All finger puppets can be bought here.
It’s quite hard to explain what this book is, on the one hand it’s a biography of a woman named Suzie Spitzer, but on the other it’s an autobiography of Ann Chadwick. I suppose the best way to describe it, is to say that it’s a book about the impact one person (Suzie) has had on the life of another (Ann).
The story of Ann and Suzie is a rather sad one. Suzie lived happily with her parents in Nazi Germany, but they were Jewish and it was Nazi Germany, so it couldn’t last. As such Suzie was taken out of the country and given a home with the Chadwicks (Ann was their only daughter). That’s the opening of the story and from there on we follow to life of Ann as she lives with Suzie and later as they part ways, but frequently cross paths. There’s a lot of very interesting things in this book, ranging from hilarious little anecdotes, to melancholy remembrances.
One thing which I particularly like about the book, is that all the way through the author writes about her adoptive sister Suzie in a really nice way. I just really like it whenever I read things of great affection written by one person about another, it really captures the love of the relationship. This isn’t an easy identifiable ‘part’ of the book, it’s just a lovely feeling which you get all the way through.
There are only really a few small downsides to the book. The first, is that occasionally, there’ll be an oddly written sentence which you’ll have to read a few times to understand. There aren’t many of these (certainly no more than ten) but when they are there, they’re a little annoying. Secondly, the book is pretty short (less than one hundred pages) and there are times when I would have liked some more detail. For example, Suzie, a girl who can only speak German, ends up having to live with the Chadwick family. who only speak English and we’re never really told how Suzie felt about this. Perhaps this is something Ann doesn’t know, but it still feels like quite a hole. I also think that the final chapter, which is a kind of ‘epilogue’ of their lives, runs on for a bit too long.
Still. this is a story worth reading, I’d rate it at 7.5/10.
Also, as a little extra note, I’ve decided that every Friday will be the day that I post a new Finger Puppet Show, from now on.
All finger puppets can be bought here.
This game is very similar to Viva Piñata for the Xbox 360, but in case you’re not familiar with that, I’ll go over it now. Basically, you’re given a garden and you need to attract all different kinds of animals to come and live in it (except, rather than animals, they’re actually living Piñatas). There’s a nice range of creatures you can have, including hippos, horses and cows, and there are very different things you need to do to attract all of them. Once you have them safely living in your garden, you have to build them a house and persuade them to mate. It’s all very fun, and has an addictive ‘catch ’em all’ feeling to it.
But, while you’re doing all of this Piñata catching and breeding, there are obstacles that will make things harder. Every so often, either a sour Piñata or a Ruffian will come along and cause trouble. A sour Piñata is just a bad Piñata really, and it will try and destroy your plants or the creatures living in your garden. Ruffians are worse; they work for a man called Professor Pester, and will destroy anything they come across (even buildings) unless you pay them off.
It’s a nice mixture, I feel; while it is a ‘life simulation’ game, there are still problems for you to face and overcome. The more you progress in the game though, the easier the problems are to overcome and I think that, perhaps, this should be the other way around. I sometimes also feel that the garden is too small, you’ll probably get to a point where you have the maximum number of Piñatas you can have, yet still want to have more living there. But still, these are minor problems, and I certainly enjoyed catching all of the brightly coloured Piñatas and creating nice homes for them. Also one thing I really like about the game is the fact that there are references to other Rare games throughout the game, and since I’m a fan of the company, I really appreciate that.
You may worry that an Xbox 360 game could never be properly converted to a Nintendo DS game, but I feel like it was done very well. While the graphics have been watered down, the soundtrack has been replaced by something completely different (but equally good) and, if anything, the touch screen controls are more convenient to use than the more conventional controls of the original. It works really well on the system and is one of my favourite DS games.
My rating for this game is 9.1/10
All puppets can be bought here.
