311. Frozen Fiasco.

This is the latest book of the Thea Sisters.  In this story, the latest mystery book of a famous writer, Vigmar Ratsson was being sold.  All the mouselings of Mouseford Academy were in the bookstore, trying to buy a copy of the book.

The Thea Sisters – Colette, Nicky, Pamela, Paulina and Violet – were a huge fan of Vigmar Ratsson.  The writer’s motherland was Iceland.  They remember their friends, Roska and Arna from Iceland and e-mail them, asking them how they were and if they liked Vigmar Ratsson’s books.

They get an e-mail back from Roska and Arna, inviting them to Iceland.  So, the five of them pack their bags and go to Iceland.  Their friends meet them there and take them on a tour of the place.  The Thea Sisters were surprised to hear that Vigmar Ratsson was Roska and Arna’s uncle. 

The next day was the reading of his latest book ‘The Volcano Chase’.  Everybody, including the Thea Sisters, Roska, Arna and their friend Stefan, were waiting for the writer, but he did not come there till the end.  The program got cancelled and everybody became worried.

Roska and Arna said that if there was any program featuring their uncle, he would be sure to be there and would never be late.  So, the Thea Sisters, Roska, Arna and Stefan plan to find out where the writer was.

At first, they went to his house – a wooden one with many plants on top – and to their astonishment, they find the door half opened.  Someone had cracked the lock.  Inside, his rooms were ransacked.  They were sure that whoever ransacked it had been searching for the manuscript of his latest novel ‘The Black Tide’.  But, the writer had been sure to hide it safely somewhere.

He had left clues for them to find him.  His clues were brilliant.  With each clue, there was a USB drive, which had a chapter from the upcoming book.  Violet, being the bookworm of the group, read the chapters and explained them to her friends.  His book was based on ecological mystery.

And finally, they all found where he was.  When they were getting closer, two rats captured them and locked them inside a dark room.  Those rats told that if only the friends gave them the USB drives containing the chapters would they let them go.  But when the friends refused, the rats locked them up in a dark room.  Inside the room, they found Vigmar Ratsson.

He explained that he wanted to do some research on ecology and the threats to the environment, when the criminal rats caught him and locked him up.  The friends also find Bryndis, the writer’s editor, who too had wanted to get hold of the manuscript.  She had been following the friends on their journey and now, she also was trapped along with them.

Suddenly, Orri, a journalist who had always followed the eight friends for the manuscript, opened the door.  He told that even though they told him not to follow them, he still followed them and found out that they were trapped.  So, everyone planned to trap the two criminal rats.  They called out to the rats saying, ‘We will give you the manuscript, if you free us.’

When the rats came to receive the manuscript, the friends push the two rats inside, lock the door and escape.  After the police had taken their statement, everybody was free to go.

It was parting time.  The Thea Sisters were a little sad to leave Iceland and their friends.  They came back to Mouseford Academy and one day, in the middle of their class, the postmouse interrupted and gave a package for the Thea Sisters.  When they opened, they were surprised to see that they got five brand – new copies of the new book ‘The Black Tide’.  Inside the book, in the page 125, there was a surprise for them.  They were five of the characters in the book.  In the note attached to the package, the writer had written that without the Thea Sisters, he would not have been able to write and publish this book, and so, as a token of thanks, he had made the five of them characters in the book.  The Thea Sisters were excited and happy that they have helped someone.

                                    

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310. 'Dork Diaries': Skating Sensation.

This is the fourth book of the ‘Dork Diaries’ series.  This book was awesome.  Nikki Maxwell writes all her experiences in her ‘Dork’ diary.  She has three friends, Chloe, Zoey and Brandon.  A mean girl, Mackenzie Hollister, always picks on her.

This book started with Nikki’s gym teacher announcing a skating competition called ‘Holiday on Ice’ to raise funds for charity.  Each team has to choose a charity to raise funds for.  Mackenzie was participating in the singles skating event and brags that so many charities are begging her to skate for them.  But, Nikki, Chloe and Zoey, who form a team, have still not found a charity.

