Today i have two books to recomend, Spud and Around The World In 80 Days.

In the book, it describes the journal of a boy(John Milton, nicked named 'Spud') living in a private school in South Africa during the 1990s. In school, he met friends and create a gang called the crazy 8, which is the most notorious gang around in their private school. Spud in general dislikes his life, due to the major embarrassment he gets from having slightly deranged parents and a senile grandmother. He is very pessimistic about many aspects of his life, he has a low self-esteem when confronting personal matters, such as his shaky relationship with his girlfriend, Mermaid. Sparerib(his teacher) watches him with much concern and offers him much support. Being surrounded by madness often makes him question his own sanity. Spud aspires to be an actor in the future and has taken part in two major school plays, as well as a humiliating house play. He is certainly popular with girls (as he is the object of affection of several girls, which he considers to be quite odd, as he is not very big or strong. Got into the school through a scholarship. Best known in the school for his lead part in Oliver!. In school he meets a guy named Henry "Gecko" Barker. He is often sick but he is John's smart best friend. He is often sick or injured and sent to the sanitorium. He is described as a thin and extremely pale boy (Spud once described his state as "there have to be healthier looking corpses"). He dies near the end of the first book of malaria, which had a great impact on John. Before his death, he requested for John to sing at his funeral, which he did. He also picked up rugby and cricket as his CCAs. At the end of the year, he goes home and waits to see if he will get another years's scholarship. The book has a sequel and prequel, namely Spud- The madness continues and Spud- Learning to fly. i have yet to read both books.

In Around the world in 80 days, the story starts out in London, where a gentlemen names Phileas Foggs, a member of a Reform club, bets that he could travel around the world in 80 days. Members of the reform club placed a $20000 bet on him and later that evening, together with his new servant Passepartout, embarked on the journey. Their first stop would be to Suez. Recently there was a bank robbery and the robber was described to look like Mr. Fogg, so London police dispatched a detective, Mr Fix to follow Mr. Fogg. Mr. Fix tried many times to catch Mr. Fogg like telling the English ambassador but to no avail as he had no arrest warrant. In India, Mr. Fogg saw a ceremony of sacrificing a lady and decided to save her. They went on to hatch a plan, Passepartout would act as if he was re birthed from the dead and scare the priests. Then they would run away from the Priest with the lady. As India was under British control, Mr Fix ordered Policemen to stop them, find the priest and bring them to a court. There, Mr. Foggs was accused with kidnapping and Passepartout was accused of not respecting Indian religion. Mr Foggs offered bail and paid $2000 pounds in total. Mr Fix was dumbfounded.

At the end of the story, Mr Foggs has given up all hope as he thought he was late for a day. Then the Indian lady, who was greatly grateful, proposed to Mr. Foggs and he agreed, calling Passepartout to find a priest to arrange the marrage. Then Passepartout ran back and said that it was impossible as the next day was Sunday and today was Saturday, the day he was suppose to arrive in London! He hailed a cab and offered $100 if the driver reached the reform club in time. After running over 2 dogs and scrapping 5 carriages, he reached on time and got his $20000 pound wager!

As i read this story, my heart was pumping with excitement and i managed to finish this book within 3 days. This is one of the most engaging book i have ever read.

My favourite character would be Passepartout as he is a very energetic character. He made a series of mistakes on the journey around the world. But at last he proves himself very useful by saving the Indian lady and protecting his master, and at last notifying his master that the bet is still on.

Jules verne is a very good writer, the story he writes are very exciting and he gets to the point very quickly, unlike many longwinded books. Most of his books are about adventure and I think that all his adventure books are great

My favourite character would definitely be Spud(John) as when he entered his schools, he was very weak and scared, afraid of many things. He then learns to stand up for himself and become a real men. He makes a lot of helpful friends such as the seniors and the teachers, which help him through the hectic and crazy first year.

John van de Ruit is an amazing author, he can write the book in extreme detail. They way he writes is extremely humourous and I cannot stop myself from smiling when I read the book. The things in the book are like those we do now, practical jokes and all that kind of stuff. At the end it really touches your heart and you would just feel like reading more. Then author left the end to your imagination but eventually he wrote the second book.