Semester 1 Reflection

This semester, the books I read were mostly fantasy or science fiction stories. I chose most of these books by looking at my book shelf, and choosing which books I hadn't read yet, and which book I have read. I also chose a few books from the public library, but the library doesn't have a large collection of books, so the only books I read from there were Bewitching and A Tale Dark and Grimm. Both of those books were really good. Most of the books I chose to read were very interesting to me. The only book that I didn't find as interesting, was Inkheart. I think that the only reason I didn't like it as much was because I had already read it. If it had been my first time reading it would have liked it better, I think. My favorite book was Code. It was fascinating
and I love the series. It is a science fiction book, and I just finished it! I can't wait until the next book in the series comes out! In general, I think these books were really interesting, and many other people would like them as well.
I believe that my blog would be categorized as an excellent blog. All of my posts are focused, and i hope that they engage the reader. I know that they have good examples and details. I think that there might be a few grammatical errors. My voice was present in all of the posts, but in some  it might have seemed a bit more formal than normal. My widgets are current, and all of my posts have a picture with them. At the start of the school year, I wasn't very good at keeping a blog, I was never able to present my voice in my posts, but as it progressed, I got better at making the posts more casual, and not as formal. That was a good change, I believe.
For second semester, I have three goals. My first goal is to expand the type of book I read. This semester, all of my books have been fantasy, or science fiction. I want to change that. My second goal is tho put more of "my voice" into the posts. I want my posts to be more casual, and not written as though I am writing an essay. My last goal
is to start putting links to videos or articles, about my book, into my posts. This semester, all I did was put pictures of the cover, or the cover of all the books in the series into my posts. It gets really boring to do that. If I am going to put pictures, I should at least put a variety of photos, not just the cover.
That's all for now. This is my last post of the semester. My next post will most likely be after winter break. I hope you all have a great break, and happy holidays!

Code by Kathy Reichs

I am reading the book  Code by Kathy Reichs, right now. I love all of her book they are really good. I really like her Virals series.  That series has four books in it, Code is the third book. I have already read all of the books in the series, but I'm re-reading the series.
The series is about a group of high school students, who were infected by a virus. The virus gave them special powers. It was a virus that infected dogs, or wolfs, so the students got dog-like powers. The main character's name is Tory Brennan. She is the great-niece of  Temperance Brennan.
Kathy Reichs connected this book series to her other book series, Bones which is also a popular television show. She once wrote a short story that connects the two book series.
In the series, Tory and her friends solve crimes while trying keep their powers secret form their parents. In Code, she and her friends are hunting an evil, slightly insane, serial killer. So far the book is very interesting
If you want to try reading this book, I suggest that you start by reading the first book, Virals. It will make it easier to understand many things going on in the book. The book brings back some minor characters from the first two books. The series is really very fascinating, and if people like science fiction, mystery, or crime this series would be good for you to try reading.

The Shadow Thieves By Anne Ursu VS A Tale Dark and Grimm By Adam Gidwitz

So, I have just finished re-reading book called The Shadow Thieves by Anne Ursu. I thought it was a really good story, but I really loved the way that Ursu wrote the story. It had a third person narrator who would talk to you, and give his/her input on whatever was going on in the story. I love stories that do that! I feel like this style of writing makes the reader more involved in the story. There is another book called  A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz. In that story, Gidwitz talks to the reader all the time, he interrupts the
story to give his input on things. He writes the parts of the narrator in a different font, so it is easy to tell when the narrator is speaking. the narrator also criticizes the clique choices of the main characters. The story is a part of a trilogy. It is the first book, in the last book, he reveals how the three, seemingly separate, stories all connect in the end.

In my opinion, stories that include the narrator talking to the readers, are the best books. this style of writing is my favorite one ever. I like to be included in the story, and this style makes me feel like I am actually in the book with them.

One thing about The Shadow Thieves that I didn't like, is that it would jump around a lot, and sometimes it would get really confusing. other than that, it was a really good book over all, and it featured a cat as one of the main characters, which just makes the book even better!

If you like feeling included in a story, you should read The Shadow Thieves, or A Tale Dark and Grimm. The Shadow Thieves doesn't include you as much as the other book, though, but I still think that they are both great books.

Chinese Cinderella by Adeline Yen Mah

Chinese Cinderella is about a young Chinese girl who faces problems within her family. Her mother died a short while after giving birth to Adeline which caused her to have the name of bad luck. Her father quickly remarried to a young woman, Niang, who was beautiful, but never had motherly instincts. She neither cared for her husband nor her children. Also she didn't treat the kids with true love.Above all, Adeline was the most abused and emotionally scarred by Niang.

