Archives for December, 2010
The Mother-Daughter Book Club: Summer
Posted by BOOK NAME: The Mother-Daughter Book Club
AUTHOR: Heather Vogel Frederick
Welcome to the book club meeting!
This week we finished reading The Mother-Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick. Thanks so much to everyone who joined us for this book, as well as the others this year. This will be the last meeting of the Book of the Month club.
If you have finished the book, click “See More” to go to the book club meeting.
If you haven’t gotten that far yet, stop here!
Posted by All babies love to play and young chimpanzees are no exception. Researchers in Kibale National Park in Uganda have noticed something: young female chimps will play with sticks like they are dolls! “The stick serves no immediate function, they just carry it–sometimes for a few minutes, other times for hours,” says an e-mail by study leader Richard Wrangham, a biological anthropologist at Harvard University. “Carriers regularly take sticks into the nests they rest in during the day, something that isn’t done with other objects. Individuals are [also] known to play with their sticks while in their nests.”
Similar behavior has noticed with animals in zoos, too. Captive female monkeys have been noticed to prefer doll toys, while the males play with trucks.
Read more about baby chimps and their toys on National Geographic News
Get the facts on chimps in the Creature Feature.
Photograph by Michael Poliza, National Geographic/Getty Images
Andrew Evans is on a trip around the world, and National Geographic is following him! Each weekday (Monday through Friday), a new clue appears on the National Geographic Travel website. There’s a special treat in store for the first person to guess Friday’s clue–a baby Tasmanian devil! Not to keep at home, of course, but Andrew will adopt 9-month old Ozzie in the winner’s name. The winner will get an adoption certificate and a picture of Ozzie. Grab your parents, watch for the clue on Friday morning, and enter as a family.
Watch a video of Andrew with Ozzie the Tasmanian devil on YouTube.
Learn more about Andrew’s trip on National Geographic Travel.
For families that don’t win or don’t want to guess, go to Devils@Cradle to adopt a Tasmanian devil.
Get the facts on Tasmanian devils in the Creature Feature.
Image courtesy Andrew Evans
The votes are in! Thanks to everyone who entered the contest and voted for the finalists. All of the reviews were really great.
And now for the big reveal!
The three bloggers who received the MOST votes for their reviews are:
Anuva, 10, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Kennan, 12, Killer Pizza by Greg Taylor
Tamar, 10, A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Congratulations to our winners! Keep reading DogEared to officially “meet” our three new bloggers when we reveal their avatars and read some of their reviews in 2011!
-DogEared
The Mother-Daughter Book Club: Spring
BOOK NAME: The Mother-Daughter Book Club
AUTHOR: Heather Vogel Frederick
Welcome to today’s book club meeting!
This week we read the Spring section of The Mother-Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick. The girls had a lot of new experiences during this season. Let’s head over to the meeting and talk about them!
If you have read through Spring, click “See More” to go to the book club meeting.
If you haven’t gotten that far yet, stop here!
Posted by Saturday, Nov. 27
The flight from Baltra arrived in Quito Sucre International Airport. We
were immediately escorted to the Hilton Colon Hotel, where we would stay
for the next three days.
That afternoon, we decided to go to the Mitad del Mundo or the center of
the world. This is the monument dedicated to the location of the Equator.
Did you know that?
We learned that the equatorial monument was not exactly on the Equator
and second museum, which was built later, actually was. We visited the
GPS-accurate one first. It was called the Museo Inti-Nan. We learned
about many native Amerindian cultures in the area, including the Shuar
tribe, which makes the famous tsantsas or shrunken heads and there was a tsantsas on display. How eerie!
Read the whole post »
Seven lion cubs were born at the National Zoo this summer. Lioness Shera had four cubs, while lioness Nababiep had three. Now all seven cubs have been named!
Shera’s cubs are named John, Fahari, Zuri, and Lelie. Lelie, meaning “lily,” is the winning female name from the Name a Cub contest. The name was submitted by a first-grade classroom at Marshall Elementary School in Manassas, Virginia. Nababiep’s cubs are named Aslan, Lusaka, and Baruti. Baruti is the winning male name from the contest. It means “teacher” and was submitted by a daycare class from the Bright Horizons Child Care & Education at the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Virginia.
Visit the National Zoo’s website to learn how the other names were chosen.
Want to help save lions? Visit Letters to Lions to find out how to send a letter to African leaders.
Photograph by Mehgan Murphy, Smithsonian National Zoo
Winter officially begins late tonight and this winter solstice will be a rare event. Not only will there be a full moon, but there will also be a total lunar eclipse starting after 1:30 a.m. ET, 10:30 p.m. PT.
