Yappy Super Reading Blog

   Some call it football, some call it soccer, and to others it's 'the beautiful game'. By any name, it's a sport with some fasxinating stories. There is murder in Colombia, and a game that lasts for two days where many players never see the ball. There's the French writer who learnt lessons about life from playing football, and the women players who had to leave the club grounds because 'Women's football isn't nice'.    The cups, the leagues, the World Cup finals, the stars, the rules - they're all a part of the world's favourite sport, the beautiful game. Flinders, Steve. (2009). The Beautiful Game. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

   For a child in the great city of Venice in the thirteenth century, there could be nothing better than the stories of sailors. There were stories of strange animals, wonderful cities, sweet spices, and terrible wild deserts where a traveller could die. One young boy listened, waited, and dreamed. Perhaps one day his father and uncle would return. Perhaps he too could travel with them to great markets in faraway places. For young Marco Polo, later the greatest traveller of his time, a dangerous, exciting world was waiting...    Niccolo and Maffeo Polo were Marco Polo's father and uncle and they belonged to a family of merchants from the city of Venice. When they traveled to other countries as merchants, Marco was born but Marco's mother died. After so many years, Niccolo and Maffeo returned to Venice. Niccolo understand that his wife was dead and he had a fifteen-year-old son then. Niccolo met his 'new' son and Marco met his 'new' father.    After some year

    Marilla Cuthbert and her brother Matthew want to adopt an orphan, to help on the farm at Green Gables. They ask for a boy, but they get Anne, who has red hair and freckles, and who talks and talks and talks.    They didn't want a girl, but how can they send a child back, like an unwanted parcel? So Anne stays, and begins a new life in the sleepy, quiet village of Avonlea in Canada.    But it is not so quiet after Anne comes to live there... Montgomery, L.M. (1994). Anne of Green Gables. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

①    When you stand on the Golden Gate Bridge and look east across the San Francisco Bay, you can see an island. It is very small, but everybody knows its name. It's Alcatraz. Every year, more than 1.4 million visitors visit this place. ②    AlcatrazAlcatraz Island first became an important prison in 1907. At this time, it was only a prison for soldiers. Then, in the 1930s, the U.S. government needed a place for the most dangerous people in the country - people from wild cities like Chicago or New York. They thought nobody would be able to escape from the island of Alcatraz.

   There, on top of the mushroom, was a large caterpillar, smoking a pipe. After a while the Caterpillar took the pipe out of its mouth and said to Alice in a slow, sleepy voice, 'Who are you?'    What strange things happen when Alice falls down the rabbit-hole and into Wonderland! She has conversations with the Caterpillar and the Cheshire Cat, goes to the Mad Hatter's tea party, plays croquet with the King and Queen of Hearts... Carroll, Lewis. (1994). Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Oxford: Oxford University Press