Just then, Brandon informs Nikki that he was volunteering to work for a pet charity after called ‘Fuzzy Friends’.  The charity was in need of money.  So, the trio decide to skate for them.

Nikki visits the place with Brandon one day and loves all the pups there.  But, unfortunately, a couple of days later, they found out that the owner of the place, Phil Smith, broke his leg and was in the hospital.  His wife, Betty Smith, was not able to manage the place single – handedly and they were planning to close it.

Nikki visit Betty in person and explains to her all about the skating competition and how they have planned to skate for them.  Betty was very grateful and she told that, if they don’t have any money to run the place, they would soon close it and move to Florida.  This would affect their grandson too.

When Nikki was going home, she found a boy playing with some dogs in the charity’s backyard and thought that she recognized him.  When the boy suddenly turned, Nikki found that it was Brandon!!  That’s why he was so keen on helping the animals in the charity and raising funds for it. 

Nikki did not want to let down Brandon, so she decided to skate for the charity, even though she could not skate at all.  There were two practice sessions before the big event, which would be monitored by a professional figure – skater, Victoria Steel.  She was so strict, that during practice sessions, if anybody falls down during their skating routine, she would reject them from the event.

Fortunately, Nikki, Chloe and Zoey made it through the practice sessions, by distracting the judge and giving all sorts of excuses.  The big day had come.  The prize was $3000.  Additionally, $10000 would go to the team which was crowd favorite.

The trio were to be dressed up as fairies.  Their costumes had been selected by the costume director.  But, when they went somewhere and came back, their three fairy costumes were replaced by three ugly clown costumes and clown wigs.  Nikki immediately found out that it was Mackenzie’s stupid prank.  Still, they did not lose hope and wore those clown outfits.

Soon, they got a note that their costumes had been found and are told to come to a certain locker to collect their costumes.  When the three of them enter the locker, they realize that it was a trap because someone had locked the door behind them.  Only Chloe had her cell phone with her, so she tried to contact their parents, but no one picked the call.

Suddenly, Nikki remembered that her phone was in the dressing room and her little sister, Brianna, was begging to play games in her phone.  Nikki knew that Brianna would still be around her phone, trying to snatch it.  So, Nikki told Chloe to call her phone and within five rings, Brianna picked the call and asked them where they were.  She also told that Brandon was there.  So, Nikki told Brianna to give the phone to Brandon and when Brandon got the phone, she explained everything to him and when she was about to tell him to rescue them, the phone went off without battery.

The three of them thought that they won’t be able to participate in the event, but just then, the door opened and to their surprise, Brandon and Brianna were standing there.  Nikki, Chloe and Zoey thanked both of them for rescuing them and hurried to the event.

In the event, the first show was Mackenzie's routine.  She performed beautifully and Nikki thought that she would be the crowd favorite.  The next show was the trio’s routine.  Just then Nikki got a brilliant idea.

Nikki did not know to skate.  When she did her first movement itself, she fell down.  She thought that Victoria Steel, the judge, would shout at her and asked them to leave the place.  But, to their surprise, the crowd was laughing and Victoria did not shout at them.  Nikki realized that they were wearing clown costumes and the job of clowns was to make people laugh.

They did their routine very funnily, with the three of them falling down and bumping into each other very often.  At the end of the routine, there was a surprise for everyone.  Brianna jumped out from a box, like a jumping jack.  This was Nikki’s brilliant idea.  The crowd gave them a standing ovation.  When the results were announced, they were shocked to hear that they were the crowd favorite and got the $10000 cash prize, while Mackenzie, being only the winner, got only $3000.

Brandon was also very happy.  Somehow, the four friends had helped Fuzzy Friends charity to function again.  I liked this book very much. 

                                                      

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309. The Boss Baby.

