Animal Farm by George Orwell, Richard Brown (Read by), Ralph Cosham (Read by)

Animal farm Review
A reviewer, a FLVS student, 08/20/2008

The animals on Animal Farm are hungry, overworked, and very tired. All this changed when Old Major held a secret meeting in the barn. This meeting was to discuss a revolution against Mr. Jones. After the revolution was planned Old Major soon died, leaving it up to the other animals to carry out the revolution. Sooner than they expected, the revolution started. All the animals kicked, bit, and did everything they could do to get Mr. Jones out of the farm, and it worked. At this point they turned the Manor farm into Animal farm. Run only by animals with no help from any humans. The farm starts out strong with the leaders Snowball and napoleon. However, when the story continues napoleon becomes corrupt with the power of leadership. Napoleon banishes Snowball from the farm saying that if he returns he is to be killed. The other animals slowly start to realize that Napoleon is becoming worse and worse as the year goes on. He makes the animals work harder then ever for less foods. In the outcome they began to lose the farm because everyone had been working on another project that Napoleon wanted, so Napoleon begins to in list the help from outsiders, humans. They start to see that the commandments began to change, and some animals, the pigs, get better treatment then others even though they are not the ones doing the work. The animals on Animal Farm start to see that Napoleon is becoming more like humans each day. Towards the end he is no better then Mr. Jones was to the animals. Therefore with him as their leader they are no better off from what the started with.

Short But Classic
A reviewer, A reviewer, 08/18/2008

Although Animal Farm is a short novel it is a classic that every American citizen should read because it teaches an important lesson. It teaches that you should keep your enemies close but your friends closer. The novel begins with one of the pigs, Major, giving a speech on how the animals should rebel against their humans. After the animal rebellion everything seems to be going smooth. At first everything is fair and all animals are treated equal. What happens when some animals start getting treated better than others. Will the Animal Farm stay intact. Find out in this classic novel Animal Farm.

Also recommended: Dawn- Ender's Shadow- Kira-Kira- Of Human Bondage

Animal Farm
Jake, a high school student, flvs, 08/17/2008

In the novel Animal Farm, a farm gets taken over by animals, and they manage to run it. At first, they think the new leaders of the farm will be great, and life will be paradise for them. But, what if it’s not all that they expected? Be careful for what you wish for, is what George Orwell emphasizes in this book. Talked into rebellion by an old boar, they believe that once the animals take over, life will be flawless from then on out, and that they will never have to work again. When the animals first takeover, pigs are elected as the new leaders, but over time the pigs, as well as the others, start to change, and this new leadership starts to get less and less of what they imagined. The pigs slowly and gradually, but surely, start to turn into the very things the animals loathed from the start. At first, they establish the seven commandments, animals shall not drink alcohol, sleep in beds, stand on two legs, etc., and the most important commandment, All Animals Are Equal. Their leader is a pig named Snowball, and he is a great leader, but later gets chased out by a much too competitive adversary. Their new leader gets named Napoleon, and turns the farm around. They decide to build a windmill, and this is one of the causes of their problems. The animals decide they need money, so they decide to have a human 'when in the beginning they decide to hate all humans, this is one of the first signs of change' come and trade with them. All the while, the windmill gets half-built in a little less than a year, and gets knocked down overnight. Snowball is blamed, and a reward is placed on him for his capture. This is the part of the novel when the animals start to change. The pigs start sleeping in beds, but change the commandments to ‘a pig shall never sleep in a bed with sheets’, and then drink alcohol, and then eventually stand on two legs, which is one of the last changes. At the end of Animal Farm, the pigs completely interact with humans, and the other animals spying in through the window the pigs were conversing with the humans in, said that it was impossible to distinguish the animals from the humans.

animals??
A reviewer, a FLVS student, 08/15/2008

have you ever been curious enough to think what goes on in a animals mind? if so or if not, then the book Animal Farm is a great book to read to find out what goes on in their minds. the book starts out as any regular old farm, the farmer is a drunk and he rarely feeds the animals. so even as humans the animals get smart and try to over take the farm, but not with some troubles along the way. I have to give a hand to Napoleon for taking care of the animals for awhile with his genius ideas. Although the book is about animals, if you intenerate it in depth then you can connect it to real life events, but I'm not going to give that away right now. you will have to read it and find out. also in the book it makes allusions to The Bible and to the Soviet Union. these connections make the book more interesting than any other book about animals you will ever read.þ

School Project
Alyson, a student from Florida, 08/14/2008

To some, George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” is just a well-written fable. To others, it is a story that symbolizes the downfalls of a totalitarian regime. Whatever the case, Orwell’s classic tale of animals trying to run a farm has many lessons to teach its readers, young and old alike. Animal Farm is a story about the animals on Manor Farm who attempt to overthrow the farmer Mr. Jones and run the farm themselves. Under the united belief that “All animals are equal”, the animals create their own rules and begin to run things they way they think is best. However, the pigs, considered to be the smartest and wisest of all the animals, use their superior intelligence to gain control over and deceive the other animals to get their way. From the beginning of the story, Orwell makes it clear though the use of foreshadowing that the “rebellion” against Mr. Jones was doomed from the start. The pigs, who immediately begin to take control, are found to be drinking the extra milk that was missing from the cow. This, along with several other unexplained events, lead readers to believe that the pigs will eventually get away with bigger crimes because of their ability to control and deceive the other animals. When the animals collectively set up the “Seven Commandments” by which all animals must abide, the pigs begin to set themselves above the law. Napoleon and his accomplice Squealer are caught breaking the commandments only to convince the on looking animals that they haven’t broken any at all. Together, they twist the meanings of the rules in order to get away with everything from special privileges to murder. For example, Squealer took advantage of the animals’ inability to read and convinced them that the rule was “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.” Once the animals believe this, the pigs are able to move into the farmhouse and get away with anything they desire. As the story progresses, we see how Napoleon resembles evil dictators such as Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. By using his intelligence, he is able to control all the farm animals and even some of the humans outside the farm. In “Animal Farm”, Orwell shows how the pigs turn from ordinary farm animals, into creatures who abuse their power and ultimately end up becoming the creatures the resented the most. When the other animals looked into the farmhouse, they couldn’t tell the pigs from the humans or the humans from the pigs.