Maddie's Memos

The book Miss Spitfire: Reaching Helen Keller is all about Helen’s teacher, Annie Sullivan nicknamed Miss Spitfire. At the beginning of the book Helen is a reckless and spoiled child. Her parents give her whatever she wants, and require her to do nothing. However when Annie Sullivan comes to teach Helen, she is able to see what potential Helen has. Annie spend countless hours spelling word into Helen’s hands, but Helen does not understand the idea of everything having a name; she is not able to recognize the idea. Annie continues to do her best even though Helen is ruthless and abusive to her. Over the course of many weeks Helen begins to trust Annie more and more, but never befriends her though Annie loves Helen very much. Then one day all of that changes. Finally the concept of everything having a name occurs to Helen. She wants to know what everything is called even though Annie has spelled the names into her hands many times before. They soon become best friends. Annie succeeded in what everyone, including herself, thought was near impossible. She changed Helen from an abusive, spoiled, and reckless child into a girl who had a thirst for knowledge and was accepting. Throughout the rest of Annie’s life she helped Helen through college and beyond always by her side spelling into her hand. Annie never sought recognition because the fact that she had changed Helen and opened new door and possibilities was enough for her.

The ending of the fourth book of the Septimus Heap series was abrupt and not in the right place. The ending seemed like the writer just wanted to finish the book and didn’t want to spend any more time on it. At least one more chapter would have been sufficient for the book to conclude or she should have ended the book a little earlier. I don’t believe the ending was effective and helped the book because of all the things that happened in the book, the author chose to focus on one of the lesser important things. It took me by surprise and I think it ruined the book a little. It was also unsuccessful because it failed to set up the events for the next book as well as it could have. Overall it was a let down compared to the previous three and I hope the last two will be better.

If the book Physik would have gone on one chapter longer, a few loose ends might have been tied up. One would be that Septimus would be able to make the immortality potion for Marcellus. After he had sent it down the underground river in the special box he would have gotten his Flyte charm back in return. Also, Jenna would probably have disabled the Seek that she had placed on Spite Fyre. Another possible occurrence in the last chapter would be the return of Nicko and Snorri. However this may not be included in order for the plot to develop in the following books.

THIS BLOG POST IS A SPOILER!! In the end of book two, Flyte,  we find that DomDaniel’s apprentice, who was thought to be Septimus Heap, is actually a boy named Merrin Meredith. We also find out that he was Consumed by his former master, but saved by Aunt Zelda. He lives with Aunt Zelda and she nurses him to health. Merrin is ungrateful and wishes to be an apprentice and feel dark magyk again. His opportunity comes when Simon finds him and recruits him as his apprentice. I am predicting that this will come into play in the third book, but I am not sure. I am interested to see what happens!

The seventh son of the seventh son, Septimus Heap, is pronounced dead by the midwife and taken away. The very same nigh Silas Heap finds a baby in the snow outside of the city gate. As the Heaps grow up and go on the adventure of a lifetime they learn that things are not always what they seem. As they learn more about each other and about the world around them they also learn that all things work out in the end.

One of my favorite parts about this book was that it was written in the perspective of many different people. What I didn’t like about that though was that she didn’t really separate the perspectives in a certain way so sometimes it would be in the middle of a page and that was confusing. Another thing I liked was that the ending was thought to be predictable, but was not in the way I thought. This is not the best book I have ever read, but I definitely enjoyed it. It would be a great read-aloud book.

I would recommend this book to elementary and middle school kids because of the appealing plot, the writing style, and the relate able characters. It was a fun read and can’t wait to read the others!