Reading minutes

The Warlock by Michael Scott
9/24-131 pages, 2 hours
9/25-139 pages, a little over 2 hours
2/26-96 pages, about 1.5 hours

Narrative: about 2 hours

The Build a Fire: about 30 minutes

Stories

Adventures, Love, and Romance too

I love writing about those, don’t you?

When I am not busy and I am at home

I’ll write incredible stories and make them my own.

Mother, Father, and Grandmother too

Would all like to read them to see how I do

I might be a princess, mermaid, a girl, or a knight

Who would do amazing things and win every fight

Or even a cute, clever little witch who casts spells

And can see the future by looking through seashells

I am a writer who likes to write stories

And share them with everyone to create more love between us

So take your best guess…

What will I write about next?

The Necromancer

This week I read The Necromancer in the Nicholas Flamel series by Michael Scott.  It is about twins who have the power to save or destroy the world.  They are being trained in the 5 elemental magics and are trying to decide whose side they are on. 

One lesson that I learned from The Necromancer is that there are people in the world who would do anything for power.  They might try to destroy a country, take over a community, or try to eliminate an entire religion.  They would put entire nations at risk and would stop at nothing to get to the top.  In The Necromancer, Dr. John Dee wants power, and to get power, he needs to have the Codex, a book that would tell him how to bring the Dark Elders back and destroy the world.  He will stop at nothing.  This reminded me of a few situations in the real world, one very big, and one very small.

In World War II, Adolph Hitler would stop at nothing to get power.  He wanted to rule the world.  He took over Germany by creating the Nazi Party and brainwashing people to follow him.  Then he began taking over other nearby countries.  Some people were too afraid not to follow him, even though they knew what he was doing wasn’t right. The people that didn’t follow him were usually sent to concentration camps to die, and sometimes their families went with them.  Many of them were tortured.  Because people were so afraid of him, they wouldn’t stand up for what is right, and they just followed along.  He even persecuted the Jews, gypsies, Russians, and many others who didn’t want to do what he said.  Like John Dee, he would stop at nothing to get power.  But eventually, the world realized what was going on, and Hitler was stopped.  He couldn’t stand the thought of not being powerful, so he killed himself.

The other situation that this reminded me of was bullying.  Sometimes bullying isn’t physical where people actually hurt other people, and sometimes bullying happens just because someone wants to be powerful or popular.  In this situation, the person that wants to be popular will do things to make herself look good by making other people look bad. She thinks she looks cool if she is mean to smaller kids or kids that she thinks are less important.  This often makes her friends follow along and be mean to the smaller kids. They think that if they don’t, they might not be in the popular and powerful group.   I think that like John Dee and Adolph Hitler, there are some people who will stand up for what is right in a bullying situation, and that eventually, the person that wants to be popular will either realize that to be really popular, all you have to do is be a nice person, or that other people will figure out that that person isn’t really nice at all and not follow her.  The powerful person, like John Dee and Adolph Hitler, will eventually lose power and not be powerful any more.

The Decorating Fairy

This week is my dad’s birthday, and he is turning 42. It’s fun to have a birthday in my family because we always celebrate a lot, but I am usually the most excited because this means that I get to decorate!  I am the official decorator of our family, aka the “decorating fairy.”  This is a really fun job because I can make everything in our house really fun and colorful to celebrate a birthday, and I always love to see my everyone’s reactions to how I choose to decorate for them. 

Being the decorating fairy is an extremely important job.  I decorate for every special occasion, and everyone expects to have a different design each time.  I usually use multi colored streamers.  I always enjoy trying to get the different colors to match up right and making them look really cool together.  I might hang a whole bunch of streamers in front of the door, or all over the ceiling in the kitchen, or upstairs in different rooms.  It is always fun because I get to stand on tables, chairs, counters, and anything else really tall.  But my favorite part of decorating is the confetti!  We have all kinds of confetti, from multi colored circles, stars, balloons, and hearts, purple and gold LSU confetti, and some black and white confetti for the old people!

