Review of An Alien Hand
WHAT IS "AN ALIEN HAND"?
- NAME OF BOOK - AN ALIEN HAND[ English supplementary Reader for Class VII]
- PUBLISHER - NCERT
- ISBN - 81-7450-736-1
- PRICE - Rs 25
- DATE OF PUBLICATION - April 2007
- BINDING - Paperback
- PAGES - 74
- NUMBER OF CHAPTERS - 10
- NUMBER OF POEMS - 0
STORIES LIKED
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THE COP AND THE ANTHEM
WRITER - O.HENRY
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GOLU GROWS A NOSE
WRITER-RUDYARD KIPLING
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CHANDNI
WRITER - ZAKIR HUSSAIN
REVIEW OF THE STORIES LIKED
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THE COP AND THE ANTHEM
This is a story written by O .Henry.This is about a man named Soapy who wants to go to jail to survive the winter and tries many ways to get there.But in one or another way his plans fail and the strangest things happen to be appearing.The moral is that society creates is that the people like Soapy are a result of the gap between the rich and poor; and also that life is unpredictable. It is a mocking comment on the social system. For me it was a marvelous story and I would say that it is a must for every reader.
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GOLU GROWS A NOSE
This is a outstanding story written by the one and only,writer of thev famous “JUNGLE BOOK”,Mr Rudyard Kipling.This is a story of how the elephant got its trunk.It is a purely imaginative story but at the end of the day one might actually think it is true that the elephant got its trunk in the same way as written in the story.. The moral of this story could be that curiosity sometimes may land us in trouble. But then Golu’s nose is useful, so, the moral could also be that we do not gain until we take risk. The greatness of the writer lies in the fact that he has presented two opposing morals in the same story. I would give a good round of applause to the writer.At the end of the day I would say ‘WOW!’.
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CHANDNI
This story is written by Zakir Hussain and gives the moral that death is better than slavery.This story tells us about a brave she-goat whose name was Chandi and how she died in order to save her freedom.It is better to die with dignity than to live without honour and freedom.The main objective of this chapter is to give the children the teaching that 'Death is better than slavery'.This is truly a story of high morals and gives a good teaching to the readers
REVIEW OF THE BOOK [excluding Chapters]
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COVER PAGE DESIGN
The cover page design is very good. The design is made in the name of the book ‘AN ALIEN HAND’ [which is also a chapter].There is the image of a two aliens who are dancing. There is also a flying saucer and moon and stars. It presents a dream or fantasy world. The heading’ AN ALIEN HAND’ is written in a comic style. So the cover page design would get a ‘Wow!’ from me.
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ILLUSTRATIONS
Asked about illustrations of this book I would say that the editor has done a good job but he could have illustrated them with different colours rather than red, black and white. Otherwise the illustrations were perfect.
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The PREAMBLE section
If asked whether it was necessary to give the Preamble of the Constitution of India, I would say ‘YES’. This makes the children aware of the Constitution. This is a very important section and I should say to all those who have read this book or want to read that they should look at the Preamble page because it tells us about what our country is and what it should be.
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RELATION WITH OTHER SUBJECTS
There are two chapters related with other subjects-the first is ‘THE TINY TEACHER’ which is related to science, the second one is ‘THE DESERT’ which is related to geography.
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BINDING AND PAGE QUALITY
It is a paperback but it is good. Unlike the Class IX and X English textbook the pages do not come lose. It is printed on 80 GSM paper with NCERT watermark.
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PRICE
It costs Rs 25 and therefore it is affordable
FEEDBACK
On the whole the book was good but some improvements could have been made with the illustrations and the content.The only thing I didn't like was that in the book,only orange,grey and black colours were used,the pictures were not colourful. Exercises were interesting. There were some information, jokes, riddles etc at the end of the exercises. So, according to me this book will also get a 3/5 rating.
27 Apr, 2009