Sherlock Holmes’ stories are great, well written and it forces your brain to think. I think that these stories teach readers to look for every detail of and investigate some hard cases as Sherlock does. Many people are thinking about whether the book or the movie is better. I think that both of them are good, because the book has many positive attributes and the movie too, and they both have negative points as well. These include facts such as the time it takes to read a book, but when you read, you will understand every detail. It is more interesting to read, because it feels as though you are in that story. In a movie you can’t understand everything, because many details are omitted. I have watched and read Sherlock Holmes’ stories, but I think that reading Sherlock’s stories are better. Here is why:

Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective, who first appeared in publication in the 19th century. He was devised by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A brilliant London-based detective, Holmes is famous for using logic and his brain to solve cases. He is perhaps the most famous fictional detective (my opinion), and indeed one of the best known and most universally recognizable literary characters. He is the main character of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories. He lives in London’s Baker street with his helper Watson.

Which day from 2021 would I like to repeat every day?
I think 17 August is the best day ever. On that day we were in Batumi, chilling on the beach. I asked my parents to let me sit on the banana boat. When I sat there, the boat started to speed up and… Boom! I fell over and splashed into the water. That was amazing! After the beach, we went go-karting and I was the winner. I was amazed by that day.

New Year in Georgia
Georgia is the best country to celebrate New Year. Our cuisine is varied. Food is laid out on the table. Our traditional dishes include Sacivi and sweet Gozinakhi witch is made with honey and walnuts. 

CHINESE NEW YEAR CELEBRATION COMPARED TO GEORGIANS

Author: Nikoloz Kobakhidze

I’ve read the book Anne Frank. In my opinion it is an amazing book that teaches us a lot about how life was during World War II. Anne Frank was a 12-year-old girl who went through a lot. She lived a very ordinary life before the war. She had a lot of friends, a nice family, a nice house and most important of all she was a healthy girl. Her family was very close. Anne loved her father the most. She thought that he was the only one who understood her and truly loved her. She wasn’t on good terms with her mother. Every time they spent more than a few minutes together it turned into a fight. 

Anne wasn’t too nice to her sister either.  Anne’s parents always thought that her sister Margot was the perfect kid, but they didn’t think of Anne the same way.  By the time that the war began Anne’s father Otto Frank already had a perfect hiding spot for them. It was a small house like a building which they had to share with another family, the Van Pels. The Van Pels had a son named Peter. These two families lived together for 2 years. During those two years they fought, got along, and struggled. Anne was a young girl who had barely anything to do in the house, so she threw herself into studying. She learned English, French, History and much more. 

Anne became friends with Peter. They understood each other quite well. They were both quiet, liked studying, enjoyed looking out of the window and liked each other.  They slowly fell in love, but Otto Frank wasn’t fond of the idea that his daughter was dating a random 16-year-old boy she met during the war. Because of that both Anne and Peter resented their feelings. The last day that was recorded in Anne’s diary was on 1^st of August 1944. Anne died sometime between 1 and 31 March 1945. Only a few months before the war ended.

New Year’s is a fun holiday and there are a lot of superstitions about it. The most popular and interesting ones are Chinese superstitions. The Chinese believe that you shouldn’t break things on New Year’s (especially bowls, vases and mirrors). Also, you shouldn’t cry, wash your hair, clean, use sharp utensils, curse, and wear black or white, lend money or go into someone’s bedroom. All these things bring you bad luck. But you can clean your house before New Year’s, trim your hair, say nice things, wear red and sparkly bright colors and spend time with your family. Also, in China people give money to the children in red envelopes, watch dragon and lion traditional dances and sacrifice different things to their ancestors.

Author: Taia Kvaratskhelia

 ‘Extremely loud and incredibly close’ teaches us that our losses may bring us depression and sadness, but slowly we have to deal with it and be happy again. 

When Oscar heard about his father’s death he was sad and angry and he started thinking about death more often.

 I think that reading is better than watching films, because it develops imagination, but I prefer watching films because sometimes I’m too lazy to read books.

 I have read and watched Sherlock Holmes. First I read the book and then I watched the film. The film was just like I imagined. I liked it very much. Sherlock’s appearance was like I visualized and the cases were as interesting as in the book, so this got my hopes up. For me the book was more interesting, because I could use my imagination and it was more intense. 

Oscar is a 9 year old boy who lost his father and his motive is to find out about the key. On the key is written the surname ‘Black’ and Oscar wants to find the lock that fits the key. He visits every person with this surname and even befriends a Mr. Black. He is much older than Oscar. After Mr. Black’s wife died he never left his house. After Oscar’s dad died he was afraid of subways, skyscrapers and bridges. When he became friends with Mr. Black he overcame these fears and eventually solved the mystery about the lock and the key.

