Author: Amelia

The Magicians Nephew is one of the seven books in the Chronicles of Narnia. Including The Magicians Nephew, which I have just read, I have read five of the seven books. I really enjoy these fantasy adventure books and I like how the author writes. I can always picture in my head what’s happening whilst reading. In this book, The Magicians Nephew, Digory (the nephew) and Polly become friends in London when Digory’s uncle (the magician which he does not realise yet) gives them magic rings which sends them into the ‘Wood between the Worlds’. In this wood, they can use the rings to travel to different world by jumping into one of the many ponds. When they enter one, they find themselves in a new world. They come across an old room in an abandoned stone courtyard with broken walls and pillars, and thought there were lots of people in the room at first, but they were portraits hung on the walls. The furthest left portraits looked like nice and friendly people, but the further they moved down the wall, the nastier the people were. At the very end, there was an image of a woman. She looked beautiful, but fierce. Digory and Polly determined that she was the queen. And beyond her, there were empty chairs as if there were meant to be more people. In the middle of the room, there was a table which they went over to inspect. Some foreign language was engraved on the stone which they could not understand at first. This is when I came across this passage of the book.

If only Digory had remembered what he himself had said a few minutes ago, that this was an enchanted room, he might have guessed that the enchantment was beginning to work. But he was too wild with curiosity to think about that. He was longer more and more to know what was written on the pillar. And very soon they both knew. What it said was something like this – at least this is the sense of it through the poetry, when you read it there, was better:

Make your choice adventurous Stranger;

Strike the bell and bide the danger,

Or wonder, till it drives you mad,

What would have followed if you had (p. 35)

After reading this, they got into a quarrel because Polly did not with to continue but Digory did. At last, Digory hit the bell with the hammer, which was the choice they had to make to find out what would happen, and it were like a mini earthquake had happened. The room was filled with such loud noise and rumbling. Once it had stopped, at the end of the room where the image of the cruel woman had been, had come alive.

I chose this passage because I find it an important part of the story to learn how the queen came to be which will start Narnia and give readers a better understanding of how the story starts. Because of what happened here, they entered (unknowingly) into the land of Narnia by entering the wrong pond and then they got to watch it be created by Aslan which will be the start of the real adventures for anyone who comes across Narnia by mistake, which will be in the other books.

Tally and Shay are now officially specials. Dr. Cable had them do the operation at the end of the book, Pretties. In this book, Specials, so far it follows Tally as a special, who is trying to find the source of where the pills are coming from which apparently turn people back to thinking for themselves again. She and Shay find their friend who they haven’t seen since their new operations, and he looks completely different to them now in a bad way, even though he has not changed, they have. After he leaves, I came across this paragraph which is a private conversation between Shay and Tally.

“What did Dr. Cable do to us, Shay? Do we have some kind of special lesions in our brains? Something that makes everything else look pathetic? Like we’re better than them?” “We are better than them, Tally-wa!” Shay’s eyes shone like coins, reflecting the lights of New Pretty Town. “The operation gives us the clarity to see that. That’s why everyone else looks confused and pitiful, because that’s how most people are.” (p. 92-93)

(…) “But you and I can smell an unwashed human from a kilometre away, a burnt-out campfire from ten. We can see in the dark and hear better than bats.” Her sneak suit flickered to night black. “We can make ourselves invisible and move without a sound. Think about it, Tally-wa.” (p. 98)

Tally seems to be the only one who thinks something happened during the operation that changed how special’s view people, which I think is true as well. Whereas Shay believes that specials are better than everyone. She backs this up with evidence when acknowledging how much better their senses are now. I chose this because I find it an important part for the readers to understand how different specials are from everyone else.

The book Specials by Scott Westerfeld is the third book in a series of four. IRJE #1 was about the second book, and now I have moved onto reading the third book. I have just started reading this book and haven’t even finished the first chapter but so far, the key event that I clued into was that Tally is now a Special, or Special Circumstance. Specials are a modified ‘superhuman’ version of a pretty who can resist the effects of the lesions. Most Pretties who were very tricky in their ugly life became specials. Tally is feeling better, and her memories are sharp and can be remembered now. Tally isn’t a regular special though, she is part of a group of 16 with her best friend Shay, called the Cutters. They are separated from the rest of the specials and prefer to do missions alone. The Cutters went to an uglies party to try and find a Smokie (city Uglies who escaped the operation). This is when I found this paragraph.

The crowd parted easily, everyone sliding out of her way. However zitty and uneven their faces, the uglies’ eyes were sharp, full of nervous stabs of awareness. They were smart enough to sense that the three Cutters were different. No one stared for too long at Tally or realized what she was behind her smart-plastic mask, but bodies moved aside at her lightest touch, shivers playing across their shoulders as she passed, as if the uglies sensed something dangerous in the air.

It was easy seeing the thoughts ripple across their faces. Tally could watch the jealousies and hatreds, rivalry and attraction, all of it written on their expressions and in the way they moved. Now that she was a special, everything was laid out clearly, like looking down on a forest path from above. (p. 9)

This quotation shows that now Tally is a Special, she can think much clearer than ever before. She seems to enjoy being part of the Special Circumstances now, even though she didn’t want to become one in the first place. It probably helps that Shay is there as well and that they formed their own tight group of 16 called the Cutters. When I read this section, it seems to me that Tally, as well as the other Specials, have very keen and sharp senses now. They are starting to see their life around them in a different way. Before when they were Pretties, they found it hard to remember and think for themselves because they couldn’t. The lesions that the operation puts in their brains stopped them from doing what makes you human. But when Tally managed to brake away from that state of mind and think for herself all by herself, the Special Circumstances noticed and knew that Tally should become one of them. Because no one should be able to resist the effects of the lesions, which made Tally special.

The book Pretties by Scott Westerfeld is the second book in the Uglies book series, which comprises of four books, Uglies, Pretties, Specials, and Extras. In this series, at age 16, you are turned from an ugly into a pretty with plastic surgery. After being turned into a pretty, late because she ran away to the New Smoke in the first book, Tally finds it hard to remember her old life back in Ugly Ville. Every pretty has this problem. During chapters 8 and 9, Tally and her friend find a note that was written to herself from her old ugly self, and two small white pills with it. She reads it to herself, and one section of the letter says this:

But anyways, here’s what I’m trying to tell you: They did something to your brain – our brain – and that’s why this letter may seem kind of weird to you. We (that’s “we” as in us out in the New Smoke, not “we” as in you and me) don’t know exactly how it works, but we’re pretty sure that something happens to everyone who has the operation. When they make you pretty, they also add these lesions (tiny scars, sort of) to your brain. It makes you different, and not in a good way. Look in the mirror, Tally. If you’re pretty, you’ve got them. (p. 84)

Of course, Tally does not remember writing this letter to herself, but they realise that they were right about the operation. As she continues to read, they discover that there is a cure, and taking the pills that were with the letter will fix her brain. I have only read that far so far, so I don’t know if she will take them. I thought this quotation was important in the book because it proves that the operation to make people pretty, messes with your brain and makes you forget your childhood life. It stood out to me because Tally couldn’t remember that she wrote that letter, and discovers she was right all along.