Independent+Novel+Study

Book Title: North  Date: Decemeber 3rd Pages covered in this entry?  Pages covered: 1-114  I've read through almost half of the book and I like it a lot, so far. There are a lot of very interesting and descriptive scenes that the author has laid out for the reader. The setting is in Norway about 20-ish years ago in winter-time. The book is in five different character's perspective right now, but I have a feeling that there is going to be another one added later on in the book.  In the beginning of the story, the main character, Rose, is flipping through memories of her childhood, especially the time where she fell into a freezing lake and a great white bear saved her life, and that she was a replacement for her dead sister. Her mother is extremely superstitious and she believes that the way you were facing when you were born is to determine your fate and future. She also believes that children, born facing north will not be a very obedient child and will always get into trouble. Rose is actually a North-born child, but her parents have hidden that fact from her, hoping to forget about it. Misfortune later falls on her family. All their crops have died, and the harsh winds will not let them grow more, and the worst is that they have been evicted from their land that they are renting. Everyone is just gloomy and unaware until a big white bear shows up at their door. He says that if the family gives Rose to him, great fortune and health will come their way. Rose, being an adventurous and brave girl, gladly agrees to the bear and is taken on a journey of nine days on the bear's back to a giant castle. That is all I've read so far.

As I've mentioned before, the story is told from 5 different character's perspective. One of them is Rose's father, who starts off the book. He really helps illustrate the plot because we see how much he loves Rose, and if it wasn't for him, the readers wouldn't know about the lie of Rose's birth. It also really makes the reader feel sympathetic because he describes all the bad luck going around and how it's affecting the family. Another character that tells the story is Rose, of course. Her perspective actually doesn't contribute much to the plot as you would think. The story is revolved around her, as the main character, but her perspectives are usually pretty basic and boring. One of her brothers, Neddy, is also telling the story from his perspective. The whole purpose of him making the plot better is basically his perspective is the same as her dad's but only in a younger and more deeper thinking. Someone else who tells the story is someone named the Troll Queen, which we know very little of so far because her perspectives are very short- only a page or so. The only thing we know about her so far is that when she was little, she turned a little boy into the bear. The fifth and final character that tells the story is the bear. All his thoughts are in poem format and very short, He enchants the reader's view of the plot because he is expressing his feelings about Rose and remembering his past, which was clearly as a boy, until the Troll Queen changed him into a white bear. He expresses his feelings about being a bear and how much he misses being a human boy. His words might seem short and simple, but the reader can easily relate and understand to that feeling of loosing something that you can never get back.  9/10

﻿Book Title : North Author: Edith Pattou Date: Dec. 12 Pages Covered: 115- 151

I have been reading through the book and so far, there are no s﻿igns that my hypothesis in the previous entry is correct. No character has joined in with the five existing characters to tell the story from their point of view. The setting is now about a nine day travel from where she used to live. The author gives no indication of how fast the bear was travelling, or the whereabouts of the castle. Not being allowed to leave the castle, she spends her days exploring the many rooms and thinking about her family. One day, she stumbles upon a room that looks like a kitchen and is surprised to see that there are two people inside, cooking. Both of them have extremely rough skin and spoke in a unfamiliar language. Their bodies and voice are so extremely different from a human's that she begins to think that they are from a totally different world. If a talking bear exists, then surely another alien spiecies could too. On day, she finds a room with a loom in it. A loom is basically a sewing machine. She's reminded of home because back then, she would always sew, spending most of her days sitting infront of a loom, only less grand than this one. She was working on a scarf one day, when the bear comes into the room and simply sits there watching her. This becomes their routine and they start to bond. Back at home, Sara, her sick sister, becomes better and her father is offered a job as a map maker. Back at the castle, she woke up one night to sense that someone was sleeping in her bed with her. That is all that happens for this section.

Why did you select this novel? I selected this novel because many of my friends have read the book and said good things about it. My mom bought it for me when I was in grade 7 and back then, I wasn't really interested in reading anything that was not a cheesy romance fiction novel. The book was just sitting there on my bookshelf, waiting to be opened, so I took the chance and read a book that I wouldn't usually read. The back had a great and suspenseful summary, and I saw that the book had won many awards so I thought it would be a great book to read. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">What has happened before the novel began? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The story starts with a prologue and it just a random person in a way later time than when Rose lived. The person finds a box in Rose's old attic and in it, were old ship logs, maps and diaries. Suddenly the sound of a flute comes from the box and many other noises come too. Making the person more curious, they ruffled through the box and found a handwritten note by Rose that says how everyone is making her write the whole story down. At the end of the note, it said: "It all began with a soft pair of boots." and the story begins.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">What information did you need to know before reading the novel? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> The setting in in Norway and the english is completely understandable, but sometimes they use different names of countries. For example, England for us is Anglia to them. It's always a good idea to check for a glossary as soon as you find that the story takes place somewhere foreign. Luckily for me, there was a glossary at the back of the book, so I could always flip back if I needed help with some words. Other than the vocabulary, there isn't very much you need to know before you read the book. You want to always be on your toes, looking for really effective metaphors, hidden irony and cool personifications.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">10/10

