The Alchemist

The Alchemist is one of my favorite books. I would like to share a little bit with you.

Vocabulary

• alchemist- a person who can change plain metal into gold, or change something lower into something higher
• shepherd- a person who takes care of sheep and takes them to different places to find food
• Gypsy- a person from a group that moves from place to place. Some people think gypsies can know the future.
• pyramids- a triangular-shaped building like in the picture below
• treasure- something of great value (money or other things)
• encounter- meet, find, discover
• author- person who writes (a book)
• as well- too

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Reading
The Alchemist is an easy story with a deep message. It is a message to follow your heart and search for your dreams. The book is about a young man named Santiago who lives in Spain and works as a shepherd. He begins to have strange dreams so he goes to a Gypsy to find out what they mean. The Gypsy tells him that he needs to go to the Egyptian pyramids to find his treasure. Of course he does not believe her. But later he meets another person who tells him the same thing. At last Santiago decides to give up his life as a shepherd and go find his treasure.
Santiago encounters many problems as he goes on his journey. He meets many people and learns a lot along the way. He also learns to listen to and trust the Soul of the World. Does he ever find his treasure? And why is the book called The Alchemist? I can't tell you. You will have to read the book if you want to find out.
The Alchemist was originally written in Portuguese by Paulo Coelho, a Brazilian author. It has been translated into many languages, including, of course, English. It is a good book for people who are learning English because most of the sentences are fairly short and you will recognize a lot of the vocabulary. There are definitely words you will not know at first, but with a little patience and study you should be able to finish (and maybe enjoy) the book. And hopefully you will be able to follow your dreams as well.

Answer the questions.

1. The Alchemist is a book about following your dreams. True False
2. Santiago takes care of cows. True False
3. A Gypsy is from Egypt. True False
4. Santiago has a lot of problems as he looks for his treasure. True False
5. The author of the book is from Brazil. True False
6. The author wrote the book in English. True False
7. The book has only easy English words. True False