Every day, Adeline comes home with fear. Her school is her hideaway from reality. She tries to hide her family issues from the other children, while at the same time she achieves several medals and awards. The only person she could truly trust was her Aunt Baba, who showed compassion as her own mother would have. Everything she accomplishment that she makes at school is to keep her Aunt Baba and her father proud of her. When she comes hone, Niang complains that she is bragging, and abuses her. She slaps her until she starts bleeding, and tells her words that sting her heart. Even through all of this, Adeline knows she can get a better life if she works hard enough for it.

Adeline is a strong and independent woman, who stands her ground for what she believes in. If she doesn't want to do something, she will try her hardest not to do it, until it is absolutely necessary. She would always do what she thought was right. She is really strong willed and wise. Adeline's life is a story that you would tell children to make them appreciate their life, and to let them know that even if it something seems to be the worst thing ever, and it won't improve, things will get better.

http://articles.latimes.com/2007/sep/11/world/fg-needles11
The article above is about another Chinese girl, who was abused as a very young baby, by her grandparents. Her grandparents had wanted a boy, but she was a girl, so they were angry, and abused her. This relates to Adeline, because she was treated poorly too, when she was a child. Adeline's mother had died a few weeks after she was born, and the girl in the article had "ruined" the grandparents hopes of a male grandchild. The difference here, is that the girl was abused very young, and didn't remember. Adeline, on the other hand, was abused almost her whole life.

Unearthly

So I finished the Origin book, in the end Pia got more freedom, so I am really happy for her. She went off to start a life with Eio, so that's good for her.
I started a new book, called Unearthly, and I finished it too. This book was really good, in my opinion. It is about a girl, named Clara, who is from a family of angels. Her mom is a half angel, and she and her brother are half angels. They have to hide who they really are. Clara was learning to fly with her mom, and she thought it was really hard.
Anyway, according to Clara's mom, all angels have a "purpose," which is the reason that they are on Earth. Clara gets visions about her purpose, and sometimes, she passes out. She and her family had to move to another state, to get closer to Clara's purpose.
I feel really bad for Clara's brother, because he had to move away from all of his friends. Clara used to have a lot of friends, but lost them after she found out she was an angel.
I feel like being an angel would be really cool because you could fly. I just think that the whole idea  of a purpose if a little overwhelming, and stressful. Clara had to live under so much stress, knowing that someones life could depend on her and her purpose. She must have been so scared about if she messed up the whole thing, and someone died.
I really liked this book. I just found out that there are more books in this series, and I am so excited, I can't wait to read them all!
I think this would be a good book for you is you like science fiction or fantasy stories.

Origin

I started another book, It's called Origin by Jessica Khoury. It is about a girl, named Pia, whose family has been a part of a project to create the perfect, immortal child, using a special flower. When Pia was born she ended up being the one who had finally gotten the full effect of the flower, and she is immortal, and almost impossible to hurt. She also can't get sick. She lives in a place called Little Cam, in the Amazon forest. Little Cam is  a science facility filled with scientists who love her. She also has a pet jaguar named Alai, who lives in a menagerie. She is also supposed to be really pretty.
Her life seems almost perfect. There is just one catch. She isn't allowed to leave. She has to stay in Little Cam for her whole life. She seems almost like a prisoner. She is also not allowed to hear about the outside world. If anyone tells her anything, they get thrown out. She has intense training each day, to help enhance her already very strong skills and senses. She lives like a prisoner, and she really wants to see the outside world, but none of the scientists let her.
She had a birthday party once, and after her party was over, she had left Little Cam to see the outside world. She met a boy named Eio, who was fascinated with Alai. He was part of a native tribe, called the Ai'oa.
She went back home after a while, she knew she would get in trouble if she told anyone she left Little Cam. I feel bad for Pia, because she is trapped, and not allowed to leave. She may be perfect and immortal, but she is a prisoner.

Bewitching #2

So, since last time, I have finished the book. It was pretty interesting, and they brought in new characters, who turned out to be main characters, along with Kendra. Their names were Lisette and Emma. These two characters were a part of a variation on Cinderella. Lisette was Cinderella, while Emma was her "evil" stepsister. In reality, Lisette was really mean to Emma, and pusher Emma away from her father, and Emma took all of the bullying from Lisette, because she really wanted to be sisters.
I think Lisette was a terrible person. She started off acting like she really wanted to be sisters with Emma, but the one night she went to Emma's room, sat on Emma's bed, and told Emma that she wanted her to stay away from her father, who was actually Emma's step father. Lisette had said "I want my life back  Emma." Which sort of implied that it was all Emma's fault that her father had left, when in reality, Emma was very young and had nothing to do with any of it. I really didn't like Lisette as a character, and this book gives a look into how Cinderella's step sisters might have felt, and I really liked that.
If you liked Alex Flinn's Beastly I think you would like this book.