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">﻿Book Title: North <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Author: Edith Pattou <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Date: Jan. 3 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Pages Covered 151-342

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">These pages I've covered will be the rising action in this story. At frist, Rose is extremely unconfortable with the nighly visitor because the candle always blows out right before he comes into the room. While the visitor is climbing into Rose's bed every night, her father is going many different places in search of her. Rose continues her regular life in the castle and starts spending more and more time at the loom. She makes two evening gowns from the beautiful fabric that is provided. While she's working on the second one, she realizes that the white bear has been visiting her during her work. Soon, there is an easy silence between them and it almost seems as if they had become friends. One day she decides to make a night shirt for the visitor, who by then had been coming regularly but is shivering from the cold. Rose also starts conmunicating with one of the two people working there. She finds that his name is Tuki and she learns words from his language while she teaches words from her own. One day Rose is was grant the permission to leave the castle and visit her family for exactly a full cycle of the moon. She goes home to a healthy family who's stomachs are no longer empty but bloated. She tells Neddy as much as the bear allowed her to, her mom gives her presents and food, and she gets picked up by the bear again to go back to the castle. One night, she decides to lit a candle that her mother has given her and shines the light on the nightly visitor. He is a man who was put under a spell by the Troll Queen and if a girl stayed with him voluntarily for a year, he would be free of the spell. She saw his face, so he is doomed to spend the rest of his life with the Troll Queen and she comes and takes him in the middle of the night and leaves.Before he leaves though, he tells her that he is east of the sun and west of the moon. She travels every where to find the place where it is east of the sun and west of the moon. At one of the places, she realizes that a place like that does not exist. One day, she stumbles upon a Inuit that thinks she knows where the Troll Queen has taken the White Bear.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">To what age group is the novel aimed? Support your answer with evidence <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The book is really aimed for teenagers by the author but all the awards that this book has revieved are for childrens' (ages 7-12) novels. In my opinion, the story would be more for teens (ages 13- 16) because there are many times where Edith has written something that you really have to look deeper for the meaning. The book is also a really long one, and usually children novels are much shorter than this. There is also a lot of evidence that this is written for younger audiences and that is that the language is very simple and kind of borning, as most children novels are. I also feel as if the words are not purposely portrayed that way, but becasue the author is lacking in experience for writting for teens. Over all, the mood that I think the author is trying to create is for teens.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Describe any new characters that are introduced? What is their purpose? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">A new character that was introduced was Tuki. He is one of the two working people at the castle. He's very eager to please and is very gentle and just generally nice. His purpose in the story is to teach Rose some of his language which will come in handy later in the story.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Why did (or didn't) the novel meet your expectations? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I've read through the whole novel by now and it definately did not meet my expectitions. The awards at the back of the book really had me eager to read but unfortunately, I was really disapointed. The writer just spends way more time than nessisary to explain things that should not take that long to explain. The part where Rose is stuck in the castle was so long and tedious to read, that I almost gave up on the book. The introduction did not grab my attention by all means, and my attention was elsewhere throughout the book. The book is way to long for the story and there was really no reason or excitement leading to the conflict and ending. There were really not very many memorable quotes, metaphors or even personification. The theme was very unclear and predictable. This novel definately didn't meet the high expectations that I had, opening the cover.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Book Title: North <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Author Edith Pattou <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Pages Covered: 342-387

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Plot summary from last entry <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- Her and her friend whos name is Malmo decide to tackle the icy arctic in order to find the white bear <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- Rose gets attacked by a polar bear but Malmo helped her by talking to the bear spiritually and tells him where he can find some other food <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">- They spend weeks in this intense, cold weather when finally, they get to the icy bridge that leads to an ice castle in the land of Huldre which is where her friend thinks the Troll Queen took the white bear <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> -- Malmo has to leave her because she has spent more time without her people then she should have <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> -- Rose is left by herself to cross the ice bridge and using the tools that Malmo left for her, she crosses it and walks the short distance to a huge ice castle where the Queen lives. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> -- She builds herself a igloo and hides, watching and waiting for an opportunity <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> -- One day the trolls are brining in new human slaves into the castle so she blends in with them and finally gets into the castle