This was a wonderful movie.  Babies are made somewhere above in the sky.  Babies who are ticklish go to families, and babies who are not ticklish go to another place called ‘MANAGEMENT’ where they are dressed in coats and given suitcases.  There are millions of babies like this and they all are given assignments to do in the Earth.  The Boss Baby and his gang of Management friends are also given a job.  That job is to stop the development because people want pets more than babies.  So, the population of babies is lesser than the population of puppies.  The Boss Baby and his gang was going to stop this development.

Meanwhile, on the Earth, a boy called Tim Templeton was living happily with his parents.  He couldn’t ask for better parents.  His parents gave everything he wants and did everything he wishes.  When his dad asks him if he wants a brother, he says ‘no’.  But, the next day, Boss Baby comes to their house in a taxi, which is sent form the baby – manufacturing centre in the sky.  The Baby can talk like a man.  He acts like a baby in front of the parents, but like a man in front of Tim.  Tim hates the Baby and wants to get rid of him.

One day, Tim decides to record Boss Baby’s man – voice and give it to his parents.  His parents gave a lot of attention to the Baby rather than Tim and he does not like this.  The next day, the Baby’s gang of Management friends come to his house for Play Day.  They all can also talk like adults, but act like babies to their parents.  They all plan the way to get into the place where more puppies are being produced and how to stop the development.  To his luck, Boss Baby finds out that the parents work in the Puppy – manufacturing company. 

Tim records all this when he ran to his parents to show them, Boss Baby and his friends attack him.  At last, Tim decides to throw Boss Baby out the window.  And when he was about to do it, his parents find him and Tim ends up throwing the tape out the window.

Then, Boss Baby explains to Tim why he and his friends are here and also tells that if Tim helped him with his assignment he would go back to the sky.  And Tim agrees.

It was ‘Bring Your Kids To Work’ Day in Tim’s parents’ workplace.  His parents take him and Boss Baby to the company and let them play in the play area.  But both of them go into the puppy manufacturing place and steal the document which contains the secret formula for producing puppies.

But, suddenly, the owner of the company, Francis Francis and his body guard capture Tim and Boss Baby.  To Tim’s surprise, Boss Baby recognizes Francis Francis.  He was one of the Bosses in the Management centre.  In that centre, if the Bosses do not finish their assigments within a certain time, they are fired and sent to Family, where they are like all normal babies and do not remember any incident from the Management centre.  Francis Francis was also fired and sent to Family, but he remembers everything.  To take revenge, he invented a formula that makes puppies live forever.

When Tim and Boss Baby decide to stop it,  Francis Francis kidnaps their parents, put them in a box and lock them up.  Both the children overcome all the obstacles and finally rescue the parents and stop the development of Everlasting Puppies.

The time came for Tim and Boss Baby to finally bid goodbye to each other.  Both of them become sad but do not express it.  Up in the sky, Boss Baby gets promoted because he finished his assignment successfully.  Down on the Earth, Tim gets back the happy life alone with his parents.  But, both of them are still sad.  Alien – like creatures that come from the sky erase his parents’ memory of Boss Baby, so they don’t remember anything about him and even that he existed.

Tim gets and idea.  He writes a letter to Boss Baby telling him to come back to Earth as a normal baby.  So, Boss Baby goes to the place where babies are seperated into Management or Family, shows his tickle spot (his leg) and comes back to Tim’s place as a normal baby.  The parents name him Ted Templeton.  So, they all live happily ever after.

                                   

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308. Leap!

This movie was about an orphan girl who turned into a ballerina.  Her name was Felicie.  She wanted to dance.  She and her friend, Victor, also wanted to escape from their orphanage.  Finally, they managed to escape and went to Paris.  There, both of them were separated.  Victor accidentally fell into a ship, and the ship took off into the sea.  Felicie wandered in the streets of Paris, and at last, she came to the Opera, a very big school of ballet dance.  Only girls who got the letter from the Opera and allowed to study dance there.  Felicie meets Odette, the servant of a rich lady, Mrs. Le Haut.  Odette was a dancer at first, but suddenly, while dancing, there was a fire onstage and it damaged one of her legs.  So, now she was the servant.

