Animal Farm by George Orwell, C. M. Woodhouse (Introduction), Russell Baker (Preface by)

Animal Farm book reviewby Anonymous

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November 05, 2009: Animal farm is one of the best books based on Russian history that was ever written. His book is a great example of what went on during the Russian Revolution all the way down to the resemblance in real life characters and the characters in the book. In Animal Farm, the animals take over the farm and their resistance against the humans was going smoothly until the pigs suddenly took over pretending to be something they were not. They were not the great leaders they told everyone else they were and they were definitely not honest to the other animals. This book describes what happened in the Russian Revolution but so that people who don't know anything about the Revolution or younger peoples will understand the book completely. At first, when the pigs take over, they make rules saying that "all animals are equal" and they seem to be good. After a little while though, their power corrupts them into doing things that will only result in good things for them. They start brainwashing the animals by telling them they are better off with them than with the mean old farmer, when actually the animals conditions are pretty much the same if not worse than when the farmer was running the farm. Animal Farm is a popular book that appeals to adults and children both with a larger purpose than just a fairy tale. George Orwell wrote Animal farm to put the Russian Revolution in simpler words so that everyone could understand it. The characters in the story all resemble real life people that took part in that revolution. For example, their leader in animal farm resembles Josef Stalin because they both alter the rules to make their lives more pleasurable at the time. They both use people or animals to guard them and get rid of people or animals that threaten their power. When napoleon wanted more power he just got squealer (who has a talent for convincing animals to believe whatever he says) to change the ten Commandments in the pigs favor. Throughout the book, the pigs take over the farm and make the other animals lives difficult. This book is easily one of my favorite books to read, even though I myself do not know much about the Russian Revolution. That is one of the best things about this book, that you can understand it even though you don't know everything about what Orwell is really trying to prove. I would recommend this book to anyone from children to adults because it is such a easy book to read with a lot more meaning than actually shows.

Animal Farmby Anonymous

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November 04, 2009: Do you think that you can run things better than others can? Well Animal Farm is about a farm that is run by humans and the animals do not like it because they think that it is stupid that they are working as hard as they are and barely getting getting fed enough to live because the humans are taking it all. They think that if they took over the farm then things would run a lot better. They would be free and not be punished by the humans. They would be able to eat all of their food that they make and would not be killed by the farmer so they humans could eat them.

In the beginning of the book, Major gathered all of the animals into the barn one night. He have a speech that he was getting old and was going to die soon. He said that it is not fair that the humans are ruling us and they are taking all of the food we produce and taking some of our lives at young ages to eat. He said that it is not fair for the humans to take all of the food that the animals produce and barely give them enough food to do all of the work that they do. The humans take all of the eggs and eat them.

Major's solution to this was to get rid of the humans. He said in order for them to be happy and free they had to get rid of the humans. He talked about making rules. He said that all animals are equal. He said that four legs is good and two legs is bad. But he clarified that even though birds have two legs, they have wings so they count as the other legs. The main part of his speech was to tell the animals that they need to kick the humans out and rule the farm themselves. He did not say that they had to do this in their life time but they had to begin the process. This point he made very clear, that no animals should have anything to do with the humans. All of the animals agreed.

Later in the end of the book after the animals had kicked the humans out and started to rule the farm by themselves, they had changed many of the rules. Napoleon had gained leadership by kicking Snowball, his rival, out of the farm. Now Napoleon was just using the power to his advantage. The other animals were just happy that they were free and working for themselves. They did not have to give all for their food to the humans any more.

This book is a good example of how not to lead. All of the animals were excited about the knew change in the beginning of the book. They all had an idea of what they wanted. But when they started to do it, the pigs changed some things around. To see how the pigs changed things around and if the change of leadership was for the better of the farm, read the book. It is a very good book that will teach you some things about leadership.