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">What plot twists or unexpected events happen as the novel goes on? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">In these pages that I've done for this entry, Rose gets attacked by a polar bear which is very ironic and kind of unexpected because she is searching for a polar bear that is totally different from the one who attacked her. The one she's searching for has human-like qualities while this one is just a plain polar bear. Either way, she is attacked by one when she is spending all her time and hard work getting to the other bear. Even though Malmo warned her that she was going to leave, I thought it would be earlier into the trip so after all the anticipating of her leaving and she didn't, I forgot about it. When she suddenly decided to leave, it was right before the most challenging part, which was crossing the ice bridge. Malmo knew that Rose would need all the help she could get, but she still left her by herself.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Is the novel believable? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Obviously, this story isn't literally believable because it's a fiction novel about trolls and talking polar bears that were once men. That isn't very logical, so I think it is safe to say that this story would not cause me to set out and find my own talking polar bear and battle fierce Troll Queens. There is also another component that is not believable. When Rose is on her journey to look for the white bear, she realizes that she loves him as more than a friend. That doesn't make sense to me because even though they spent almost a year with each other, their communication was very rare. He did visit her when she was at the loom and he did sleep in the same bed as her but all that combined is not, in my opinion, enough to make you love someone so much that you are going to travel all over the arctic, in search of them. So that part of the story is very unbelievable to me.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Why would you (or why wouldn't you) recommend this novel to a friend? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">To be brutally honest, I would never recommend East to a friend, not even to an enemy. The plot is very intriguing at times but the books' length and most of the content is just way to long and boring to really keep reading. I've read many books with page numbers far greater than the ones in this book so it's not the length that doesn't work, it's the length mixed with the content that really bugs me. I know that if Edith really wanted to, she could shorten the length of the book by almost it's half. Also, now that I've finished reading the book, I've realized that there really is no cause to the main conflict and nothing was solved spiritually and the main theme didn't really emerge from the conflict. Many of the choices Rose makes are irrational and consequences and unbelievable at times. For example: Rose built an igloo a flat field of snow and somehow, the Trolls didn't notice this round dome poking out of the ground which was obviously man-made. I read a lot and have gone through many good books, so that is one of the reasons I'm critiquing the book so hard. I would probably suggest to someone thinking of reading this book: if you know a good book, you wouldn't want to read this one.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Book title: North <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Author: Edith Pattou <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Pages Covered: 388-494 <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">In the last section of the book, Rose is finally reunited with her bear. Before that happens though there are some pretty important plot points that should be noted of: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">--In the castle, she pretends to be obedient and oblivious to her surroundings <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">-- She meets with Tuki again and she convinces him to get closer to the white bear, who is known as Myke at the castle <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">-- Using the knowledge of the words she's learned from Tuki before, she finds out that Myke is arranged to get married with the Troll Queen <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">-- Myke forgets that he doesn't want to marry the Troll Queen because they feed him this liquid called slank that taints with your memory and makes you uncertain of what's rational <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">-- Myke asked the Troll Queen if she could wash a stain out of his shirt because wifes are supposed to do that kind of stuff <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">-- Rose steps out from the crowd and the Queen recognizes her immediately but waits until Rose is done embarrassing herself and then she plans to kill her <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">-- Rose washes the stain out and the Queen was about to kill Rose when Tuki steps in the way. The queen recognized his betrayal and summed up heat from the sun and shot a bolt through him <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">--The bolt made a huge hole in the castle and then it began to collapse. Rose and Myke escape and run away from the ruin. Half way to the sea, they meet up with Rose's family who had been searching for her <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">-- They go back to the farm to live together and Myke remembers that his name was Charles and that he used to be a prince.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">What is the initial or first problem faced by the main character? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The first really big problem that Rose faces is when she finds out that she is actually a North-born child and has been lied to about it for her whole life. That really triggered her to believe that it was her destiny to go with the bear when he first came to her door. She was also mad at her parents because they didn't tell her, so part of the reason she left was also because she wanted to forget and move on from their betrayal. Because of this first initial problem that Rose faced, she dealt with it by leaving her family and kind of proving to them that she was always meant to the known as a North-born child. She proved that by leaving, and because of that choice she made, the whole story happened. If she had never of found out that she was really North-born, she might have not left with the bear.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">How are the major and minor conflicts solved? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The first problem she faced was learning that she was a north born child and she dealt with that by leaving her parents, who lied to her but also leaving because she wanted to prove that she will always have the adventurous qualities of a north child by agreeing to go on an unknown journey offered by the white bear. There was also the problem of her sister being really sick, which caused the big family to be stressed and they made many flight or fight decisions which sometimes are not the best option. That was solved by the bear because he promised that Rose's sister would get better if Rose agreed to go with him, which she did. It could also be a coincidence, but this is a fiction novel, so it was probably somehow the bear to made her sister well again. She had the obvious conflict with the Troll Queen and trying to defeat her and take her bear back. She didn't really solve that one. The Queen caused the falling of the castle, herself but if it wasn't for Rose stepping up in the ceremony, The Queen would have never blasted anyone with a powerful heat bolt, which was ultimately the end of the castle, and theoretically the Queen.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">What were the major things that helped to resolve the plot? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The major contributing factor (or character) that help resolve the plot was Tuki. If it wasn't for him, Rose would have no understanding of Huldre, which would not help her find out about the marriage. It was also Tuki who suggested to Myke that he should ask the Queen to wash the stain out from his shirt, giving Rose an opportunity to prove herself more worthy than the Queen. Rose could have easily chickened out of interrupting the ceremony, so her courage to rise and say something really influenced the ending. If she didn't rise, all of Rose's and Tuki's hard work would have been for nothing and Myke would be forever married to the Troll Queen. Rose's family also really contributed to the ending because by the time that Rose and Myke met up with them, they were almost dead from cold and exhaustion.