Books
01.18.
Girl Talk
Girl Talk is series of books by L.E. Blair (K.A. Applegate) for teenage girls, telling school adventures of four American teenagers in junior high school: Sabrina, Allison, Randy, and Katie. The series takes place in the fictional small town of Acorn Falls, Minnesota. The books were published by Golden Books.
The series, consisting of 45 books, was published in the 1990s. There were spin off products, like board games, and special edition books about fun things to do when bored, and a book filled with advice from Allison. Each book featured an introduction to each girl on the first page, a phone conversation between two or more girls, a poll on the readers opinions about the books, and the earlier ones featured all the books with a quick summary. Later books featured a list of the books with no summaries.
3 Comments01.17.
Harold & The Purple Crayon
Harold and the Purple Crayon is a 1955 children’s book by Crockett Johnson. Johnson’s most popular book, it led to a series of books, and inspired many adaptations.
The protagonist, Harold, is a curious four-year-old boy who, with his purple crayon, has the power to create a world of his own simply by drawing it. Harold wants to go for a walk in the moonlight, but there is no moon, so he draws one. He has nowhere to walk, so he draws a path. He has many adventures looking for his room, he draws his own house and bed and starts going to sleep. Click here to watch an episode of the animated cartoon »
2 Comments01.11.
Animorphs
Animorphs is an English language science fiction series of young adult books written by K. A. Applegate and published by Scholastic. Five humans, Jake, Marco, Cassie, Rachel, and Tobias, and one alien, Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill (nicknamed Ax), obtain the ability to morph into any animal they touch. They name themselves “Animorphs”, a portmanteau of “animal morphers”. Using their ability, they battle a secret alien infiltration of Earth. It is told in first person, with the Animorphs taking turns narrating the books. Applegate cycles through the six protagonists, telling their story of the secret war through each of their perspectives. Horror, war, dehumanization, sanity, morality, innocence, leadership, and growing up are core motifs of the series.
Published between June 1996 and May 2001, the series consisted of 54 books and includes ten companion books, eight of which fit into the series’ continuity (the Animorphs Chronicles and Megamorphs books) and two that are gamebooks not fitting into the continuity (the Alternamorphs books). The characters grow up throughout the series, struggling to cope with the compromises and retreats they must make to win the war. The series allows the reader to observe the human condition as the characters are forced by their new, deadly circumstances to face the darkest, and also the brightest, parts of themselves. The series was originally conceived as a three-part series called The Changelings, in which Jake is named Matt, and his little brother Joseph takes the place of Cassie.
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