My job can be a little challenging.  I can only do this late at night when everyone else (except maybe my mom) is asleep so that it can be a surprise.  This means staying up a little bit later than usual.  It also means that I have to be quiet.  The hardest part of my job is to get streamers in all the right places.  If it is not in the right place, then it really pesters me.  Everything HAS to be perfect, or else it looks terrible to me. 

Yesterday, my dad was out of town, so we went to his office and decorated it with red, purple, and yellow streamers.  They are hanging from his ceiling, from his desk, and from the doorway.  Since I am home sick today, I plan on doing a little bit of decorating while no one is home!  I am going to let loose with the confetti.  My dad really doesn’t like all the confetti! It makes a terrible mess, and it is a huge pain to clean up.  For this reason, I always really want to use a lot of it on his birthday. J  I will put confetti all over the kitchen table and make a pathway going from the front door to his room…out of the kitchen, through the dining room, up the stairs, into his room, and even in his bed! I think I’ll even put some in his bathroom.  I can’t wait to see what his face looks like when he walks in the door tonight and I have really decorated the house!!!  Maybe I’ll decorate the driveway or the roof…

How I Started Reading

In kindergarten, I loved to read.  One day, my mom got a call from my kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Spielman.  She told my mom that she was putting together a small advanced reading group to go with a special teacher, and she wanted to know if it was ok if I was in it.   My mom said yes, and I was really excited about it until I realized that Richard wasn’t going to be in the group. The next day when it was time for reading, I went with about 4 other people to a separate reading classroom with Mrs. Weinstein, the reading specialist.  I didn’t really know what to expect, so I was a little nervous, but we read a small but really good book about a dog.  That ended up being my favorite part of the day all the way through second grade.  We read so many good books that other people in my grade didn’t get to read.  My favorite was when we had a whole unit on Greek mythology in second grade.   We read lots of different genres that I had never read before, and it really inspired me to read more and taught me how to enjoy what I was reading without just deciphering the words.  Mrs. Weinstein taught me how to enjoy what I was reading without just deciphering the words, and I started getting so into the books that I felt like I was a part of the story. I worked hard so that I could stay in that class.  I think that this class was the reason that I love reading so much today.

The Alchemyst

This week, I read the Alchemyst, by Michael Scott. It is the first book in the Nicholas Flamel series, and it is about twins name Sophie and Josh who discover they have magical powers that can save or destroy the world.  Their main goal is to keep the evil Dr. Dee from getting the Codex and to learn how to control their powers and to use them for good.  As I read this book, it reminded me of the many fantasy books I have read that seem to have a similar storyline and theme. I thought of the many books where this is true.  The Harry Potter series, the Percy Jackson series, and The Nicholas Flamel series are all basically the same book with different characters and slightly different plots.

In all of these books, there is a battle between good and evil.  The main character is good, brave, and strong, is always a kid, and usually doesn’t know what his special role or magical ability is.  The main character in all of these books was a teenager.   None of them knew that they had special powers until something unfortunate happened to them and their elders had to tell them.  Harry Potter,  Percy Jackson,  and Sophie and Josh were all very naïve and innocent, and they only wanted to do what was right.  Also in all of these books, there is an evil character that wants to take over the world to increase his power.  In the Harry Potter series, it was Voldemort, in the Percy Jackson series, it was Cronus, and in Nicholas Flamel series, it was Dr. Dee.  In each of the books, there is an adventure or a mystery that has to be solved, and the kids are the ones that solve it.  There is always a character that starts off good and turns to the dark side during the series.  In the end in all of these books, the good guys win, and they usually win because they have the love and support of their family and their friends that is strong enough to see them through. 

Even though these books all have basically the same storyline, I love them all.  I have read the Harry Potter series many times, and I see and learn new things every time.  I have enjoyed the Percy Jackson series just about as much and have read it numerous times too.  I haven’t finished the Nicholas Flamel series, but I enjoyed the first book and plan on reading the rest of the series.

Reading Times:
The Alchemyst by Michael Scott

9/9- page 1-120 2 hours

9/10- 120-213 1.5 hours

9/11- 213-309 1.5 hours