What is a lunar eclipse? It is when the sun, the Earth, and the moon are all in line with each other, with the Earth in the middle. The Earth’s shadow is cast onto the moon, making it appear dim. Lunar eclipses happen twice a year (the last one was in June), so they aren’t especially rare. What is rare is for the solstice, a full moon, and a lunar eclipse to all happen at the same time. The last time that happened was 372 years ago in the year 1638!
Learn how to see tonight’s winter solstice and lunar eclipse on National Geographic News.
Think you’ve got your moon facts straight? Quiz Your Noodle and find out!
Photograph by Tunc Tezel, TWAN
Posted by BOOK NAME: To Come and Go Like Magic
AUTHOR: Katie Pickard Fawcett
One of the reasons I read this book is because of its gripping title. The title is a small but important aspect of this book because the main character, Chili, lives in Mercy Hill. This is fine, but she wants to see other places and people. Chili’s mom says that people born in Mercy Hill stay in Mercy Hill. Chili is surrounded by questions that mom and pop won’t answer for reasons unknown to her. Mercy Hill is a relatively poor area except for the VISTAS, the people who come here to “help the homeless, dirty and uneducated people”. However, they don’t appear to be here to help people. It’s more like they are here to get publicity and act like saints. The people of Mercy Hill aren’t dirty and dumb, they just choose to live this way. They go around barefoot because they want to. Even the kids with shoes walk around barefoot.
I love the amazingly unique and strong characters. The author gives you a personality description of the characters, but she leaves out the visual description. I actually like this because then I can make the characters look like anything I imagine them to be in my mind. I would recommend this book to all your friends, because this book has made its way into my heart and is a terrific read for a rainy day. Read it for yourself and I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Hello, faithful DogEared readers!
Thanks so much for voting for your favorite reviews! Contest voting is now closed. We expect to announce the winners of the 2010 So You Wanna Be a DogEared Blogger contest next week.
Happy reading,
DogEared
Posted by MOVIE NAME: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
BASED ON: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
I went and saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows the day it came out, and since then (it’s been about a week and a half), I’ve seen it twice more. Needless to say, I am a HUGE Harry Potter fan, and this epic culmination of the series I’ve been following for 11 years was extremely exciting for me.
One thing that I liked about Deathly Hallows Part 1 was the extent to which it quoted the book. It was a call back to the first two movies, which were heavy with lines from the original books. I felt that this alone was a nice tie-back to the beginning of the series, since it is now coming to a very exciting end.
There is a lot of depth to themes that underlie the great battle between Voldemort and Harry: the battle of good versus evil and love versus hate barely scratches the surface. I think that the first part of the movie did a great job tying in these loose ends and the morality of the struggle between Voldemort and Harry.
Having said that, there were a few scenes in the movie with which I became disillusioned after seeing the movie again. For one, the scene where Harry and Hagrid are escaping from the Dursleys’ house to the Burrow struck a particular chord within me: in the book, the Death Eaters know that Harry is the real one because he sees Stan Shunpike, an old acquaintance of his, being manipulated by the Death Eaters, and he decides only to disarm him instead of stunning him and sending him to his death. Harry had used the same spell, Expelliarmus, against Voldemort when they had met three years previously. In the same scene, Hedwig was killed. I think that Hedwig could have been killed while still showing Harry’s true morality in the movie, and it would have reinforced Harry’s inherent goodness and mercy that is such an obvious theme within the whole series.
Another point that I didn’t like as much was the scene at Malfoy Manor with Peter Pettigrew. In the book, Pettigrew strangled himself with his ultra-powerful hand to let Harry and Ron go save Hermione. This tied up yet another loose end because Harry had stopped Sirius and Lupin from killing Pettigrew four years previously, and the magical debt that Pettigrew had to Harry was symbolic of the goodness of Harry’s actions. However in the movie, Dobby stunned Pettigrew and that was the end of his appearance in the movie.
Overall, though, the movie bore great resemblance to the book and I liked it the best out of all of the previous movies except for the first one. As an avid Harry Potter fan, I give the movie a B+, and strongly urge everyone to read the Harry Potter books as well as seeing the movie.
The Mother-Daughter Book Club: Winter
BOOK NAME: The Mother-Daughter Book Club
AUTHOR: Heather Vogel Frederick
Welcome to today’s book club meeting!
This week we read the Winter section of The Mother-Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick. It has been freezing cold here at DogEared headquarters, so we think that it was VERY appropriate to read that section this week!
If you have read through Winter, click “See More” to go to the book club meeting.
If you haven’t gotten that far, or if you’re still looking for a copy, stop here!
Monday, Nov. 22
We arrived in Floreana, the mystical island. Before breakfast, we had a small excursion to Post Office Bay. This was the post office of the Galapagos Islands. One would deposit mail in the mail box and anyone who could deliver it would pick it up.