The daughter of Mrs. Le Haut, Camille, was a very arrogant girl, who always insulted Felicie.  She also told Felicie that she was going to get the letter from the Opera soon.  So, when the letter came, Felicie took it, and she went to the Opera, telling everyone that she was Camille and studied dance there.  She was full of energy.  Instead of dancing ballet, she was doing some other kind of very energetic dance.  The dance master told that out of the ten girls in the class, each one will be eliminated and the girl who is not eliminated till the end, gets to dance as Clara in the Nutcracker, a very famous ballet dance.  But soon, Camille finds out that Felicie took her letter and so she and her mother went to complain. 

But the dance master told that both Felicie and Camille and allowed to dance.  At the last, both of them were the only ones who were not eliminated.  When Camille again insulted Felicie, both of them started a dance fight, and each of them danced her best.  The last step, which had the big leaping step, was very difficult.  Felicie did it bravely and she got the part in the Nutcracker.

But, Camille’s mother became very angry and wanted to beat up Felicie.  She climbed the top of a tower, with Mrs. Le Haut following her.  But, she had come to the end and she was about to fall down.  Her leg slipped too.  But Victor, who invents flying machines, comes out of nowhere and rescues Felicie.  In the end, Felicie plays the part of Clara perfectly well.  This was a very nice movie and I liked it.

                                                    

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307. Trip to Ooty - Part 1.

17.04.2017 (Monday) was an exciting day.  It was the day on which we were going to go OOTY!  I had never been there before.  For going there, I had purchased a nice blue – colored jerkin.  I also wanted to buy a blue cut – shoe, but the shop was closed every time I went there.  I love the color blue, that’s why I am buying everything in blue. 

We boarded the KPN bus that went to Ooty at 9:00pm.  It was very hot.  A few minutes after boarding the bus, I slept off, and I got up only the next morning at 7:30am. 

When I climbed down the bus, it felt very cold, unlike the scorching heat in Chennai.  An auto came to pick us up and we went to our hotel, Haveli Atithi Bhavan.  Then I brushed my teeth, took bath in hot water, dressed up and went down to the hotel.  There, I drank only coffee.

After sometime, our driver, who was a malayalee (like us), took us to the different places in Ooty.

At first, we went to the Pine Forest.  It was a very nice experience there.  There were many tourists.  It was a very slope - y place.  I was scared whether I’d fall down.  We took many pictures.  There was also a lake, but it was small.  We went horse – riding.  It was very nice there.

Then we went to Pykara lake and Pykara dam.  There were sheep and dogs and horses there.

The path we were travelling by car was a forest.  There was a road in the middle.  Then, we went to another dam.  We went by an eight - seater jeep.  It was very nice.

We ate lunch and then we came to Dodda Betta.  We ate ice - creams.  But it started to rain there.  We went to the Tea Factory.  We saw how tea is manufactured.  It was fascinating.  There were many kinds of tea, including white tea and chocolate tea!  I did not know this.  Then, we went to the chocolate factory.  But, there was no place where chocolate was made.  Only a shop.  We bought truffles and plain chocolate.  The truffles were yummy.  So I bought another packet, but finished that also on the same day.

But, it started to rain a little heavily after that.  So, we came back to the hotel.  Thus, our first day in Ooty was over.

                                           

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306. Best Translator Award.

Today, 25.4.2017, was an amazing day.  Today, I was going to get the State Award for Best Translator  for the year 2016 from the CM, Edappadi K Pazhaniswamy!!  Yesterday, many of my father’s friends called and wished me.  At 8:00 am today, we reached Tamil Valarchi Iyakkagam in Egmore.  I was wearing a green lehanga.  There, we waited for sometime.  There were 10 of us who were getting the Best Translator Award, and I was the youngest of them all.

