Blogging...

I loved blogging. In fact I started a blog outside of school. I have a whole bunch of ideas for it. I really liked blogging because I could write and then get feed back. It's a good way to practice writing.

Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke

Some important characters in Dragon Rider are:
Firedrake-he is a silver dragon. He breathes fire, but he works for good not evil. He and the other silver dragons live off of Moon light. They don't eat or drink anything. He has volunteered to go on a journey half way across the world.
Ben- A human boy that has joined Firedrake on his journey. He is an orphan and has never known any of his family members.
Sorrel- She is a brownie who is furry, likes arguing about every little thing someone says, and she absolutely loves mushrooms like all brownies do.

The setting of my book:
Firedrake, Ben, and Sorrel travel half-way around the world looking for the Rim of Heaven. When they finally find it they are amazed at it's beauty. "A lake as round as the moon...blue flowers...glowed on the darkness of the night..." on pg 422 or Dragon Rider.

Plot: The dragons need to hide from humans so they send Firedrake to look for the Rim of Heaven. He meets other creatures along the way. Some that are helpful, some that are not so helpful.

I would definitely recommend this book, especially for people who like Sci-Fi/Fantasy, or even Adventure lovers. The first reason why I would recommend this book is because all the creatures they meet on this journey are interesting. Like I said in my last post, there are a lot of different creatures. The second reason why I would recommend it is the journey itself is so cool. It's good to see the perseverance of Firedrake, Ben, and Sorrel. They may even get a bit down sometimes, but they don't give up. The third and final reason why I recommend this book is because even though it is about magical creatures, you can still relate to it.

Cool Quotes from Dragon Rider

On page 43 of DRAGON RIDER it said, "The computer hummed like a captive bumblebee, the screen flickered--and went black." I liked this quote because it's interesting that the book is about dragons, and other mythical creatures, but yet it includes a computer that a talking rat actually owns. The quote also includes a simile when it said that "the computer hummed like a captive bumblebee". One last thing I noticed about the quote was that computers die all the time in everyday life so this quote can apply to the world.

On pages 80-81 there was a quote that says, "But he was bored--consumed by boredom. It made wild and savage, more ferocious than a chained dog, and so bad-tempered that he had long ago eaten most of his servants." This quote is important to me because it describes the "bad guy" who is really a dragon. This golden dragon is hunting down silver dragons to eat. Firedrake the main dragon or character is a silver dragon.

On page129, a quote that I liked was, "'I've discussed rare minerals with dwarves, the flavor of tree bark with trolls, immortality with fairies, and enchantment with a fiery salamander.'" This quote is important to me because Barnabas Greenbloom is telling Firedrake to trust him by showing him all the "fabulous creatures" he has met.

On page 244, "He was spellbound by all her tales of mermaids, ship-haunting sprites, eight-armed krakens, royal mermen and singing giant rays, luminous fish and coral gnomes, shark-faced demons and the children of the sea who ride on whales." This quote is important because it names a lot of the creatures that live in the sea.

A change I want to make in Paper Moon

One thing I would change about the book "Paper Moon" is the fact that the author uses a lot of numbers instead of words. For example, "After a week or two, we raised this to $300, then $400, and, finally, hit on $500 as just the right amount..." It just gets really annoying at times and I wish it would say the written number instead of the actual number. If I could change the way the author writes the numbers in the book then I would and I would make sure that the sentence absolutely, positively needs to be there and if it does then I would make sure it needs all those numbers and then convert them to written numbers. For example, "After a weeek or two, we raised this to three hundred dollars, then four hundred dollars, and, finally, hit on five hundred dollars as just the right amount..."

A connection from Go Ask Alice to the World

When I read in the book, Go Ask Alice, that "Alice" (they use pretend names for the people since it is a real story) was getting made fun of and was under peer pressure, it reminded me of what other kids face today. When "Alice" got made fun of, because of her choice to stop using drugs, the kids called her names like "Nancy Nice" and "Mary Pure". She was also under pressure to start using drugs again even when she told the kids that she didn't want to. Lots of kids today are under the same exact pressure and are being made fun of because of their choices and beliefs. I think that this is very wrong and I am glad I got to read a little bit more about one person's view on her difficult life.

A positive review of The Book Thief

I am happy to say that I have finished The Book Thief and that it is a book I would recommend for all those that love to read. Some things I liked about the book are: The narrator is the character Death. When someone dies the narrator says, "I was there. During I was basically everywhere." I think that is really cool that the author chose the narrator to be something unique. In this book the author gives little hints/glimpses into the future or end of the book. For example, that such and such dies with his mouth open. Another thing in this book that I love to see in books is the significance of one particular item or phrase. Some things that are significant in this book are Liesel's papa's accordion, the books that Liesel steals, and the way Rudy always asks Liesel for a kiss.

The setting of my book...

Liesel and Rudy live on Himmel Street in Molching, Germany. I researched and found out that Molching is a fictional town, but there is a town near it that I hear mentioned in the book that is called Munich. Liesel lives in 33 Himmel Street and Rudy lives on 35 Himmel Street. In Molching is a river called the Amper River, Liesel's papa likes to spend some time by himself by the river because he wants to be alone. This book takes place in 1939-1945 most of which was the WWII. Another part of the setting in this book is where Papa is right now. He is in Stuttgart, Germany. Stuttgart is a city where Papa is working for the Nazi army by picking up dead bodies after people in the war drop bombs over Germany. They would keep Jews in a concentration camp there in Stuttgart.

Liesel and Rudy in The Book Thief

Liesel is the main character of the book that I am reading. She is "the book thief". Throughout the whole book she steals different books because she loves to read and is very poor so she cannot buy her own books. She lives in a foster family because her father died and her mother abandoned her. This foster family consists of her foster parents (Mama and Papa) and of two adult "children" who are not living with them at that time. Before she knew how to read her Papa would read to her in the middle of the night. She was about 12 when she actually started reading by herself. When she sleeps she has nightmares of a train and her brother dying. A jew named Max is staying at her foster family's house. She has blond hair and brown eyes and is 13 years old.

Rudy is Liesel's best friend. The first thing you should know about him is that he is obsessed with an African-American runner named Jesse Owens. One time he put charcoal all over himself so he would look like Jesse Owens and he ran for about 400 meters. The second thing you should know about him is that he likes Liesel more than a friend, but she doesn't feel the same about him. He keeps on asking her for a kiss, but she never agrees. He has lemon bleach blond hair.

They both steal food because they cannot get enough to eat around their houses. They both are German, but are not Nazis. And they both love to play soccer with the rest of the kids in their neighborhood.

My reading past and present

The very first book I read was The Bear, the Bug, and the Boy go for a ride...lol. I started reading when I was 4 years old. My mom taught me...it was sorta like "preschool" for me since I didn't actually go to preschool. I have always loved reading. I like reading big books because it feels like a challenge to me. I used to read books like Nancy Drew Notebooks, but now I like reading books like Eragon and Eldest (bigger books). The genres I like to read are Mystery, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, and occasionally Non-Fiction. I know this blog is supposed to be only about me, but I just wanted to mention that my uncle Jacob (13) memorized the whole book of Jonah (but it was a rhyme bible so that is probably easy). My favorite book is The Tattooed Rats which is in the Renegade Series...the funny thing is that I waited for like forever for the other 2 to come out but it ended up that they were already out...LOL