After breakfast, we went deep-water snorkeling around Champion Islet, off the coast of Floreana. The waters were pretty cold that day at around 68 degrees F. We did manage to see and photograph fish, however. After snorkeling, we went in the glass bottom boat to see hundreds of different fish we didn’t see while snorkeling.
We went on a mission, by zodiac, to shoot the elusive Floreana mockingbird, now only found on Champion Islet (on Camera). We saw two of them, which was nearly 5% of their total population!
After lunch, we went kayaking in the waters off Punta Cormorant. It was really fun. We saw many turtles. We nearly bumped into a sea lion taking his afternoon nap. He was startled at our arrival. He groaned and then we left him to his nap.
Next was the hike on Floreana Island. This island was pretty green. There was a big lagoon right in the middle where we spotted some flamingos. We learned that these came from the Caribbean and were lost here! At the end of the hike, we came to the other side of the island. There we spotted countless turtle nests. Right off the beach, there were sharks and sting rays swimming. There was also an abundance of crabs on the rocks. Alas, it was getting dark and we had to leave the pristine landscape.
Read the whole post »
Thanks to everyone who submitted questions for actress Emily Blunt, one of the stars of the new movie Gulliver’s Travels. Emily answered your questions about the Lilliputians’ diet, her costar Jack Black, and what it was like to play a princess. Here’s what she had to say.
Image TM & © Fox and its related entities. All rights reserved.
Tonight’s Geminid meteor shower may be the best meteor shower of the year. Scientists predict the shower will peak between 2 a.m. and dawn, so it’s probably past your bed time, but it may well be worth it. “The Geminids have been slowly getting better over the past years, making it one of the best showers,” Gyuk said. “And it has become very reliable, so we can expect a fairly nice show.”
Most yearly meteor showers happen when the Earth passes through a comet’s debris cloud. The Geminids are different, though. This shower is believed to come from a three-mile-wide (4.8 kilometers) asteroid-like space rock called Phaethon.
Read more about the meteor shower on National Geographic News.
How much do you know about comets and meteors? Quiz Your Noodle and find out!
Photograph by Wally Pacholka, TWAN
Posted by BOOK NAME: The Everafter
AUTHOR: Amy Huntley
Life ended for Maddy–she’s dead and left with nothing except a few objects, representing specific times in her life; times that made her laugh and times that made her cry. Maddy calls her new surrounding “Is” and spends part of her eternity trying to understand death. Not only does she try to understand death, but life too.
Maddy is able to go back and re-experience some snippets of her life. She sees her mistakes and her flaws–she realizes what person she could have been if she made the right choices.
I liked how the book wove back and forth between the “Is”, where Maddy is dead, and the time when she was alive. Obviously too late to fix anything in her life–Maddy still learns about right choices and living.
The Everafter was written for grades 8 and up. Personally, I think it is age appropriate because of one scene when Maddy goes back to a point in her life where she spends time alone with her boyfriend Gabe.
I actually enjoyed this book and thought the author wrote it well. Amy Huntley described the character’s feelings thoroughly and didn’t leave any confusing gaps in the story.
Posted by BOOK NAME: Catching Fire
AUTHOR: Suzanne Collins
Have you read The Hunger Games? If you haven’t, read the review before reading this one, because this is the sequel.
Okay… now that you’re caught up, let me remind of what happened in the first book. Katniss and Peeta won the Hunger Games and went back to District 12. Now they live in Victors Village next to Haymitch who was their mentor during the Games. Because they won the Hunger Games, they’re going to be mentors for the next tributes from District 12.
The Quarter Quell is coming up. Every 25 years, they do something special to the games. The last Quarter Quell they doubled the amount of tributes from each district. And that was the year that District 12′s very own Haymitch won the games.
Katniss and her family sit down in front of their TV to see President Snow announce the Quarter Quell and he says that one male and one female of all of the surviving tributes from each district will go back into the games. Katniss is shocked because she’s the only female winner from her district and she’s going to have to go back to the games.
“Anger.” That’s what all the districts are feeling right now. They’re very angry at the Capital. The Capital isn’t treating them fairly. The Hunger Games are getting out of control, and there are too many deaths. The first uprising – a group of people going against the Capital-happens in District 8.
Katniss doesn’t know what’s going to happen at the end of these hunger games, and she also knows that things are growing out of control in the Districts.
Be sure and read the third book in the series, Mockingjay. It’s even more shocking than the first two! Thanks for reading the review. Until next time-which will probably be for Mockingjay. Bye!
Oyster reefs, once so plentiful they blocked shipping traffic, have been in decline due to overharvesting, pollution, and recent oil spill activities, experts say. But scientists are working to restore the reefs using special material called oysterkrete.
How much do you know about the 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? Quiz Your Noodle and find out!