Author: Tekla Koshadze

This book is written by Jonathan Saffren Foer. The book is about a boy named Oskar. He died on September 11^th 2001. Oskar was sad after the attack. After two years he found a key in his dad’s closet and he found a letter that was sent by Mr. Black. He then started searching for Mr. Black. First he went to Aaron and Abby black. Aaron was living in an apartment. Abby Black lived in Greenwich Village. 

He took two hours and 23 minutes to walk there. When he arrived he was tired. He tried the key in the door, but again it didn’t work so he knocked on the door. A woman opened the door. She was beautiful like his mum. He asked about his dad and she said she didn’t know about his dad. He said: “May I come in?” 

The woman answered: “I don’t think I can help you.” After a few days he found out that Mr. Black lived one floor above him. He knocked on the door and asked: “Do u know my dad?” The old man said: “I don’t know anything about your dad, because I have not left this apartment since my wife died.” They became friends. The old man asked him to take his hearing aid out. He took it out and the old man screamed in fear as he was afraid of outside sounds. He calmed him down and left. They were good friends from that day forward.

What I learned from this book is to not chase after something that is gone.

Author: Aleksandre Beridze

New Year is my favorite holiday. It is celebrated in every country. At midnight on every New Year it is heralded by fireworks , parties and special events in the USA. In Georgia New Year is celebrated in a similar manner. We have a Christmas tree and we decorate it with ornaments. Children wait for presents from Santa Clause or Father Frost. Families make dinner to say farewell to the old year and meet the New Year together. We wait till midnight and set off fireworks. In Georgia we don’t have New Year’s dinner without Sacivi and Gozinaki.  

With a Christmas tree in many homes mainly in Samegrelo and Guria, they also set a Chichilaki. It is made of the branches of a nut tree. They decorate it with fruit and next to it they place a bowl with eggs, sweets and corn flour. All of these have symbolic meaning.  An egg means the new life. Sweets mean a happy and sweet life. Corn flour symbolizes good fortune and prosperous harvest.

There is another tradition of Mekvle.  On the second day of January, early in the morning a man who must be a good friend of the family in Georgian called Mekvle comes home with Chichilaki and a bowl full of sweets, fruits and some money. He enters the room with wishes for New Year and gives the family members sweets symbolizing a sweet life.

In Georgia we celebrate New Year on January first as most other countries.      In some countries, it is celebrated on a different day. In Iran they celebrate New Year on March 21st. In Israel New Year is called Rosh Hashanah and usually occurs during September or early October. In Nepal New Year is on April  14th or April 13th. 

We also celebrate old New Year. It is celebrated on January 14th and on January 1st in the Julian calendar. It is not an official holiday.

Author: Ketevan Raphava

I prefer books over movies and I have several reasons to support my point of view.  Firstly, when you read a book, you imagine everything including examples of what the characters look like, the world they live in and so on.

When you watch a movie suddenly everything is different and sometimes readers might get surprised because they imagined this character more beautiful or kinder than depicted in the movie version.  When I first read ‘Pride and Prejudice’ I imagined Mr. Darcy to be more handsome than he was in the movie and when I watched it, I was disappointed, because he wasn’t as handsome as I imagined.

My second reason is that if you watch the movie first, there is a chance that you may not have an interest in reading the book, because you think it will be the same. The book version of a story is more detailed and more interesting. When I watched ‘Harry Potter’ I wasn’t interested in the book anymore. I waited for book 9 to be released, but there was no movie version, so I had to read the book. It was very interesting, and then I understood that it is better to read a book than to watch a movie because the book is more detailed and you don’t have to wait for the movie to be released.

My third reason is that reading a book increases your vocabulary. When you watch a movie there are easier words and words that you already know. Knowing many words helps you write good stories or essays.

To sum up, I prefer books to movies as they are more informative and help to improve your imagination. 

Author: Mariam Ambokadze

Winter holiday is a time to relax and celebrate with our family and friends. The Winter holiday usually consists of 15 days  and includes 2 important festivals which are Christmas and New Year. In  addition, people also shop for stars, small bells and candies and decorate their houses. Also, kids look forward to the cakes and sweets prepared by their family members on Christmas.

Vacations are the best part of a student’s life. Students are lucky to get two long vacations each year. Though Summer vacations are longer, I love Winter vacations more as I have several beautiful memories associated with them. Our Winter vacations usually begin on Christmas. I always wait for the Winter vacation from the beginning of the year as we get a long Winter holiday from school. My family planned a trip to the famous Bakuriani Resort. I’m still there and taking my time to relax. 

