Best Kids Books

5 Comments

1. George Nilsen
   Posted November 30, 1999 at 4:46 am | Permalink

   Finally actually read it

   I was “required” to read this in High School. Twenty+ years later, I am glad that I finally did.

   Paris today is a nice place to visit compared to the late Eighteenth Century, during the Revolution. You could be arrested and condemned to death under the guillotine for mere suspicion of Anti-republican behavior. That and the mockery of law of the pseudo-trials which condemned people to death following a “denouncement” sort reminds me of our own American ancien regime.

   The English, and the English system of government is portrayed as flawed but far superior to the mockery of the French system pre and post Republicanism. Think of the arrest and trial of Darnay in England. He was arrested for treason, and the method of execution (described in detail by Dickens) for that, should he have been found guilty, was far worse than being guillotined. However, under English law, Darnay was allowed the counsel of lawyers and was at least allowed to present witnesses to the bar, even for one of the worst offenses to the government, treason. In pre-revolution France, Dr. Manette was locked up in the Bastille for eighteen years for offending a nobleman, without any trial. In post-revolution France, you could be arrested, given a mock trial by revolutionaries without access to counsel or witnesses, and condemned to death for petty offenses or for just being a member of the nobility.

   Madame Defarge has to be one of the most evil women to ever appear in literature. She is single-mindedly obsessed with putting to the guillotine every last nobleman and woman in France. As another female figure of evil, Lady Macbeth, complains her husband is “too full o’ the milk of human kindness,” Madame Defarge complains her husband is too soft to plot the execution of the Manette women. Defarge is like Lady Macbeth in the respect of being without feelings towards others. Because Lucie Manette makes the appeal to Madame Defarge to save her husband “O sister-woman, think of me,” Madame Defarge singles her out for later vengeance. She frostily replies “Judge you! Is it likely that the trouble of one wife and mother would be much to us now?”

   The battle scene between Miss Pross and Madame Defarge ends with Pross victorious and Defarge dead, with much staring down but little actual violence. I don’t think Pross capable of having enough strength to squeeze the life out of that wicked woman by the abdomen. Dicken’s declares the defeat was because “love conquers hatred”. What utter nonsense. This is the weakest part of the book.

   Sidney Carlton, the man who sacrificed himself to save Darnay, was previously a drunkard. He barely had a life. Was he desperately searching for meaning in it, and then when he found it, died for it? Did Carlton suddenly become a Christ-like figure, sacrificing his life to save others? The argument can be made due to his vagabond lifestyle and occasional gifted insight.
   

2. Caleb Wachsmuth
   Posted November 30, 1999 at 5:47 am | Permalink

   An Instant Classic

   A Tale of Two of Two Cities is a great story and was an instant classic. A very famous quote from this book is “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” If you have read this book you should know this quote by heart.
   
   I really liked this book with all of the suspense and the heroics, but some parts were confusing. The beginning of the book starts off slow and somewhat confusing, but as I read on I caught on to the gist of the story and then couldn’t put it down. Each chapter ending in a cliffhanger I found myself saying one more chapter after I finished each one.
   
   Charles Dickens was an ingenious author. He wrote many classics and knew how to make stories come together in a great way. He wrote A Tale of Two Cities after he wrote an unsuccessful book, but it just shows that he was persistent and kept going even when things weren’t so great. He fought through all of that and wrote a great book and it became a classic.
   
   The vocabulary in this book was very complex and I had to look up many of the words in the dictionary, but it didn’t get in the way. If I found a word that I didn’t know I just looked it up, found out what it meant, and then kept reading. It really didn’t get in the way, but it happened throughout the book.
   
   Overall, this was a very well written book. It had many positives to it and had only a couple negatives. The only problem I see with it is younger readers would have trouble comprehending what is going on throughout the book. This was an enjoyable book to read and I would read it again.
   

3. Judy A. Humphrey
   Posted November 30, 1999 at 7:09 am | Permalink

   Classic

   Tis’ a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done before, by
   
   rating this book perfect!

4. K. Josic
   Posted November 30, 1999 at 8:21 am | Permalink

   excellent in every way

   I did not find this an easy book to get into. Dickens usually packs
   
   his novels full of colorful characters, but the ones I have read
   
   before always had a central one which serves as an anchor to the story.
   
   Here I felt adrift for the first 50 pages or so. But what happens then
   
   is quite remarkable – everything comes together and starts making
   
   sense, and keeps on making more sense until the last page.

   Dickens was a true master, not just of the language, but also of
   
   structure. I will not be giving much away if I say that much of
   
   what happens later in the book is foreshadowed in previous chapters.

   Overall, a classic that is a real pleasure to read, and one that
   
   I will return to again.

5. Ryan Young
   Posted November 30, 1999 at 3:59 pm | Permalink

   A masterful work

   Dickens is hands down a master of the english language and in this, one of his cornerstone works, he is at his best. From the subtle motifs to the incredible character development this work spans the entire scale of literary development and will involve the reader in a gripping story that they will want to read and re-read.