I think this next book is one that probably everyone has heard of even if they haven’t read it yet. Animal Farm by George Orwell is a story about just that, a farm that is overtaken by animals. Mr. Jones owns a small property known as Manor Farm where he has a small crop and various animals. Amongst them are some frightfully intelligent pigs who decide to help inspire the other animals to overthrow the humans and take control of the farm for themselves. As the animals adopt the creed “All Animals Are Created Equal” they end up doing just that. After the liberation of the farm the animals work on setting up a fair and just society under the nominal leadership of Snowball and Napoleon, two of the pigs. Snowball continues to push for improving the farm and thus the lives of the animals living and working there. Napoleon however seems to have other ideas as he continuously undermines Snowball and in the process undermines everything the farm is supposed to stand for. Eventually things work on coming to a head when Snowball and Napoleon face each other in a brutal showdown that leads to the ultimate fate of Animal Farm.
This book is one that I have probably read a few times by now and yet every time I read it I end up noticing different things about it. For instance, when I was younger I focused predominantly on the way it shows how a relatively benign and benevolent regime can slowly, without people even noticing, slide into something entirely different. Which honestly is a pretty powerful message to be present in such a short book. Now however, I read it and I see how it was Orwell’s attempt to subtly show just how the Soviet Union actually worked. It was written during the buildup to the Second World War when no one was really wanting to believe the horror stories about the Soviet Union so I can see why he felt like he might have needed to write a wake up call. If you are coming from that perspective than it seems like he did a pretty good job of showing what life might have been like under that kind of regime. Either way, the one thing to take away from this story is that you need to be careful about what you believe and take nothing on faith and that whenever possible you need to genuinely educate yourself so that you have the knowledge necessary to not have to take things on faith. Without those you end up allowing the opportunity necessary for these kinds of things to happen. It also shows just how powerful propaganda can be in such a situation and such a society. Definitely a book that will make you think. I am giving it 4.5 out of 5 stars.
This is a bit of a modern classic and probably one that everyone should genuinely consider reading, irregardless of whether it is something they would normally read. Luckily there is not a lot of content that would make it unsuitable or potentially dangerous for readers except for some extremely mild and non-graphic violence. I could confidently say that I would recommend this book to readers as young as fourteen without any concerns about content, except for their potential ability to grasp some of the subtleties it contains. If you haven’t already read this then I hope you will consider trying it out after reading this. Either way, consider sharing your thoughts about it in the comments as I hope to hear what you think of this one.