Jall's Blog

                    Binti is a science fiction novella written by Nnedi Okorafor. It follows main character, Binti, who is the first person from her community to be accepted into Oomza Uni, an extremely prestigious university that is in space. Although Binti was immensely eager to go to this university, her family and community disapproved of her leaving home and going there as the Himba traditionally don’t travel far from their home. Despite this, Binti secretly left home to pursue her academic dreams even though she knew her family and community would not be happy and would talk bad about her decision.              After departing from Earth on the spaceship that would take the students to Oomza Uni, the Meduse, jellyfish-like aliens, attack the ship and kill almost everyone on it including Binti’s new best friends and her crush right in front of her eyes. The only people who survived t...

The more I reflect on my reading, the more I appreciate my 3rd grade teacher for his book choices!! Another book I recalled reading in his class was The One and Only Ivan , a book about a silverback gorilla named Ivan who lives in a run-down mall circus. I remember finishing the story before my teacher revealed to the class that it was inspired by a real gorilla, which was a fact that surprised a lot of people. I still have my copy of the book from more than 6 years ago now, so I took the opportunity to reread it. The story is told from Ivan’s point of view and the basic gist of the book is that Ivan has been living in this small glass cage and has grown used to life in captivity. Soon, a baby elephant named Ruby arrives, causing Ivan to view their situation in a different way. Determined to protect Ruby, Ivan uses his talent of drawing to try to change their future and seek a better life outside of their cage.  There’s also a few things I’ve noticed on a reread that I’d like to po...