After sometime, the people in Tamil Valarchi Iyakkagam themselves took the 10 of us and our families to the Secretariat, where we will be receiving our awards.  They told that only the people who were getting the awards should go inside the room.  The others, that is, our families, should wait outside.  Inside the room, they made us sit in order.  I was sitting beside Uma Balu aunty, who translated an English book, which is the biography of Steve Jobs into Tamil.  We became friends and took photos.

Then, we had a practice session, of how we will receive the award for the CM.  Then we again went into the room.  After sometime, they called us for the real award distribution.  I was a little nervous.  I was not VERY nervous, because I did not need to make a speech in front of the people, as there was very less time and a lot of awards to give out.  When my turn came, I greeted the CM and he put a green colored shawl around me.  Then he gave me my award.  There was also a cheque of 1 lakh rupees!!  It was inside a leather pouch, which was stuck to the front of the award with cellotape.  It also had a small photo of Dr. J. Jayalalitha.

When I came out of the hall, all the people, half of whom I don’t even know, came and wished me.  They told that to do something difficult like translating books in my age (12 years) was because of God’s blessing.  Then, I came out of the building and again went back to Tamil Valarchi Iyakkagam.

We had lunch.  My father told that, as I did not have a bank account of my own, the 1 lakh rupees cheque has to be changed to my mother’s name (which was already in my name) in order to put it in her account.  When we were waiting for the new cheque, the award function came in the news in Jaya Plus channel for two times.  As soon as we got the cheque, we came home.  It was a wonderful experience today, and I will write more books and get more awards like this.

                                   

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305. Zootopia.

This movie tells all about trying always.  Judy Hopps, a bunny, wants to become a police officer.  But, other big animals make fun of her and tell that small animals like her can’t become cops.  But, she tries hard and becomes a police officer.  But in her workplace, she gets the job of a metermaid, who puts tickets on carks parked illegally.  Then, she befriends a nice fox named Nicholas Wilde, who is not violent like other foxes.  But, an otter comes to her workplace and tells her chief that her husband is missing for the part 10 days.  When the Chief delays it, Judy takes up the responsibility.  The chief gives Judy 48 hours to find the otter.  She and her friend Nicholas (Nick), find out the last place where the missing otter was.  It was in the car of a rat named mr. Big.  The driver says that suddenly the otter became violent, attacked him and ran away.  But, immediately, the driver, who was a jaguar, also becomes violent and chases Judy and Nick.  But they escape.  Then, with the help of CCTV cameras, which were there in the place where they were attacked, both of them find where the violent animals went.  It was a hospital – like place, where 15 violent animals were kept.  Someone was talking about Night Howlers attacking the 15 animals to make them violent.  Judy and Nick think that Night Howlers are wolves, because they howl at night.  Even though she finds the violent animals out and the chief is happy, she resigns her job and goes back to her home, which is near a carrot farm.

 

But then, her father told her about flowers called Night Howlers.  His brother touched them and became violent.  That was the time that Judy realises that Night Howlers aren’t wolves, but flowers.  She goes back to Nick and her job, and finds the animal which collected Night Howlers from a weasel called Duke Weaselton, who knows nothing other than money.  The animal was a ram, named Doug.  Judy and Nick get all the Night Howlers and bring them back as evidence to show to the chief.

But then, the mayor of Zootopia, Dawn Bellweather, who all along acts like a sweet sheep to Judy, comes to them and tries to get the flowers.  But, Judy has a recording pen.  It can be used to record what people say.  She records whatever Bellwether tells and within a few minutes, all the cops in the city come to the place and arrest Bellwether and her cronies.  At the end, Nick also becomes a cop and the chief finally gives them a big job to do.  I loved this movie very much and am waiting for its second part to come, maybe in 2018.