Bewitching

So, I just started a book called Bewitching by Alex Flinn, who is also the author of Beastly. This book is a prequel to Beastly,  and it is all about the witch Kendra, who had put the curse on Beastly's main character. It tells her story before she cursed the boy, Kyle, from Beastly. She isn't like the other witches that are normally in stories, she is really nice. Most people think of witches as evil people who hate everyone, but Kendra isn't like that.

Kendra used to have little brother, who she would always care for and protect. When her parents died in a plague, she wasn't able to catch the disease, but her brother was. It was very likely that he would too. So then, Kendra left her life in that town, and ran off with her brother to protect him. She really cared for her brother and she never wanted anything to happen to him. She would do anything to help him.
When she and her brother ran off, they were starving, because they had no food. So when they came across a cottage, made of gingerbread, they were obviously delighted. They started eating the house and got captured by the witch inside. This is the story of Hansel and Gretel, with her brother as Hansel, and Kendra as Gretel. Anyway, the witch tied them up, and then left to go get supplies. The witch had a fence made of gingerbread children, who were real kids, baked into gingerbread. Kendra talked to one of those gingerbread children, who told her to use her power to help release her and her brother from the chairs, they were tied up in.
Kendra managed to release herself, but the witch walked in before she could help her brother. The witch told Kendra that she had amazing power, and that she would help Kendra use her power if she stayed with the witch. Kendra knew if she left, her brother would die, so she accepted the offer.When the witch offered, Kendra said, "I tolerated her  touch. I had to. 'And my brother?'" This quote shows that she had only accepted the offer to help her brother.
Kendra was really sweet, and She really cared about her brother, which goes against everything people say about witches.

Inkheart 2

So, last time, I left off in this book, on the part where Meggie, Mo, Elinor, and Dust finger, were running away from Capricorn's village, while being chased by his henchmen. I realized that I had forgotten to mention another character in that post. The other character was named Farid, he was from the story, Tales from the 1001 nights, he got read out of his story by Mo, when Capricorn made Mo read treasure out of stories. One of Capricorn's henchmen got read into the story, but he really didn't care.
Any way, so what happened after Capricorn's men caught up, was that Farid threw a stone at Flatnose's forehead, knocking him out. Elinor picked up his gun and used it to capture Basta.  After the two henchmen had been caught, Dustfinger had wanted to kill them, but Mo didn't really support violence, so they just tied them up and left them in the house. Then they ran away from the house to get to the nearest town.
When they got to the neatest town, Elinor found the name of the author who wrote Inkheart,  and where he lived. Then she left to go home, but when she got home, she discovered that Capricorn's men had burned all of her books. Then, she started driving back to Mo and Meggie.
Meanwhile, Meggie, Mo, Dustfinger, and Farid, found the author, Fenoglio, and Mo was going to ask him if he had any copies of Ink heart, because Capricorn had burned all of them except one. He wasn't supposed to tell Fenoglio about Dustfinger, but he did, to make him believe him. Dustfinger got really angry, and left Mo to go back to Capricorn's village, to get the last copy of the book, because he needed it. He took Farid, because he was fascinated with Dustfinger's fire skills.
When they left, Fenoglio told Mo he didn't have a copy but could write another one with a better ending to the story. Mo agree, so he and Meggie stayed. Then, Basta came, and captured Meggie and Fenoglio while Mo was out shopping. He had wanted Mo to come for Meggie.
Basta took Meggie to Capricorn's village, and put her in a prison with Fenoglio. They had to stay there for a long time, so Meggie found some books, and she started reading Peter Pan out loud, and Tinkerbell came out of the story. Meggie realized that she had inherited her father's power, and tried to hide it, but Basta found out and took her to Capricorn, who decided that she could read a friend of his out of the story, and he didn't need her father.
Meanwhile Elinor caught up to Mo, and they found Dustfinger and Farid, while searching for Meggie and Fenoglio. They came up with a plan to get them out, and get Capricorn's copy of the book. So, the sent Dustfinger in, and he met up with Resa, a friend of his, and a maid of Capricorn's. But this plan was foiled, and Dustfinger and Resa got thrown in a different jail.
When Basta took Meggie to see Dustfinger, she saw Resa too. Resa recognized Meggie as her daughter, but she couldn't talk, because when Capricorn's previous reader had read her out, he left her voice in the book. Luckily, Meggie understood and discovered that she was her mother. The Meggie was taken to be prepared to read Capricorn's friend out.
Meanwhile Fenoglio had discovered that the friend Capricorn wanted was "Shadow" or "the executioner" he was a monster who killed people, back in the land of Inkheart. Also, Mo, Elinor, and Farid had come up with a plan to get Meggie out, but Fenoglio also had a plan. He was going to write something different  for Meggie to read, so that "Shadow" wouldn't kill everyone, just Capricorn and his men.
When Meggie was taken to read the Shadow out of the book, she read Fenoglio's alternate description, and killed Capricorn. Mo had also reached her by then, so they reunited. That was the end of the main story. The rest was just Dustfinger hoping that he could someday go home.
Overall, it was a good book. It had a lot of action and fighting. If you like books like that, this would be a good book for you to read.

