraces Alfie that Mr Hoppy wishes to be Alfie.

Mrs Silver loves Alfie so much but she feels that Alfie is a little too small in size. She thinks that Alfie wants to grow up but he is unable to grow up faster and would feel sad when he sees other tortoises that are so much bigger than himself. Alfie has only gained about three ounces for the eleven years Mrs Silver had him. Mr Hoppy then thinks of a brilliant plan to help Mrs Silver as Mrs Silver said that she was willing to be his servant for the rest of her life if he managed to think of a plan to help her.

Mr Hoppy then says that he has a secret which he knew of when he was in North Africa where all the tortoises in England came from. He pens it down and gives it to Mrs Silver. It writes :

ESIO TROT, ESIO TROT,
TEG REGGIB REGGIB!
EMOC NO, ESIO TROT,
WORG PU, FFUP PU, TOOHS PU!
GNIRPS PU, WOLB PU, LLEWS PU!
EGROG! ELZZUG! FFUTS! PLUG!
TUP NO TAF, ESIO TROT, TUP NO TAF!
TEG NO, TEG NO! ELBBOB DOOF!

These are actually words written backwards by Mr Hoppy. It is actually :

TORTOISE, TORTOISE,
GET BIGGER, BIGGER!
COME ON, TORTOISE,
GROW UP, PUFF UP, SHOOT UP!
SPRING UP, BLOW UP, SWELL UP!
GORGE! GUZZLE! STUFF! GULP!
PUT ON FAT, TORTOISE, PUT ON FAT!
GET ON, GET ON! GOBBLE FOOD!

This is actually just a scam-plan devised by Mr Hoppy while he goes to a tortoise shop to buy all kinds of tortoise varying in different sizes. He then replaces Alfie with a tortoise two ounces heavier than Alfie with his tortoise catcher which he uses to reach the Alfie which is directlybelow his balcony to bring him up to his house. Starting from then, he replaces the tortoise in Mrs Silver house with a tortoise two ounces heavier to prevent Mrs Silver from noticing the distinct change in size. Also, the tortoise must have the same shell colour as the previous tortoise. Until the eighth week, Mrs Silver then feels that his tortoise has grown two times bigger and then weighs the tortoise. She then finds out that her tortoise has grown two times bigger and thank Mr Hoppy so much.

But Mrs Silver finds out that Alfie is too big to enter his pet house and then wants Alfie to be smaller, Mr Hoppy then applies the same concept on Mrs Silver. He gives the same coding to Mrs Silver, except that the coding now has the words "Bigger" is replaced by "Smaller". He then quickly replaces the tortoise with a smaller one that has the same shell colour. The tortoise is then able to fit into its pet house.

Mrs Silver then accepts Mr Hoppy and they get married. They then live happily ever after. As for Alfie, he lives with Roberta who took him to her home when she was young. She is now married and has two children of her own. But Alfie still lives with her, finally growing twice his size only after about nineteen years.

The reason I like this book is that this book shows the innocence of a vibrant man who is in love with the his neighbour. It also reflects his wit and shows that he is willing to do anything to gain his crush's love. This brings me back to my childhood and makes me feel nostalgic about the innocent thinking I once had.

Percy Jackson and the Last Olympian

This book is basically about the Percy Jackson, a.k.a Perseus Jackson, which is the son of the Greek god Poseidon in the book. This book is actually the last book of the entire series, which actually has five different books. But do not misread my point here, the book is still relatively thick.

In this book, the main point of this book is that Perseus is waging a very huge-scale war with the other evil Olympians. Apparently, they are having war right in New York. The leader of the enemy is Kronos, the evil titan, as he wants revenge from the time when he was cut up into pieces with his own sword and thrown into an abyss. He then seeks revenge by gathering forces to stage a battle with the other gods. The other gods consists of Zeus, Poseidon and Hades and many of Zeus's children. Poseidon, the god of the seas, is also having problems in his own territory. Kronos has garnered some support from some sea lords and they are giving Poseidon many problems so he himself cannot help out in the war against Kronos.

Most of the Gods were having problems dealing with Typhoon, a monster with incredible skills raging through the cities so they were not able to help out in the direct battle against Kronos.

Perseus and all the other young heroes from the camp are called out to help out with the battle. Perseus carries his pen-sword as usual which has a special function, it can change into a sword when the cap is removed and it will always come back to his pocket in a few seconds no matter how far it is thrown to. Annabeth, Perseus crush, although he refuses to admit it, is also involved. During the battle, they were successfully dealing with the enemies on one side of New York but they were surprised by the sudden outburst of enemy from the other side, led by Kronos in the form of Luke. They were then cornered right all the way to the Empire State Building, where in the building, is the place where all the Gods gather in their human forms to have meetings. They then continued fighting and fighting all the way to the top, where the final battle between Kronos, Luke and Perseus is staged. Luke is still being possessed by Kronos. When Kronos uses his body to hurt Annabeth, Luke suddenly goes back to his normal self as he remembers his promise to Annabeth, never to harm her.