Content produced by National Geographic. Funded in part by the National Science Foundation under Award # DRL-1045744
Emily Blunt stars as Princess Mary in 20th Century Fox’s Gulliver’s Travels. Shipwrecked travel writer Lemuel Gulliver (played by Jack Black) finds himself transported to the hidden island of Liliput, where he towers over Princess Mary and the other tiny citizens.
Have you ever wondered what’s it like to work with Jack Black? Or how they made Gulliver look like a giant and the Liliputians look so small? Where’s the strangest place Emily Blunt has ever traveled while filming a movie?
Well, now’s your chance to find out! Send us your questions about Emily’s experience filming Gulliver’s Travels or questions about her experiences traveling around the world. Just leave a comment with your question on this post BEFORE 5:00 ET today (12/9), and we’ll send 10 questions submitted by NG KIDS fans for Emily to answer!
Image TM & © Fox and its related entities. All rights reserved.
BOOK NAME: The Mother-Daughter Book Club
AUTHOR: Heather Vogel Frederick
Welcome to today’s book club meeting!
This week we read the Fall section of The Mother-Daughter Book Club by Heather Vogel Frederick.
If you have read through Fall, click “See More” to go to the book club meeting.
If you haven’t gotten that far, or if you’re still looking for a copy, stop here!
National Geographic Adventure has chosen their ten Adventurers of the Year. Readers are now encouraged to vote for their favorites for the People’s Choice Adventurer of the Year. One of the adventurers is David de Rothschild, who sailed across the Pacific Ocean in a boat built out of recycled, intact plastic bottles. The boat, named Plastiki, would draw attention to the problem of plastic waste in the ocean.
David hopes that his journey inspires people to take action and save the oceans. “I like to think of Plastiki as a metaphor for action. We built a boat out of plastic bottles and sailed it across the Pacific. Let’s apply the same ingenuity and hard work to the ocean’s problems.”
What was your best adventure in 2010? Leave a comment below and tell us!
Read about all of the 2010 nominees, then vote for your favorite on National Geographic Adventure.
Want to read more about kids having adventures? Check out the Hands-On Explorer blog.
Photograph by the Plastiki Crew
National Geographic Adventure has chosen their ten Adventurers of the Year. Readers are now encouraged to vote for their favorites for the People’s Choice Adventurer of the Year. One of the adventurers, 16-year-old Jessica Watson, circumnavigated the globe solo this May. It took 210 days, but she did it–and became the youngest person to make the journey while she was at it! Raised on sailboats, Jessica had been training her whole life to make this difficult voyage, with the support of her parents.
Sometimes the journey was scary, but Jessica says there were plenty of good moments, too. “The Pacific was easy sailing, smooth and fun. In the Southern Ocean, around Cape Horn, the albatrosses were just amazing, surfing down the face of the waves. One of the great things about sailing is no two days are really the same.”
What was your best adventure in 2010? Leave a comment below and tell us!
Read about all of the 2010 nominees, then vote for your favorite on National Geographic Adventure.
Want to read more about kids having adventures? Check out the Hands-On Explorer blog.
Photograph by Sergio Dionisio, Getty Images
Adventurers of the Year Chosen
National Geographic Adventure has chosen their ten Adventurers of the Year. Readers are now encouraged to vote for their favorites for the People’s Choice Adventurer of the Year. One of the adventurers is only 12 years old: Matt Moniz, a mountain climber. Matt’s big 2010 adventure was this summer. In less than two months, Matt climbed the highest point in all 50 states with his dad.
Matt thinks it’s really important that kids get outside. “It’s important to try to encourage kids to go outside and protect public land. In another 30 years, if we had a president who just grew up in the city and played video games all his life, he might not be as focused on protecting our land,” he says.
What was your best adventure in 2010? Leave a comment below and tell us!
Read about all of the 2010 nominees, then vote for your favorite on National Geographic Adventure.
Want to read more about kids having adventures? Check out the Global Bros blog.
Photograph courtesy Matt Moniz
Oops! We’re sorry, but our poll tool wasn’t working correctly this weekend. Thanks to everybody who brought it to our attention! Our tech team has fixed it (hooray!) and since we know a bunch of you were inconvenienced, we are extending the DogEared voting period for an additional week–so you can now vote through December 17.
We appreciate you being such faithful readers and can’t wait for you to help us choose our next three book bloggers from this talented group.
What’s in your school’s vending machines? Chances are, the contents determine if your eating habits get a passing or failing grade. A recent study published in the Journal of Adolescent Health reports that students eat more unhealthy foods (like candy and soda) overall if their school has vending machines that sell them. However, in schools that sell fruits and vegetables, the students eat more fruits and vegetables overall.
Do you have vending machines at your school? If you do, what is for sale inside them?
Read more about the study on the USA Today website.
Start your day with a nutritious breakfast! Try this oatmeal recipe from National Geographic Kids.