I’m enjoying the trip a lot. My favorite part is sledding in the snow. These days are so special and memorable for me. At the beginning of the Winter vacation I read a new book, did some chores and watched a few movies. The weather is cold but comfortable so I have to wear my new jackets and boots. Also, neighbors are patient and polite. Consequently this Winter vacation will always remain in my memories.

Author: Nika Jichonaia

As we know, love is the most powerful magic force, but we cannot create it with an elixir, or by waving a magic wand. Only living beings can express love. There are different types of love including love between friends and family members.

Today we will talk about friendship, because the book that I decided to introduce you to is about friendship. This story is about two girls, Agatha and Sophie. They are friends and for some reason they got into the School of Evil and Good.

Getting out of this school was impossible, or so they thought, until these two girls managed to escape through the power of friendship. This is not the only thing this book teaches us. We all know what beauty is, but beauty does not describe the character of a person. That’s why Sofia ended up in the evil school even though she was beautiful and people thought she was an angel.

As we know, if the book is good, they will definitely make a movie about it. This book also has a movie that was released a few months ago. I would still recommend you to read the book because when I watched the movie, not many details were captured and also the books expand our imagination.

Let’s touch on this topic in more detail, of course, they have a lot in common, mainly the main details, for example, that the girls got into the school, they escaped from there, and so on, but some things were missing. For example, each scene in the book is described in more detail and exhaustively. If one scene in the book is too long, it is cut to 2 minutes in the movie.

I want to touch on the stories of Sherlock Holmes. In general, I really like adventure and mystical stories where the character has to solve something, that’s what Sherlock and his assistant do. Now I will discuss Sherlock Holmes because he is the main character in the book. As we know he is a fictional character and a very good detective. To be a detective you must be observant and smart that’s what Sherlock Holmes is, because he solved many mysteries and there are many movies and books about him.

Author: Nino Datunashvili

“Don’t tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.” 

   To be honest this sentence always grabbed my attention as if I had experienced it myself. 

The book’s protagonist, Holden is a 17-year-old boy whose life just changed significantly by his brother’s death and his obligations through this time.  Holden, struggling with post-trauma, depression and alienation from society had been kicked out of school. While wandering around the New York streets, he tells us how most of the people there are selfish and self-centred. He mostly had a bad attitude towards people and the only humans he loved in this horrible and pointless world were kids. In my perspective this was determined by the fact that he probably thought that kids’ souls were still pure and clean from all the sin in the world. In my solid and well thought-out opinion, Salinger tried to tell us how hard and personally disturbing adulthood is, how confusing the duty that follows man’s growth is and how Holden was struggling against these constructs.                                                     

    “I was thinking about the lagoon in Central Park, near Central Park South. I was wondering if it would be frozen over when I got home, and if it was, where did the ducks go. I was wondering where the ducks went when the lagoon got all icy and frozen over. I wondered if some guy came in a truck and took them away to a zoo or something.” 

   That’s one of my favourite quotes, because it showed his caring personality. First, I thought it didn’t have such an essential meaning, because everyone will say such a thing if they really care about our fauna and if they have an intensified sense of empathy, but the point is that ducks symbolise childhood and innocence. We can also say it speaks to the uncertainty of the future. Holden didn’t really know where they were going as he didn’t know what life holds in store for him in the future. The duck reminds Holden of himself. 

 In addition, he was suffering from the pain of his brother’s death. They were soul mates. When we are reading the words where Holden tries to describe his brother, we perceive their relationship as healthy and benevolent. Now imagine how a child feels after losing someone so important in their life. Indeed, the child will be devastated and desperate. That’s the reason why I don’t really try to judge Holden too harshly for his behaviour against people around him.

           “I can’t explain what I mean. And even if I could, I’m not sure I’d feel like it.”

This is so accurate, when I’m trying to express my feelings, I always feel like something is missing.

Author: Tsisi Kokolashvili

It’s Christmas! Jonathan is with his dear wife Mina, Van Helsing and Arthur.They are shocked by all that they had been through, but they are strong and are trying to be happy.

    Everyone is happy now. Mina is also doing much better.
    They are sitting at the table and eating some New year’s dishes.

In 2023 Jonathan is moving to Hythe with his wife and Arthur, because Jonathan is starting a new job there.

2023

Jonathan is in Hythe now and starts his new job. Mina and Jonathan have two children. Arthur works with Jonathan and he has a girlfriend. They are happy now.

Author: Linda Liparteliani