Archives for July, 2010
Posted by BOOK NAME: Turtle in Paradise
AUTHOR: Jennifer L. Holm
Welcome to July’s first book club meeting! We’ve started reading
Jennifer L. Holm’s book Turtle in Paradise. (Holm is also the
author of the Babymouse book series.) The book is about a girl
named Turtle growing up during the Great Depression.
You
have your copy and you’ve read the first four chapters? Great! Click
“See More.”
Uh-oh. Don’t have your copy yet? Don’t want
to spoil anything? Don’t read any further!
Read the whole post »
Posted by BOOK NAME: Adam of the Road
AUTHOR: Elizabeth Janet Gray
Being a minstrel, Adam wanders the streets happily, doing cartwheels and bringing joy upon others. For years, Adam has done nothing but roam the streets with his red spaniel, Nick, and his minstrel father, Roger. When Adam’s father disappears and Nick gets stolen, Adam spends all his days looking for the two dearest things that belong to him. Roger and Nick.
I really enjoyed how the author described the scenery and how someone felt. I’d have to say my favorite character is Adam, the main character. The author just put so much personality into him. In this book, the “bad guy” was the man who stole Nick and I think I enjoyed having some amount of crime and mischief in the book.
Adam of the Road was a book I read for school. It isn’t a book that I’d read out of interest, though. I wouldn’t say that is a good book or a bad book. The reading level was too easy for me and the story seemed to drag. I think that it’d be interesting for a child of a younger age, but not so much for me.
Posted by (Alec Loorz is a guest contributor to Green Scene. He is currently
participating in a National Geographic student expedition to Iceland.
Alec’s posts are his personal observations of his experience and of his
commitment to climate change awareness.)
Wow, that was an amazing week. Just the fact that it’s taken me till day seven to sit down and write something should tell you something about how much we’re doing here in Iceland. It’s about 11 p.m. here, it’s still completely light out, (the sun goes down for about three hours per day, but it’s never really dark,) and I am exhausted. This has honestly been the best week of my entire life, hands down. I’ve achieved at least five of my life goals, and I’m expecting a few more over the next part of this journey. Let me list a few here:
For one, I saw my first glacier a few days ago (they all blur together,) and I walked on my first glacier yesterday. It was unbelievable. Seriously, I felt like I was in a dream, it was so surreal and incredibly beautiful, it was hard to actually believe I was there. The glacier we hiked on was called Fellsjökull (fells-yo-cull,) which is part of the great Vatnajökull, the largest glacier in Europe, and the third largest in the world, right behind Greenland and Antarctica. I honestly cannot think of the words to describe what it felt like to be there, with the glacier, being able to touch and feel what’s happening to massive body of ice. I think the closest I can get is with a few pictures:
Posted by BOOK NAME: Bridge to Terabithia
AUTHOR:
Katherine Paterson
This book was a great read and I went through it very quickly. I found many parts very powerful in that they threw you into the scenes and made you feel the same emotions as the characters. This is a very sad story, but please give it a chance even if you don’t like sob stories. I can’t say too much without revealing key points, so I’ll try not to make this review a spoiler!
The story has a different setting than most books. It takes place in the countryside and of course, the magical Terabithia. I can promise that you will be enchanted when you get there! You start out finding a boy, Jess, who is 11 years old and wants to be the fastest kid in the 5th grade. He has been running every morning through the summer to finally be the fastest and the best. One morning while running, Jess saw a girl sitting on a fence. Her name is Leslie and she is longing for a friend and a place that she can create in her own way. Jess and Leslie share that desire and soon they find Terabithia and crown themselves rulers.
Throughout the book, whenever they have a bad day or are just looking for something to do, they just wander to Terabithia by swinging on a rope. This is surely a book not to miss and even though a devastating event befalls them, there are still many happy endings. And one more thing to consider, it is up to you to decide if Terabithia is real or just fiction I’m not revealing what I think, but excuse me while I go now and find a rope to swing on!
Alec Loorz is a guest contributor to Green Scene. He is currently participating in a National Geographic student expedition to Iceland. Alec’s posts are his personal observations of his experience and of his commitment to climate change awareness.
What We Need to Save the Planet for Future Generations
For many reasons, the climate change movement has not been able to bring about the changes we need to actually solve the climate crisis. Even though there are many people putting hundreds of millions of dollars and years of time into the effort, I am not sure we are any better off now than we were ten years ago.
If anything, we can say we’ve made climate change a mainstream topic. So, that’s something. Most people I talk to today have at least heard about climate change, and most have an opinion.
But we’re still not anywhere close to a sustainable society, which is what we need to survive.
I think I have an idea why. In comparing this movement to other social movements in the past (civil rights movement, women’s rights movement, independence movement in India led by Gandhi,) there’s one main difference that sets us apart: we are not suffering. Our lives are not personally affected by climate change.
In other movements, a specific group of people whose lives were personally affected by an injustice stood up to make their voices heard. Their suffering held them together as a movement.
For most people, at least in the United States, it’s still abstract and distant, and too ‘scientific’ to fully understand and be passionate about. It’s a political issue without passion, without suffering.
Read the whole post »
Posted by Next week will be Kids Week on the TV game show Jeopardy!
(where
host Alex Trebek gives the answers, and contestants have to give him the
questions). Beginning on Monday evening, you can watch kids compete for
$15,000 and a trip with their families to Norway, Costa Rica, Mexico,
Alaska, or the Galápagos Islands.
On Wednesday, July 7,
Alex will present answers provided by National Geographic Kids!
How many of the
kids will be able to give the correct questions? Be sure to tune in to
find out!
After you have watched the show, post a
comment and
let everyone know how many of the questions you could answer.
Find out when Jeopardy! airs in your state on the Jeopardy! website.
Are you a trivia whiz? Check out the quizzes on National Geographic Kids.
Hi, book fans! For those of you who haven’t joined the DogEared book club (yet), we wanted to let you know what book we’re reading next so you can join in!
July’s book is Turtle in Paradise by Jennifer L. Holm. Click
here to visit the Book of the Month page and to learn more about this
month’s pick.
We”ll be reading the first four chapters in the book for our meeting on Wednesday, July 7. See you there!
-DogEared
