Sunday, May 24, 2026

This Week in Booktube: May 24, 2026
(These are the Booktube videos I watched this week. As always, I encourage you also to check out each of the videos I've linked to down below.  Support Booktube.  And let me know what you've watched this past week.)

Google document: docs, pub

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Animal Farm (1954): Movie Review



This is part of my so-called "Scripted Review" series, in which I make a Youtube video based on an old blogpost.  For more information on what this is and why I'm doing it, see HERE:



Addendum:  The Youtube comments I complain about in this video are actually part of the same comment thread I mentioned in this post.  In reply to my comment that great books are not necessarily apolitical, someone wrote:
Yes the new animated children's movie Orwell's "Animal Farm" suggests that Socialism will work just fine if we can only get the right people in office.  To add insult to injury, the Angel Studios production also suggests that Capitalism is bad and perverts Orwell's intent and warning about totalitarianism.
I should have let this go, but the assertion that Orwell's message was perverted by the suggestion that capitalism is bad just was so wrong that I couldn't resist correcting it.  So I wrote:
But you know George Orwell was a socialist, right?
And he replied: 
Right. Who better to warn of the dangers therein?
I wasn't so sure he got it, but I decided to let it go.
Only until he went and fought in the Spanish Civil War and realised what a false economy (pun intended) socialism is. 
That's when he wrote Animal Farm. In other words, he lived in the world, then started to critique and severely moderate his ideology in response to reality. You know, like an intelligent adult does.
Okay, well at least now we have pinpointed the exact nature of the error in need of correcting.  So I attempted to do some correcting:
That's a popular misconception.  I encourage you to do a bit more research on Orwell's politics.  Possibly start with a collection of his essays. Maybe reread Animal Farm again.  You can also google what were Orwell's politics, or read the wikipedia entry.   Orwell was disillusioned in Spain not with the economics of Socialism, but with the way many socialists supported totalitarianism.  He wrote about this in Homage to Catalonia, which is a book  well worth reading.  
But the best place to start is "Why I Write", an essay in which Orwelll discusses among other things why he wrote Animal Farm.  You can find this essay online.  Orwell states in the essay "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism"
She never replied to this, but the original guy returned to write:
Yes remember the same people who said Biden was sharp as a tack are the same ones who now try to tell us that Animal Farm has been misread and misinterpreted.  They also say that political violence and assassination are better than voting.  Remember, all literary criticism is equal, but some is more equal than others.
No one in this comment thread had previously mentioned Joe Biden or voting or political violence, etc.  So his brain has obviously been fried by rightwing memes on social media, and whenever he gets into any sort of political debate, he can't help but just shout out the memes he's absorbed.  That he should be doing this in a discussion about Orwell is an irony that is apparently beyond him.  (Orwell despised the type of person who could only dialogue by repeating slogans.  He complained about this frequently throughout his writing, and also lampooned this with the sheep in Animal Farm.)
I decided there was no value in continuing this discussion, but as you can see from the fact that I'm writing about it here, it did get under my skin somewhat.
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Saturday, May 23, 2026

Animal Farm by George Orwell: Reminiscing and Discussing


Started: April 19, 2026
(I actually finished this book a few days after starting it, but I've been waiting to post the video.)

This is a reread.  I've read this book several times before, and I've mentioned this book on this blog before here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.  But I've never reviewed it on this blog before, so I figured it was time to read it one more time, and give it a proper review.




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Friday, May 22, 2026

Matching Cards for CVC words with -ig


Google: docs, pub

I use these cards in several stages.
I start out with some of the alphabet cards from this previous activity.  I take the "I" card, and ask students what sound it makes.  Then I take the "G" sound, and ask what sound it makes, and then put the two cards together, and try to get students to tell me the sound.
I then take out several consonants, and get the students to tell me the sound, and then put these consonants together with the -IG to make different words, helping students to sound them out.  
At this point I put out the picture cards, and as we do different CVC -IG words, I get students to identify the pictures.  
Once all the words and pictures have been identified, then we play a memory card game to match the words and pictures.  
Lastly, I put away the word cards, and just show students the pictures.  The students have to write down the word on their mini-white boards.

fig

big

dig

gig

wig

jig

zig

pig

rig


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-ig Word Family (CVC words)



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The Flames of Rome by Paul L. Maier: Book Review


Started: April 3, 2026

This is a reread.  I read this book before when I was in high school, as I've mentioned before on this blog here, here, here and here.










I was able to read this book thanks to the Michigan statewide state-wide interlibrary loan service called MeLCat, which may be in danger thanks to a Presidential executive order.  If you, like me, enjoy using MeLCat, contact your local representatives and let them know. 
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Thursday, May 21, 2026

Started: Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater
(This is a reread.  It was read to me when I was in 1st grade.)
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Ocean Animals Vocabulary

(TESOL Materials--Animals)

* Slideshow: slides, pub

[Note: These are all materials that I used to supplement the lesson The Ocean p.114-115 from Oxford Picture Dictionary Content Areas for Kids, and the specific choice of vocabulary in the storybook is influenced by that lesson.   But I believe this material could also be used independently for any lesson on animal vocabulary, so I'm posting it here.]

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Started: Superman: Exile
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Stroll Down Center Street through Downtown Douglas, Douglas City (Spring): Guide to West Michigan

(Travelogues--West Michigan)



Included in this video:
Saugatuck Douglas History Center:  130 W Center St, Douglas, MI 49406
Back-In-Time Garden
Douglas Union School Historical Marker
Douglas Village Clerk: 86 W Center St, Douglas, MI 49406

See also:

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