Summer Reading Book

For my summer reading project, I read a book called Scarlet by A. C. Gaughen. It was a book that was set in Europe. It was a variation on the traditional tale of Robin Hood. The thing that made this story different, was that it wasn't centered on Robin, like most orher stories like this. It was centered on someone in his band, named Will Scarlet.
Will Scarlet was a really special character, this was because Will Scarlet was actully a girl, named Scarlet. Scarlet was a female thief, who had been caught trying to steal from Robin. Robin had then caught her, and said that she could join his band  of thieves, or he would send her to jail. Scarlet knew that going to jail, would mean a slow, painful death. She then joined Robin's band. She didn't know it then, but Robin had been trying to protect her. He would have never thrown her into jail, he hust wanted to keep her safe and well fed. He also didn't know that she was a girl back then.
When Scarlet joined up with Robin's band, she really didn't trust them at first. Later on she had started warming up to the guys in the band. Throughout the book, Scarlet was warming up to the band. At the begining of the book, she would tell the band a few, little things about herself, but she would lie to them about her eating habits, which were terrible, she would almost never eat, and it made the band very upset. By the end of the book, though, she would tell them almost anything, and she started getting really close to them.
She told them that she was actully Lady Marian, a noble, and that she was running away from her fiancè. Her fiancè was named Guy, and he was a terrible man. That was a really large thing for her to give away. All of this shows, how througout the book, Scarlet had started learning to trust her friends.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11983940-scarlet

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

This week, I've started reading a  book called Inkheart it is by Cornelia Funke. I've already read this book once before, but that was a while ago. So I decided to read it again. I am somewhere in the middle of the book, and the story has been captivating. I love the idea, that someone can read a book out loud, and make things come out of the book. Books have so many amazing things in them, I wish that I could read a book out loud and make magical, hypnotizing creatures appear from the story.

Of course this power comes with a price, this is a storybook, when has someone ever had an amazing and addictive power that didn't come with a price? The price for this power, is that when something comes out of the book, something else has to go into it. That doesn't sound so bad right? Well here's the thing, you  can't control it. Anything could come out, and anything could go in. imagine trying to show this power to you best friend, they don't believe you, so you start reading out loud to them. A magnificent creature appears from the book, you look over to see the look of amazement on your friend's face. Your friend isn't there you look around to find them, and you can't. They are in the book. You can never get them out because you can't control the power. you will now have to live the rest of your life without them.

Sounds terrible right? I bet you wouldn't want the power as much now, but it stays with you forever and you can't get rid of it.

Any way, this is exactly how Meggie, the main character, lost her mother. She had to live her whole life without her mom, because her father accidentally read her mom into the story. It happened when she was little, so she doesn't even remember her mom. Can you imagine living without a mom, it sound's pretty hard to me.

I left off at a part where Meggie and her dad, Mo, are running away from Capricorn, the bad guy, with her aunt, Elinor, and Dustfinger, her dad's friend. Dustfinger and Capricorn are people who switched places with Meggie's mom. they are having trouble escaping because Elinor is old, and her feet are sore. there is a line that says, "'Elinor's feet must need a rest, and if you ask me this wouldn't be a bad place for one. 'What feet?' asked Elinor, sinking to the ground with a groan, 'You mean these poor sore objects attached to my legs?'" I feel that this line was put in the book to show how much it hurt Elinor to run, and this was the first sign of any pain she showed in the whole book. Before, she had been very strong, and would hardly show any emotion. Also, before this, she had hated Meggie, but now, she is really warming up to her, and she defends her a lot. I used to not like Elinor as a character, but now she seems really cool.

Meggie, Mo, Elinor, and Dustfinger, had also just reached a house, where they have rested for the night. While they were resting, Capricorn's men caught up, their names are Basta and Flatnose. They brought some dogs to help them track Meggie's group, and I haven't gotten any farther in the book.

So far the book has been filled with action and I hope it stays action filled.