Finally, the decision lies with Percy as to whether he should hand the dagger over to Luke or to keep it with himself. He then hands it over to Luke and Luke commits suicide, killing both himself and Kronos inside him. The story then ends with Percy finally admitting his crush on Annabeth and the story ends.

I like this story book as the plot reveals itself very naturally and the reader, in this case myself, is totally absorbed in the book while he reads it. The detailed descriptions of the things happening in the book and the suspense it gives you while reading it makes me want to just continue flipping the pages on and on forever. The plot is also very well developed, having a captivating first book, and an extremely exhilarating climax and finally, a suitable ending which puts the book in proper.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer Book Review

The first classic I have read during my holidays are The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.


The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

The 1st story is about a boy who is extremely rebellious but in actual self he is a very kind person. However, he is only excited about the new things that happen in life and not the usual routine of life. He loathes the normal life he has --- going to church, going to school and so on. The story is talking about his self-initiated adventures when the last adventure lead to a happy ending. At the start, it was just about his excitements in life, playing with a beetle in church, having a crush on a girl and using his wits to cheat others to do work for him. Then, after the character Huckleberry Finn was introduced, the story starts to develop as a whole on the path of adventure.

There were two major adventures in this story. The first, after he gets hurt by the girl he likes, Becky, he is heartbroken and plans to leave the town to make everyone who once felt bullied or made him unhappy feel sad. He then source for his friends to go on a pirate adventure. He finds Huckleberry Finn and Joe Harper and they set off on a pirate adventure, pretending to be pirates on a nearby island, bringing with them the bacon and ham they stole. Tom and Joe learnt to smoke from Huckleberry Finn then.

The other adventure is based on the time when Tom meets Huckleberry Finn to go to the graveyard. There, they saw a murder case happen right before their eyes. They saw Injun Joe and Muff Potter with a doctor there. They then started to argue and a fight broke out. In the midst of the fight, Potter got knocked out and Injun Joe stabbed the doctor. He then put the murder weapon into Potter's hands and accused him of murder when Potter woke up. Potter took the story and believed that he was the one who killed the doctor. Of course, Tom and Huckleberry witnessed the whole thing and is afraid to tell the truth.

Soon, Potter got arrested because he "admitted" he was the one who kileed the doctor. Tom's conscience began to eat into him and he finally relented, telling the truth in court. But at that very time when Injun Joe was present and Tom began to speak the truth, Injun Joe took off, crashing into the window and running away.

After that incident, Becky tore the principal's book by accident and Tom witnessed it. She thought that he would expose her but he didn't. Instead, after looking at how nervous Becky was and knowing that she would expose herself, he took the blame for her. This made her so touched for him that they made up.


Tom was then afraid that Injun Joe would come back to kill him. But after getting over with that fear, Huckleberry Finn and him then began to search for underground treasures. Coincidentally, while doing so, they land themselves in a Injun Joe's Spanish friend and Injun Joe's hideout. Coincidentally again, Injun Joe and his friend dug up a hidden treasure with so much money in it while Huckleberry and Tom was staring at it with large eyes. They then began to search for the treasure after hearing where Injun Joe has kept it. But they could not find it until one day while Tom went out with Becky on a picnic she has organised. They went extremely deep into the cave and got lost. They soon used up their provisions, which included candles and some cake Tom had saved from the picnic. With one last try, Tom found his way out and found Injun Joe hiding in the same cave as him. He then realised that the treasure was actually hidden there. He then escaped and and they were saved out of the cave. Before that, Injun Joe was trying to kill a widow whose late husband humiliated Injun Joe, while Huckleberry followed them sneakily, thinking that they would lead him to the treasure they had hidden.

Tom and Huckleberry then headed back to the cave by themselves without letting anyone know and they found the lost treasure. After taking the lost treasure out of the cave, they were invited to a party to celebrate them as heroes of the town, as Injun Joe died without water and food trapped in the cave after the cave was locked momentarily and Huckleberry Finn saved the widow. At the party then, they then declared that they were rich by showing everyone the gold and money they had brought from the cave. They were then highly respected after these series of incidents and Huckleberry Finn was adopted by the widow. Soon, Huckleberry Finn escaped from the widow as he could not stand the tidyness of the widow as he liked his old living place, the streets where he was free to do anything he wants. He preferred being dirty to being clean.
Tom then coax him to go back by saying that if he does, he would tell the widow to abandon some rules of hers and allow Huckleberry Finn to join the gang he would soon create.

The whole story then ends like this, after revolving around Tom's adventures, saying that the adulthood of Tom is not to be revealed.